Cointelpro and the Assassination of Malcolm X Essay

During the early 1950s, Malcolm X was the top spokes worldly concern for the Black Nationalist Muslim group called the Nation of Islam (NOI). As the national representative of the NOI, Malcolm X attracted the media spotlight by speaking pop out against the in practicedices that were being inflicted upon nigrify Ameri smokes in the United States (Haley 225). Malcolm subsequently separated from the NOI collectible to accusations of immoral behavior he made against his leader, Elijah Muhammad, and went on to form his cause group called Muslim Mosque Inc. 323).Malcolm was despatchd February 21, 1965, at the Audubon ballroom in Harlem revolutionary York, by black gunmen who were alleged to be members of the Nation of Islam (442-443). According to the concord The Assassination of Malcolm X by George Breitman, the Federal dressing table of Investigation (FBI) downstairs the direction of J. Edgar Hoover made Malcolm the subject of an intensive surveillance investigating by the Co unter Intelligence Program known by its acronym Cointelpro (13).Malcolm, as a Muslim minister in the NOI, had become a correctly speaker equipped with the oratorical skills which provided him the ability to attract large pursuits of black people into his new organization. However, Hoover had labeled Malcolm a subversive and a natural black nationalist whom he felt needed to be neutralized (14). What did Hoover mean by neutralize? And did the Nation of Islam assassinate Malcolm X, or was this a government conspiracy?These cardinal theories will be addressed in nightclub to answer these questions and others that stand been unanswered for 48 years. Cointelpro was a FBI top secret and illegal political agency, the main agenda of which was to tar approach specific individuals and organizations whose ideas Hoover did non agree with (Blackstock, preface vii). redden though the broadcast was initially demoraliseed in 1956 to disrupt the activities of the Communist society of the U nited States, policies were secretly changed under the direction of its founder, Hoover in coiffure to target other organizations (9).Even though the name Counterintelligence may connote oppo ragion to any ane who threatens the security of the United States through espionage, the targets were not enemy spies (10). The FBIs main objective under this program was to eliminate all radical political opposition inside the United States by any nitty-gritty necessary (10-11). When traditional methods such as harassment and prosecution failed, the Bureau resorted to illegal and unconstitutional methods by taking the law into its own workforce (11).Methods such as intimidation, job loss, violence, and forging letters in order to frame members were just a few tactics used by FBI genes and legal philosophy informants who had infiltrated targeted organizations (12-13). In instructions to his FBI field operatives, Hoover displayed the outright contempt that he held for the Civil Rights Move ment and its black leaders (28). In one specific memo dated August 25, 1967, he explains that the purpose of the program was to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the Civil Rights Movement (30).Even though the memo was revealed by Hoover in 1967, two years afterwards Malcolms death, tactics had been put into action long in the beginning it was distributed as a memo to his agents (30). On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X prepared to give a speech to a bunch of approximately 400 at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York (Evanzz xiv). As he approached the rostrum, a scuffle began in the rear of the ballroom (xv). One of the men yelled Get your business deal out of my pocket. Malcolm responded by telling the two individuals who were scuffling to cool it and to not get excited (xv).As Malcolm tried to calm things down, a large effusion in the back was heard from a smoke bomb, and a man sitting in the front row pulled out a look-alike barreled sawed-off sho tgun from under his long coat and fired at Malcolm, striking him in the chest (xv). As Malcolm was falling and clutching his chest, two more men rushed the stage, firing pistols at him (xv). Betty Shabazz, Malcolms married woman, and agent Roberts, his mean friend and luggage compartmentguard came to Malcolms aid along with others close by (xv). Meanwhile, a crowd of Malcolms supporters had caught two of the fleeing assailants and were beating them until they were deliver by policemen (xvii).One of the men rescued by police was Talmadge Hayer, a black Muslim, who had a gunshot wound from one of Malcolm Xs bodyguards and was set aboutn to the hospital across the street from the Audubon (xvi). Malcolm X was pronounced loose 15 minutes after they got him to the hospital (xvi). Who killed Malcolm X? Examine the following scenarios. Initially, it was reported by Malcolms guards, the New York City police and topical anesthetic newspapers that two men were taken into police custody (xviii). In afterwards newspaper editions, it was changed from two men to one. No reason was given for the emergent change and no admission of a mistake ever mentioned (xv). practice of law vehemently denied that a stand by man had existed and that Hayer was the still person caught at the scene (xviii). Five days later, Norman butler, and Thomas Johnson, two known Muslims were arrested and charged with the murder of Malcolm X, even though they had concrete alibis placing them elsewhere, evidence the public prosecutor withheld at the trial (Evanzz xviii). Hayer had confessed to his involvement in Malcolms death and testified that Butler and Johnson were neither present nor involved in the black lotion but that intravenous feeding other gunmen were involved (xviii-xx). The question stiff to this day Who was the mysterious second man?Why did the first police report and witnesses inside the Audubon study they saw five men who were involved in the assassination, yet only