Original subtitles

What were you before the white man

named you a Negro?

What was your name?

It couldn't have been Smith or Jones.

They don't have those kind of names

where you and I came from.

Malcolm spoke truth to power.

This guy is fearless.

It's the white man that's cracking skulls!

But even at the height of his popularity,

he had a lot of enemies.

I do believe there will be attempts on my life.

They're foaming at the mouth.

It was inevitable that he would be killed.

I probably am a dead man already.

Shooting like a cowboy.

People crawling on the floor.

It was like warfare.

The first time I saw those bullet wounds,

I thought, "Why doesn't someone want to get to the bottom of this?"

So I started asking questions. It became an obsession.

Who do you believe is responsible for Malcolm X's death?

The white power structure in America is behind it.

He said that he was going to be killed

because he knew too much.

What did he know?

Might be an inside job.

The investigation was a failure

from beginning to end.

Three men were arrested.

The white man say you guilty, you guilty. Why?

Because he says so and he got a gun.

Has he signed a statement?

And the thing is, two of them weren't

even in the Audubon Ballroom that day.

Malcolm's death never sat right with me.

This is a rough hood.

What we're doing, it makes me nervous.

Asking who's guilty of Malcolm's assassination

is a dangerous question to ask.

That's not something that we talked about.

Leave it alone.

What is the real story?

You know who did it.

It's important to get answers about who gunned down my father.

...by any means necessary!

This is still a unsolved case, a mystery.

That's almost too much to process.

He was our shining black prince.

People still don't get it.

The whole thing is on film!

Wow. I was not aware of that.

I'm not a lawyer, I don't have a Ph.D. Who did this?

Folks try to caution me. "You leave that alone, man."

Why would we dig up the dead?

The more people tell me I can't do something,

that's the thing I want to do.

I'm not going to stop until I get justice.

Because the official account of who killed Malcolm X,

it's not true.

My guest tonight, Malcolm X,

once the number-two man in the Black Muslims,

now broken with Elijah Muhammad.

He says he's a marked man

and that a number of attempts have been made on his life.

Malcolm knew he was going to die

by someone's hands.

It was coming.

He was predicting it, even.

Malcolm spent the night of February 20, 1965,

in the Hilton Hotel.

He had a big rally the next day.

He wanted to find a safe place

that no one knew where he was staying,

so he could collect his thoughts.

He was awakened by a phone call in the morning.

And the person on the other end of the line

said something that let him know

that someone knew where he was at.

That he could be gotten anywhere, essentially.

He called his wife, Betty, he said,

"I want you to come and I want you to bring the girls,"

and that's what she did.

My wife was pleased

that it was a clear, bright Sunday morning.

When we walked into the ballroom,

we sat about eight to ten rows from the stage.

I could see Betty

and I think one or more of her children with her.

I got there a little bit early.

And when brother Malcolm came in,

it was the first time I'd ever seen him

where he had looked a little harried.

As though the pressures were getting on him.

He knew at that point

that time was running out for him.

All the signs were there,

and that's why none of his invited speakers

that were supposed to appear on that stage with him that day,

none of them showed up.

Everyone knew that this man was in trouble.

This man was hot!

I remember him saying,

"The way I feel today, I shouldn't even be here."

And myself and about four of us people backstage, we said,

"Well, why don't you go home? People will understand."

"You know, you've been under a lot of pressure

over the last three weeks."

And he said, "No, they want to hear me,

what I have to say about the firebombing."

As many of you know,

Sunday morning about three o'clock,

somebody threw some bombs inside my house.

I'm telling you these things, because it has reached

a point where I feel that black people

in this country need to know what's going on.

And I'm talking about an organization

which I had a hand in building,

which I had a hand in organizing.

By the time he left the Nation of Islam,

Malcolm had a lot of enemies.

The Nation of Islam was a pure dictatorship.

Elijah Muhammad was at the top.

