By Three daughters of Malcolm X filed a $100 million lawsuit Friday against the CIA, FBI, and New York Police Department, alleging the agencies were complicit in their father’s 1965 assassination and engaged in a decades-long cover-up of government involvement.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court by the daughters and Malcolm X’s estate, claims law enforcement agencies knew of and participated in the assassination plot while failing to prevent the civil rights leader’s death at the Audubon Ballroom.
“They did not know who murdered Malcolm X, why he was murdered, the level of NYPD, FBI and CIA orchestration, the identity of the governmental agents who conspired to ensure his demise, or who fraudulently covered-up their role,” the lawsuit states, describing decades of uncertainty endured by Malcolm X’s wife Betty Shabazz and their family.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, representing the family, urged federal and city officials to “learn all the dastardly deeds that were done by their predecessors and try to right these historic wrongs” during a morning news conference.
The lawsuit alleges a “corrupt, unlawful, and unconstitutional” relationship between law enforcement and “ruthless killers,” claiming authorities deliberately removed Malcolm X’s security detail days before the assassination and withdrew police protection from inside the ballroom where he was killed. It further alleges federal agencies had undercover personnel present during the attack but failed to intervene.
Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, and later known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was 39 when he was gunned down on February 21, 1965. The case has remained controversial, with two of three men convicted in his death being exonerated in 2021 after investigators found evidence problems and determined authorities had withheld crucial information.
The family claims the lawsuit’s timing stems from the defendants’ decades-long concealment of information, including the identities of undercover “informants, agents and provocateurs” and their knowledge of pre-assassination planning.
The NYPD and CIA have not responded to requests for comment. Nicholas Biase, speaking for the Department of Justice, declined comment, while the FBI cited its standard practice of not commenting on litigation.
The legal action follows the family’s announcement of their intention to sue last year and comes amid renewed scrutiny of historical civil rights cases and government surveillance of activists during the civil rights era.
