The family of Malcolm X has filed a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Police Department and several other government agencies.
“When I think of the challenges that my mother suffered, witnessing the assassination of her husband, I think now is the best time that we have to seek justice for a man who gave his life for human rights,” Malcolm X’s daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, told Leila Fadel of NPR.
“We’d like our father to receive the justice that he deserves.”
Civil rights leader Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audobon Ballroom in New York on February 21, 1965. More than 58 years later, Shabazz’s family and attorney Ben Crump are on a mission to hold those who organized the assassination responsible for their actions.
“We intend to have vigorous litigation of this matter, to have discovery to be able to take depositions of the individuals who are still alive, 58 years later, to make sure that some measure of justice can be given to Malcolm X’s daughters. The truth of what happened and who was involved has always been critical,” Crump said.
The family of Malcolm X is not the first to call the assassination of a civil rights leader into question. In 1999, the family of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the civil rights leader and won. The court ruled that King Jr. was not “the victim not of a lone racist gunman but of a vast conspiracy.”
“We think the truth about the circumstances leading to the death of our father is important. When we look at that letter that he wrote from hajj, it’s our hope that litigation of this case will provide some unanswered questions and that the legacy of Malcolm X is appropriated,” Shabazz told NPR.
“We want justice served for our father.”