And Malcolm was seen as a traitor,

because he had turned on his leader

who had raised him up from a common criminal

and put him on a pinnacle before the world.

Also the federal government, the FBI,

was deathly afraid of someone like Malcolm X.

And one of the most perplexing details about this story

is the fact that there was an absence

of any kind of police force

in and around the Audubon that afternoon.

This was very strange,

especially given the recent threats

that were made on his life.

Usually at the rallies at the Audubon Ballroom,

there'd be up to two dozen police officers stationed outside.

And on that day, there were only two uniformed officers,

and they're stationed upstairs inside, away from the ballroom.

So the deterrent effect

of having law enforcement present was not there.

It kind of gave a kind of menacing vibe

to the whole scene.

You know... where was this police presence?

Try to remember just exactly what happened.

Well, he had just got up to open up.

And, um, he was speaking.

I don't remember the exact words he was saying...

Malcolm goes to the rostrum, and he gave the greeting.

Salaam-alaikum.

At that point, a rumbling broke out behind us.

Get your hand out of my pocket!

And everybody in the place

naturally turned around to look.

Hold it, hold it, hold it...

I remember Malcolm was raising

his hand saying, "All right, everybody be cool now."

Or something to that effect.

I said to myself, "Why don't they cut that out?

I want to hear Malcolm unfold this program."

And a burly, dark-skinned man

walked up to the stage

and pulled from under his coat a sawed-off shotgun.

And, uh, just then the gunfire went off.

Next thing I know, two other fellas jumped up.

They're shooting this place up.

I remember there were so many shots that were fired.

It was like warfare.

I saw people crawling on the floor.

So I got down too.

And my children were crying, you know,

"What's going on, what's going on?

Are they gonna shoot us?"

Then I saw, um, someone

look in amazement to the front. I knew they had shot my husband.

I ran down and I jumped up on the stage.

And his shirt was open

and I saw all these bullet holes in his body.

And he was gasping.

I remember thinking to myself,

"He's gonna die. He's gonna die."

My husband was all I had. I mean he was...

He was everything to me and my children.

He said that, uh...

That he'd always love me and provide for us.

We're not brutalized because we're Muslims.

We're not brutalized because we're Catholics.

We're brutalized because we are black people in America.

If you're looking at the genealogy

of the anger and activism in this country,

we see lots of it descending from Malcolm.

If they want us to turn the other cheek,

teach white people to turn the other cheek.

And if they want us to love our enemy,

teach white people to love their enemy.

Malcolm was the primary articulator

of our cause and our case against America,

against white supremacy in the United States.

Black people in this country

have been the victims of violence

at the hands of the white man for 400 years.

Is that different 53 years after his death?

Not really.

I can't breathe!

Put your hands behind your back!

I can't breathe!

When someone attacks you,

when someone comes at you with a club, with a gun,

despite the fact that you've done nothing wrong,

he tells you, "Suffer peacefully."

And how long can you suffer,

after suffering for 400 years?

We declare our right to be respected as a human being,

to be given the rights of a human being,

which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.

For those who love Malcolm,

it is a really, really intense relationship with his memory.

Malcolm spoke to me at a time

when I was a very angry young man,

and I fell in love with him.

I was the victim of a police attack

when I was only 14 years old, and it was racially motivated.

One quiet Sunday afternoon, myself and my cousin,

I believe I was in 9th grade,

and we were just hanging out on our bikes.

Me, him, and his girlfriend,

a young white girl.

I was just chatting with the young lady,

and this, evidently, enraged the police.

You know, "How dare these black boys

date these white girls?"

They did a fishtail, you know, "whoop-whoop,"

you know, jumped out the car.

They grabbed me by my afro, and they said, you know,

"You like dating white girls, nigger?

That's what you like to do?"

And they flung me against the car

and one of 'em came up and gave me a nice knee, y'know?

I'm 14 years old!

They threw me in the back of the car,

and then they just drove around Providence and terrorized me.

They started talking about how many brothers

they threw in the Providence River.

