Context for the Murder of Malcolm X; Farrakhan & COINTELPRO

Malcolm X, an unidentified Nation of Islam member, and a young Louis X in 1957 at a Harlem rally before Malcolm spoke

Whether people like Minister Louis Farrakhan or hate him, one thing no one can deny him, he consistently finds ways to keep his work in the discussion.  Facebook recently blocking him from using its platform has again placed the Minister in the forefront of many discussions raging among African people.  The purpose of this piece isn't to dissect the legitimacy of the Minister and/or the Nation of Islam.  We have faith in the legitimacy of the African masses to figure out for themselves who they will respect.  The purpose of this piece is to address much of the misinformation being vomited out about the murder of Malcolm X, formally a member of the Nation of Islam.  The role of the Nation, particularly Minister Farrakhan, in that assassination, and how we look at and discuss those events today.  

Its important to state clearly that the U.S. government assassinated Malcolm X.  Or, as we say in Pan-Africanist organizing circles, members of the Nation may have pulled the trigger, but the government bought the bullets.  Freedom of Information released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files provide ill-refutable evidence that the FBI had paid informants within the highest levels of the Nation of Islam (NOI) as early as the mid 1950s.  Declassified documents confirm that the NOI National Secretary - John Ali - was most likely one of the FBI's highest placed informants/agents.  The irony that Malcolm was the person who helped raise Ali up to the position of National Secretary (Malcolm recommended to Elijah Muhammad that John Ali be considered for that position) stings, but nonetheless, Ali undoubtedly played a significant role in isolating and dehumanizing Malcolm as a part of the FBI's strategy to set Malcolm up for murder. The FBI, along with multiple U.S. intelligence entities, wanted Malcolm gone we believe because they recognized the power of the work he was engaged in with worldwide revolutionary and Pan-Africanist organizers like Kwame Nkrumah - then in Ghana, Sekou Ture in Guinea, Che Guevara in Cuba, etc.  The basis of those political connections is available now for all to study so the U.S. government was not confused.  They were making numerous attempts to destabilize all of those organizers mentioned.  They ended up successfully overthrowing Nkrumah's government and removing Ture's political party from power.  Guevara was of course assassinated by the Central Intelligence Agency - by way of the Bolivian military - in 1967, and they made arrangements to silence Malcolm's voice in 1965.

The imperialist intelligence agencies are experts at studying sabotage techniques so obviously, they recognized the opportunities available to them if they exploited the bad blood between the leadership of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X in 1964.  And, those tensions were real.  Yes, people in the Nation were upset about Malcolm talking about the women Elijah had impregnated outside of his marriage to Sister Clara Muhammad, but that was only part of the reason some in the Nation wanted Malcolm dead.  In the early 1960s, Elijah Muhammad suffered from a variety of serious physical ailments.  His respiratory issues were severe enough to require him to move from Chicago to Phoenix during that time.  There were many people who feared "the Messenger" would not live much longer.  At that time, Malcolm was the most likely successor as leader of the Nation of Islam.  He was the most widely known and respected.  He was also increasingly expressing much more militant and political objectives than the Nation cared to engage itself in.  Malcolm had also developed a level of integrity that was unquestionable and it was this principle that frightened many within the NOI leadership.  Much of that leadership was composed of Elijah's family, most of whom saw the NOI as a vehicle for personal wealth and comfort for them and their families.  In 1975, when Elijah Muhammad died, the Internal Revenue Service estimated annual revenues for the Nation of Islam at approximately 80 million dollars.  In the early 60s, Elijah's family, particularly Herbert Muhammad (the long time boxing manager to Muhammad Ali who certainly bilked Ali out of much of his money), Elijah Muhammad Jr., and daughter Ethel Muhammad and her husband NOI Fruit of Islam Supreme Caption Raymond Sharriff, had grave concerns that if Malcolm assumed leadership of the NOI, their ability to continue to live off the labor of the believers and followers would come to an end.  In 1963, Ethel Muhammad went on a national speaking tour to the women in the Nation - the Muslim Girls Training and Civilization classes (MGT) where in several cities she told rooms full of Muslim women that Malcolm was unable to satisfy his wife Betty in their marriage.  When Malcolm left the Nation, Elijah Muhammad Jr. told several hundred Fruit of Islam members in New York City that they were being cowards for not killing Malcolm themselves.  All of this can be summed up as partly idealistic religious fanaticism, political jealously, and outside manipulation, but there's no doubt that the atmosphere was established for Malcolm's life to be taken.

