Assassination of Malcolm X

Assassination of Malcolm X
Malcolm X being taken away from the Audubon Ballroom on a stretcher after the shooting
Location	Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Date	February 21, 1965; 59 years ago (1965-02-21) 3:15 p.m. (EST)
Target	Malcolm X
Attack type	Assassination, murder by shooting
Weapons	Sawed-off shotgun 2 semi-automatic pistols
Victim	Malcolm X, aged 39
Perpetrator	Thomas Hagan
Convicted	Muhammad Abdul Aziz (exonerated) Khalil Islam (posthumously exonerated) Thomas Hagan
Verdict	All guilty (Aziz and Islam's convictions overturned in 2021)
Convictions	Second-degree murder
Sentence	Life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years
Litigation	Compensation from the state and city of New York to Aziz and the family of Islam settled for $36 million[1]

Malcolm X, an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement, was shot multiple times and died from his wounds in Manhattan, New York City on February 21, 1965, at age 39. While preparing to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, Malcolm X was shot multiple times and killed. Three members of the Nation of Islam—Muhammad Abdul Aziz, Khalil Islam, and Thomas Hagan—were charged, tried, and convicted of the murder and given indeterminate life sentences, but in November 2021, Aziz and Islam were exonerated.

Speculation about the assassination and whether it was conceived or aided by leading or additional members of the Nation, or by law enforcement agencies, particularly the FBI and CIA, has persisted for decades after the shooting. The assassination was one of four major assassinations of the 1960s in the United States, coming two years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, and three years before the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.^[2]