"You remember Pookie? You remember Ray-Ray, or Johnny?

Y'know what happened to them, didn't you?

They're at the bottom of the Providence River."

That kind of talk.

Then one officer looked to the other officer and he said,

"Did he say something? Did you say something, boy?

Say one more thing

and we'll split your head like a goddamn grape, okay?"

I remembered there was a...

a paralyzing fear just trying to figure out

what was going to become of me, y'know?

What were these guys gonna do?

All I could do was just sit there, you know,

and accept whatever my fate was going to be, you know?

Um... It was terrifying.

It was terrifying.

Every case of police brutality against a Negro

follows the same pattern.

- You right! - They attack you,

bust you all upside your mouth,

and then take you to court and charge you with assault.

What kind of democracy is that?

The first time I heard his voice,

what really attracted me to it was the fearlessness of it.

You speak as a black man,

a black man whose patience has run out.

The manhood in it!

The day of the sit-in, the crawl-in,

the cry-in, and the beg-in is outdated.

The power of this man's courage to say this stuff.

You know, it was... It was irresistible!

It changed the entire trajectory of my life.

That's the reason why I went to Howard University.

That's the reason I became a black militant activist

at that moment.

We all had a story or know someone

who's been jacked up by the police.

And that's what Malcolm represented for us.

You know, that black man that wasn't gonna take this shit anymore.

Malcolm's death never sat right with me.

There were too many unanswered questions.

And for the better part of 30 years,

I've dedicated my life to understanding this story.

I'm not a lawyer.

I don't have a Ph.D. I don't have a Master's.

I'm not what you would call, even, a professional.

I have no shame about that.

Just a regular brother who felt

that Malcolm deserved justice.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Abdur Rahman,

I'll be your narrator.

This portion of the tour,

on behalf of Arlington National Cemetery Tours,

I'd like to welcome you all to Arlington National Cemetery.

This is our nation's most sacred place of remembrance...

Abdur Rahman Muhammad is without question

the most knowledgeable person about Malcolm's murder.

He's been an independent researcher

working on this for a good number of years now.

Look to the driver's side,

the large memorial there in the center of the...

He has invested hundreds of hours

tracking down direct first-hand evidence

of the conspiracy to kill Malcolm X.

...brutally assassinated in June of 1963.

No one alive has done more

to solve Malcolm's killing than Abdur Rahman Muhammad.

...state of Mississippi

to become the first field secretary

for the NAACP at that time.

Early on, I had read enough to think

that the case was a sham, all right?

That it was a fraud.

I had read enough to believe that the killers were

still out there.

It's been a great honor and privilege

to share this rich and auspicious history with you.

Never been afraid of the truth.

I always wanted to know, what is the real story?

Whatever it is, I'll deal with it.

I decided that, you know, if it was ever possible

for me to find these people, that I would find them.

I mean, this is Malcolm X we're talking about!

It was a Sunday.

I had the homicide duty.

Usually, there wasn't much homicide activity, you know,

certainly not in the afternoons.

I was in a bar, dancing.

And you know, the dancing in those days

was a lot of leaping in the air.

I remember the name of the place too,

it was called Ondine's.

It doesn't exist anymore.

It was on, I think, 57th Street right under the bridge.

I heard somebody say, "You hear? Malcolm X was shot."

In this whole bar, there was one booth with a telephone,

and it was occupied.

But I had a badge, you know.

So I took my badge out,

and I went over to the booth and knocked on the thing.

Guy looked up, and I said... Showed him the badge. "Out!"

And I called Manhattan North Homicide.

They said, "Mr. Stern, where have you been?

We have been looking for you."

Chief, could you describe what happened here today?

At about 3:15 p.m. this afternoon,

there were about 400 persons present in the ballroom here,

representing an organization

headed up by Malcolm X.

There were no police at this meeting, were there, Inspector?

There were no uniformed policemen assigned inside this ballroom.

When the police arrived at the Audubon,

there was no sense of urgency.