What role did Louis Farrakhan play in the hunting down of Brother Malcolm?  Farrakhan has been involved with the NOI since the 1950s when he joined the NOI, partly due to Malcolm's influence, after being a nightclub singer from Boston, Mass, U.S.  Despite the rampant conspiracy videos circulating on Youtube about Farrakhan's role in Malcolm's murder, Farrakhan's contribution to this was actually not nearly as significant as some people today would have you believe.  There is absolutely no evidence that Farrakhan was in any way connected to the FBI ala John Ali.  In fact, all Farrakhan did was talk about Malcolm.  What he said during those days was indeed very shameful.  And, his words certainly contributed to the atmosphere that helped dig Malcolm's grave, but this is trademark cointelpro tactics.  Farrakhan's role with Malcolm is not much different than much of what happened within the Black Panther Party.  The FBI sent letters to Huey Newton while he was locked up in 1969 and 1970 that suggested to him that Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) was an FBI informant.  There is credible evidence that Huey responded by dispatching people to cause harm to Kwame Ture.  And, the murders of Panthers Sam Napier and Alex Rackley now demonstrate clear cointelpro sabotage to cause people to create negative environments that led to both men being killed.

The point here is the FBI creates an environment and fans the flames of that environment to create the climate to get the result they want.  They definitely did that in the NOI around Malcolm X.  What Farrakhan is guilty of is falling prey and contributing to that environment.  Than, to add salt to the wound, he has never just come forward and acknowledged he was manipulated.  Instead, for years and years since then, up to and including the 2015 Million Man March reunion, he chooses to make half hearted excuses for selling out Malcolm if not out and out justifications.  For anyone upset with him about this, you are 100% justified in feeling this way and I've told countless NOI members this for years.  What's not justified is blaming Farrakhan for Malcolm's death because if you are going to do that you would also have to blame Huey, Bobby Seale, David Hilliard, Emory Douglas, etc., for the 27 year imprisonment of Geronimo Ji Jaga (Pratt) because all of them knew Geronimo wasn't on some tennis court in Santa Monica the night that European woman was shot and killed because they knew he was in Oakland for a Panther Central Committee meeting.  Huey Newton ordered everyone present at the meeting to not say a word about Geronimo's presence there because the FBI had convinced Newton that Geronimo was a police agent.  There is ample evidence today to support this.  And, despite his five day protest at San Quentin prison in 1988 when he was there while Geronimo was there, and his confirmed personal apology to Geronimo during that time, Huey never publicly apologized for his role in that and other cointelpro influenced actions that harmed African people who were sincerely trying to liberate our people. 

The important take away here isn't whether people like the NOI or not.  The facts are the NOI has been active in African communities for decades doing their work in places most of the people criticizing them would never dare venture into.  As revolutionaries, we know revolution cannot happen without revolutionaries being created in this capitalist dominated world.  That doesn't happen by condemning and attacking everyone who doesn't agree with us because if we do that, we are attacking 90% of the population and no 10% of the population will ever accomplish revolutionary victory.  That's what we want and for many of these people out here, they probably couldn't care less about achieving that.  Yes, we work with the NOI because our work is in political education.  We want to raise the consciousness of our people in order to create conditions where revolutionary work and victory is possible.  We cannot do this by being exclusive and judgmental against any of our people.  So, as revolutionaries, we will struggle with NOI, Moors, Hebrew Isrealites, drug addicts, drug dealers, gang bangers, frats, sororities, petti bourgeoisie, anyone who can be brought around to support revolutionary struggle and we leave it at that.  We are strong enough so that none of those people are going to change our position on things.  We have confidence enough in our abilities to not worry about that.  I've spent many days inside NOI Mosques struggling with them on everything from homphobia to Africa and I'll continue to do so.  How can we expect people to grow if we aren't willing to do this work?  And how elitist is it for anyone to look down on anyone's else's lack of consciousness around issues as if you were born with the consciousness you currently possess.  As if no one ever had to struggle with you over anything.  If you don't see the point of that, you don't understand revolutionary organizing work.  

And by taking this approach we aren't selling out Brother Malcolm.  Excuse us if we don't willingly participate in your cointelpro initiated set trip with the NOI.  We are embodying the essence of what Malcolm wanted for our people.  Up until the final weeks of his life, Malcolm made sincere attempts to stall out the tensions between his people and the NOI.  Despite his going back and forth, an understandable reality for someone under the pressure he was under, some of his actions illustrated how much he understood the importance of not letting the conflict with the NOI get out of hand.  Many people today don't understand that.  The FBI is salivating at all this anti-NOI back and forth among our people.  We haven'' learned anything from the method in which the FBI used the same isolation against the US Organization to instigate them to shoot at Panthers.  Whether you like it or not, the NOI is the largest independent African organization in the U.S.  They can get millions of us together and we want to use those opportunities to talk to our people about our revolutionary program. There are no benefits to our people to isolating them and we will continue to talk to our people in efforts to challenge their consciousness.  While some of us are being polite to police when you get pulled over, something we would never do, we will continue to talk to our people.  We refuse to help the FBI and our enemies lay their eggs among our people.