Malcolm X

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was killed by a shotgun blast at close range as he began a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in New York. On March 10, 1966, three men were convicted of murder in the first degree. One, Talmadge Hayer, a member of the Nation of Islam, confessed he was one of the gunmen, but insisted that the other two, Thomas 15X Johnson and Norman 3X Butler, were innocent.

The general feeling was that the Nation was behind the killing because Elijah Muhammad, the Nation's leader, had made it publicly known that he resented Malcolm's defection from the Nation and feared that he would reveal Nation secrets. One damaging secret was the allegation that the Nation had met with the American Nazi Party and the Ku Klux Klan and accepted money from racist whites - all of whom agreed with the Nation's policy of racial separation. Another secret was that Elijah Muhammad had fathered numerous "devine babies" with half a dozen teenaged Nation secretaries.

There are other theories about the assassination too. One is that a narcotics cartel, perhaps Chinese, ordered the murder because of Malcolm's fight against Harlem's drug trade. Another theory implicates the CIA and FBI in the killing. Malcolm was in the process of embarrassing the country by accusing the U.S. of racism and human rights violations in Third World countries. A variation of this theory is that the government had Malcolm killed because he was moving away from racial seperation and on the verge of becoming an effective civil rights leader.

The real reasons behind Malcolm's assassination will probably never be known. His killing, like that of JFK, will continue to be a source of conjecture for years to come...

What do you guys think?

From what I understood is that you are right about him moving away Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X was a genius and found the truth. It was an ugly thing to find the truth but he did. For this he went to go find himself in the most holy of holy places. Where he no longer saw people with the color of their skin but their faith in God (Allah, Creator...etc).

He realized the truth but knew that in order for him to live he had to watch his family die. That they would be taken from him and murdered and possibly other horrible crimes. Rather then have this happen he openly defied the threats against his life. In doing so he was placing himself on the lines for his own people and his children (and his wife). A man cannot live on bread alone nor can he live on fighting alone. He was left and gave his life up for the ones he loved. He knew who was behind this and it was particularly the FBI at first then it moved onto the CIA. But even for the CIA they did not expect Elijah Muhammad to work with the very same people his Nation supposedly was against (KKK, Nazi movement and other race hating groups). But I think CIA gave the bullets to Elijah Muhammad people's but the gun came from somewhere within the FBI or even a Nazi movement.

In the end it was the very same people who made Malcolm X into a less oppressed man; that ended up killing him.

They might have been influenced but we are all given free will. What we do with this freedom makes us good or bad. Sadly Elijah Muhammad tried to be placed like a God but he was merely a human acting like a God figure. It was by his word that Malcolm X died.