And this was noticed by a lot of people.

Almost as if they knew this was going to happen.

Almost as if they wanted it to happen.

The police, they looked so nonchalant.

It just really... It angered me when I saw it.

They was just strolling through the Audubon Ballroom

like they was on a Sunday stroll in Central Park.

And people were on the floor, chairs overturned,

people were still crying and screaming.

The crime scene was a total mess.

The whole place was in total disarray.

There was nothing to see at the scene

that would have helped me as a lawyer on the case.

We knew that Malcolm had stood up

in front of a very crowded ballroom

and that the shooters massacred him

in the presence of his family.

Boom, boom, boom, boom. They just blew him apart.

We have found one weapon at the scene.

A shotgun, which, I'm sorry,

I cannot describe for--

- A sawed-off shotgun? - Sawed-off shotgun.

Actually, we knew that there were

three kinds of weapons.

There was a shotgun.

There was a.45,

and then there was some sort of... like a Luger.

Where was Malcolm hit?

He sustained one shot in the lower right chin

and the others hit him in the chest and, uh, body.

I knew that one of the shooters,

one carrying a.45, had run,

and was shot by one of Malcolm's bodyguards.

He managed to stagger into the street

and then the mob tried to kill him.

By then, the police had finally arrived

and they rescued him from almost certain death.

He was immediately arrested, and he was found with a weapon.

So, that was kind of, "Case closed" for him.

What bothers me the most

is that the other gunmen got away

because there was no police.

Were it not for the fact that

one of Malcolm's security detail

shot this man in the leg,

all of the assassins would've got away.

Law enforcement did not secure

the scene of the crime.

In fact, there was a dance scheduled for 7:00 p.m. that evening,

and the ballroom was cleaned up and prepared for the dance,

which went on as scheduled,

with the bullets probably still in the wall.

It made the process of the investigation

seem haphazard at best,

botched, at worst.

Maybe convenient to someone?

It's just one of the reasons why many people

have continued questions about the assassination

and the role of law enforcement,

either actively or passively, in this happening.

Did people know it was coming?

Did they get the right guys?

There was just so many stones still unturned.

And it just kept bugging me and bugging me.

Somewhere in my path,

I decided that I need to drill down on Malcolm's case.

My initial research began in the FBI Hoover building.

I've gone through the files in the Library of Congress.

You know, anything that I could get my hands on

to get clues as to who is responsible

for this horrific crime.

But I've never seen

the District Attorney's case files

or any evidence from the crime scene.

So, we have a number of collections

at the Archives related to Malcolm X

and the assassination of Malcolm X.

- There's the DA's case files. - Okay.

Homicide case files,

and then there's the NYPD photograph collection.

If we look in here,

this is the NYPD Photo Unit Manhattan's logbook.

So this book would have been

at the, uh, precinct.

This would have been at the precinct.

Every time an officer comes on duty,

they sign in, they sign out,

um, they get a call.

And then you see here, at 3:45.

3:45 is when the call was made.

To the Audubon Ballroom,

"to photograph scene where Malcolm X Little,

male Negro, 39,

was allegedly shot by unknown perpetrators.

Photos of ballroom and surrounding area taken

in black and white and color," which is very rare.

Very rare for them to shoot color.

Do those color photographs exist?

Those color photographs do exist.

And here's some copies of what...

- Wow. - Of those.

So here we have backstage at the ballroom.

So there's the stage of the ballroom.

And you can see where they've circled here.

All those chalk marks, those are bullet holes.

That is incredible.

This is the stairwell.

Some of the assailants ran out the back stairwell.

Um, I think there's something

like 65 photographs of this scene.

So was there a lot of evidence collected at the scene?

There was.

What we have is what's in the New York DA's case files.

So now that the DA has turned this over to your office,

is it now considered a closed case?

Anything that the DA's office turns over to us

would normally be considered a closed case file.

Um, but that doesn't mean that cases still can't get reopened.