three were accused and convicted at the trial (xv, xviii)? It should also be renowned that many of Malcolms bodyguards and aides were Muslim defectors from the Nation of Islam and would have accepted Butler and Johnson immediately and prevented them from coming in (xv). Roland Sheppard was a journalist who on a regular basis attended Malcolms lectures and was also a witness to his assassination.In his denomination The Assassination of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. he stated that he was told by one of Malcolms bodyguards, You are not way out to sit here today and to move from the front row where he ordinarily would sit. Sheppard, along with Malcolm and his group, always knew that on that point were police agents and informants in the audience. aft(prenominal) Malcolms assassination, Sheppard was questioned at the Harlem police forelandquarters, where he saw a familiar face, patently a police officer, walking freely around the office, whom he had seen stand up in the firs t row at the Audubon Ballroom, with other men, before the start of the meeting.This is where Hayer said he and his accomplices were sitting (Sheppard). This was also the same row of pose Sheppard was told to move from. Sheppard also noticed that usually at Malcolms meetings, there would be somewhere between 30-50 uniformed police officers on office (Sheppard). But when Malcolm was assassinated, the police were nowhere to be found, even though Malcolm had warned them that an assassination attempt was imminent (Sheppard). Police officials claim that Malcolm had requested not to have police protection that day (Sheppard).However, when the police first spoke of this sympathy with Malcolm, his wife, Betty Shabazz, stated that it was a lie, that Malcolm had not made the request for no police security (Sheppard). Malcolm knew from his experience with the Nation of Islam that his organization had been infiltrated by police agents who were undercover working for the government (Evanzz xx iii). But what would have shocked Malcolm the most is that his head of security and close friend Roberts, was one of them (xv).Roberts was a police agent working for New York Police Departments Bureau of special Services, also known as BOSSI (xxiii). This was the same bodyguard who told Sheppard to move from where he normally sits at Malcolms meetings. The night of the assassination, Roberts, as usual, posted guards in their proper positions and took his post as well (xv). Once Malcolm came to the rostrum and greeted the crowd with, As-Salaam Alaikum, Roberts subtly gave a signal that he needed to be ameliorate from his guard post (xv).As soon as Roberts walked away and stationed himself by the front entrance, the commotion started in the rear of the ballroom and shots were fired (xv). Is it just a coincidence that Roberts had himself relieved from the guard post and soon after, the guesswork started? As Malcolm lay on the ground gasping for air, Roberts, who had changed guard po st seconds before the shooting, rushed to the stage to Malcolms side and appeared to be administering backtalk to mouth (Evanzz 295).Betty Shabazz, Malcolms wife, went his side and removed a piece of paper from Malcolms blood stained coat jacket, that had the names of the five men whom Malcolm believed were button to assassinate him (295). Finally, Malcolm was placed on a stretcher and as they started to take him to the hospital across the street, the police, who were not present during the shooting, appeared and took charge of Malcolms body (xvii). It is apparent to me that Roberts was there for the sole purpose of ensuring that Malcolm was dead. Was he actually vainglorious mouth-to-mouth respirations to Malcolm?Or was he preventing him from breathing altogether? Why would Malcolms wife remove the paper with the names of her husbands assassins on it and not reveal it to any of those present? Malcolm X had been under surveillance by the FBI since his release from prison in 1952 (Evanzz 28). Once Malcolm separated from Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, he started reaching out to other Black Nationalist organizations and civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. (266-267). Even though they had opponent views, both men realized they were after the same common refinement but with different means of gaining it.In his letter A bid for Unity from Birmingham jail, King made it a point to his critics that the Negro in America had been caught up by the Zeitgeist (spirit of the age), and with his black brothers of Africa, and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, entropy America, and the Caribbean, the Negro in the United States is moving with a sense of enormous urgency toward the promised land of racial justice (King 1303). Malcolm shared this viewpoint also, that prejudice was universal, and Malcolm decided to take the plight of the American Negro to the United Nations (309).No one had ever brought the issue of racism to the United Nations b efore (310). This deep disturbed Hoover and the FBI and gave them a definite reason to target Malcolm for counteraction (Evanzz 310). Malcolms fall out with Muhammad and the Nation of Islam was the catalyst needed to later help the FBI set the stage for Malcolms assassination (311). The question remains who killed Malcolm X? Malcolm had initially and for good reason, thought that the Nation of Islam were plotting to take his life.After close analysis, he realized that this plot to kill him was deeper than the NOI. He uttered this to Alex Haley, who was in the process of finishing Malcolms autobiography, The more I cumber thinking about this thing, the things that have been happening lately, Im not all that sure its the Muslims, I know what they can do, and what they cant, and they cant do some of the stuff recently overtaking on. Now, Im going to tell you, the more I view as thinking about what happened to me, I think Im going to quit saying its the Muslims (qtd. in Haley 438).