Well, there's no statute of limitations

- on murder. - Right.

If, for example, this case could be reopened.

Right.

It's quite probable that this material

- would be utilized in it. - Yeah, that's true.

You know, could always be reopened.

Could always be reopened.

And that's evidence, not just history.

Right.

Did he ever discuss with you

the likelihood that he would be assassinated?

Uh, yes, we discussed it many times.

Several attempts had been made on his life.

The police and the press tried to make it look

like he bombed his own home, which was ridiculous.

I mean, he had no insurance on the furniture

or himself or anything like that,

and now I guess they'll say he shot himself.

We're in the process now of trying

to interview every person who was in the ballroom

and get as much information as we can

to find the killers of Malcolm X.

The assignment for the police

was to interview every single person

that they could identify.

"Who'd you sit next to? Who'd you sit next to?

Who did you know? Who did you see?"

Did you see what happened, sir?

No, I just came in when it all happened.

All I could see was smoke and shooting.

Did you see what happened, dear?

No, no, no. No.

I see two men rush up in to the platform.

They knew almost nobody to start with.

And then they began to find names as they went through.

I mean, it wasn't Sherlock Holmes, you know?

"Who did you see?

Did you recognize anybody?" Some people did.

There were two fellas.

One was a Black Muslim. Ran and start shooting.

- They were Black Muslims? - Yes, sir.

They were Black Muslims 'cause I recognized them.

The day of the murder, which was a Sunday morning,

I was laying across the couch, with my foot up,

and I heard it over the radio.

Breaking news out of New York City.

Four bullets from an assassin's gun

have taken the life of black nationalist leader Malcolm X.

Four days later, they came and got me.

The fact is I spent 20 years in prison

for a crime that I didn't commit.

Watch the wire, watch the wire.

Has he signed a statement, sir?

On February the 26th,

Norman 3X Butler,

who is a lieutenant,

he's arrested.

And then on March the 3rd,

Thomas 15X Johnson is arrested.

We were able to arrest

a third suspect this afternoon

in the assassination of Malcolm X.

He's going to be charged with acting in concert

with the others now arrested.

These people who were members of the Nation of Islam,

they were an extremely militant faction.

Butler and Johnson were from the Harlem mosque,

Mosque number 7, Malcolm's mosque.

From the very beginning,

the focus of the investigation was on Harlem,

and on Butler and Johnson.

Because they were known enforcers in the community

who had been arrested for other crimes,

and they were the prime suspects.

I was always one of those few out front.

So the police officers came to us,

because we were all, in effect, on their radar.

But that doesn't mean that we had anything to do with anything.

'Cause actually, we didn't.

The only thing they had

was very contradictory eyewitness testimony.

That's all they had.

There was no physical evidence to speak of.

I thought it was a failure.

I thought it was mishandled from beginning to end.

The NYPD had a few shooters

and they were relieved, as we all were,

uh, to death, relieved to death.

If I'd been chief, it would have been different.

Uh, that's not the way I worked.

If you get the shooters,

you better get the guy who sent them.

Initially, after talking to witnesses,

the NYPD let it be known, and accurately, I should say,

they were seeking five killers,

that there were five men who were part of this team,

and they were searching Harlem,

and other places, looking for them.

But after they got Butler, Johnson, and Hayer,

the NYPD said, "Case is closed."

We locked up Butler and Johnson

in a matter of a couple of weeks,

which was quite a feat.

But is it possible that you arrested the wrong guys?

Uh, why would you ask me a question like that?

How can any human being answer a question like that?

They were proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Are you going to say it's not possible?

You going to say that?

If I put you on the camera, are you going to say that?

You're not going to say that?

Answer me, you going to say that?

No.

Okay, then we're in the same boat.

When Malcolm was killed,

people were just torn apart

by what had happened.

What did Malcolm X mean to you?

He's a hero to me.

He stood out among all black people.

He showed the white man where it was at.

That's right.

He meant a great deal to me and my people.

I couldn't have cried any more, I don't believe,

if I had lost my mother.

Sister Betty asked me to be a pallbearer,

and at that time,

I was feeling very full of grief.

Unlike any that I had ever felt before or since.

And you're saying that you believe

this was paid for by whites?

Yeah, by white people.

Anytime a black man in this country stands up

for his constitutional rights, he dies.

I know it wasn't no accident

from what I hear Malcolm X say the other night.

Who do you believe is responsible for his death?

The white power structure in America is behind it.

And they're quick to capitalize on it by saying that, uh,

one of his own kind did it, but they put it up to be done.

All of us was thinking then

that the hidden hand behind Malcolm's assassination

was the big boys down in Washington,

but that maybe members of the Nation of Islam

probably were the trigger men.

Malcolm X's pallbearers vow vengeance

on the Black Muslims' leader,

Elijah Muhammad.

They feel it is he that ordered Malcolm's execution.

What's going to happen now, do you think?

It's going to be a whole lot of hurting

before this whole thing is over. That's what I think.

Because of his death?

Because of his death, whoever did it,

Muslims or whoever, there's gonna be a whole lot of hurtin'.

But Malcolm's followers

wanted to take some heads, okay?

They want revenge.

Two days after the murder of Malcolm X,

an explosion destroyed the Muslim mosque in Harlem

in what appeared to be the first act

of retribution for the murder.

Elijah Muhammad himself is said to be a marked man,

with followers of Malcolm X swearing vengeance.

If you would like to follow anyone against me,

go ahead and do it,

but I fear for you.

The south side Chicago home of Elijah Muhammad

was under heavy police guard today.

Squad cars were posted at the front and rear.

All who sought entrance to the house

were frisked by Muhammad's own guard force,

the group of husky young Negroes known as the Fruit of Islam.

This is the house that the Messenger built.

That was their living room there.

That was his bedroom there.

And his secretaries worked on the third floor

and those were his offices there.

I lived here for nine months

when I came to Chicago.

On the third floor in the back,

there was an apartment back there.

I was the secretary of New York.

Until the Honorable Elijah Muhammad

brought me here to Chicago in 1960.

Meeting with reporters in his living room,

Muhammad had this evaluation of Malcolm X's killing.

Malcolm, uh, is the victim of his own preaching.

He preached violence,

and so he become the victim of it.

Well, Malcolm X said that

the Black Muslims were trying to kill him,

and he was going to name those

he thought would commit the crime yesterday

before he was shot. Could you comment on that?

I wasn't there,

but I don't believe that any of my followers was there.

They had nothing to do with it at all.

It was predicted that they would blame the Nation of Islam.

Elijah Muhammad even said that.

Elijah Muhammad and his followers

claim innocence in the execution

of their most famous defector, Malcolm X.

Elijah Muhammad told everybody,

"My believers, do not lay a hand on our brother, Malcolm X,

because he is not aware of what he is doing.

Give him time.

Do not raise a hand against Malcolm X."

He said that in the temple. I was there.

I said to the government of America,

we are a peaceful people.

We have always tried to obey the law.

We do that.

I teach my followers to do it.

His words were, "Leave Malcolm alone,"

to all of his ministers and to all of us,

"Leave Malcolm alone."

And those who loved him and obeyed him,

that's exactly what they did.

You don't have lentil soup today?

- Lentil soup? - Yes.

We do have it

but we don't put it on the buffet.

If you want to have it, we can get it for you, one order.

- It's a lentil soup? - Yes.

Okay, I'll get it when you sit at the table.

The lentil and the navy bean we eat,

but not the lima beans or black-eyed peas.

This is what the Messenger teaches.

This is fresh tandoori chicken from the clay oven.

I had it before. It's okay.

You've had it before? Okay.

Did you play a part in having Malcolm get killed?

I could have, if I wanted to.

This is a lentil soup, the yellow color.

You can put it right there.

But I don't know who killed him.

I know the Messenger didn't. I know I didn't order it, you know?

Nobody from the FBI or local authorities,

they never asked us anything about it.

They've written in the papers

that we ordered for Malcolm to be killed,

But we didn't.

You know, The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was a wise man.

That he wouldn't do such a stupid thing

as to order someone, you know, to be killed,

Malcolm or anyone else.

If it hadn't been for the Messenger saying, "Leave him alone,"

then he would have been killed,

sooner than he was.

The key to understanding Malcolm's case

is that from the very beginning,

no one in the power structure

gave a damn about what happened.

His assassination was widely reported in the media,

especially the white media.

But there was almost a sense that they were gloating.

A sense of glee that he had it coming,

like he almost deserved this.

It's clear, even in the New York Times

in February of 1965,

that white authorities and most white newsmen

didn't take this killing all that seriously.

That from their perspective, it's some intra-gang warfare

among radical black extremists,

that they don't value what Malcolm's life represented.

But the real bottom line to everything we have here

is that white prosecution authorities

have never, across this entire chunk of time,

decades of time,

taken a serious interest

in investigating, pursuing, solving Malcolm's murder.

For Abdur Rahman Muhammad,

this has been a very lonely crusade.

Because time and again,

he's had people who have some initial interest,

and again and again,

they've decided not to go forward.

But Abdur Rahman has never given up.

He's still on the case.

After I became a Muslim,

I started moving in certain circles,

and over the years,

I started meeting people

who knew things about the assassination.

You know, who could talk first-hand about it.

You know what I mean?

I was like one or two people removed

from actually being able to get certain information!

You are sitting in a place that, in its history,

from the Nation of Islam under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,

that when he started...

That's when I realized that, you know,

"Hey, if I started asking the right questions,

I could get some very significant answers."

And if you were commanded to, you had to have a card in your pocket.

But one of the things that you learn quickly,

is you can't ask a question too directly.

If you ask a question too directly,

you could be suspect, you know.

Because then the question would become,

"Why are you asking that, brother?"

Assalam-alaikum, sister.

Alhamdulillah.

When Malcolm first got here,

was there any inkling

or any idea that maybe he was having a problem

with the Honorable Elijah Muhammad?

Or, uh, 'cause I know '63...

Once I would learn something and I would file it away.

And I'd connect this dot with that dot,

or at least be pointed in a certain direction.

You know, and it became more and more apparent to me

that if anybody could break it,

it would be me.

Most serious historians believe

there were five men who were the actual assassins.

According to my research,

I believe those assassins didn't come from Harlem

as the police claimed.

And I also believe that something has been covered up.

We have at least one FBI document

that gives a... you know, a perfect description

of the man that they say fired the shotgun.

They described him to a tee.

Burly, big, dark-skinned man wearing a certain kind of coat.

Complete opposite of the man they convicted.

So someone in the government must have known

that they might be convicting the wrong person,

and they let it happen.

And I think that it's only by looking deeply into Malcolm's life

that the clues as to who actually killed him,

and who knew it was coming, can be found.

You are not only honoring

Malcolm in the sunshine,

but in the rain.

And the prayer is that

you're not only honoring him on his birthday,

but every day with the work that you do.

In the name of el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz,

in the name of freedom, and black liberation.

Because that is how we truly honor Malcolm.

When we say we love Malcolm X,

el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz,

we love him so much,

we name high schools and institutions after him.

He's one of our greatest heroes.

You don't scare Negroes today

with no badge, or no white skin, or no white sheet,

or no white anything else.

Yet the real killers,

the real culprits,

both those who actually fired the trigger,

and those who were,

let's say, the puppet masters of the whole thing,

were never brought to justice.

But if you can't prove

that a democracy is not hypocrisy,

then don't put your hands on me.

There's no statute of limitations on murder.

Yes!

There's no reason why

this case cannot be looked at again.

That is my mission. That is my purpose.

As long as someone is still out there,

you know, there is a chance, still,

to get justice for Malcolm.