WHO KILLED OMOWALE MALCOLM X?
At approximately eight minutes after 3pm on Umoja-day (Sunday) 21st February 1965, moments after he began address addressing an Organization of Afro-American Unity event Omowale Malcolm X was slain and martyred by assassin’s bullets. An act witnessed not only by the gathering of around 400 but also his wife Betty and their young children. Witness accounts identify five assassins. In the murder trial that concluded the following year three men Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson were convicted of the murder.
While Hayer later confessed his role in the killing, a mountain of evidence suggests not only were Butler and Johnson not part of the murderous team, they were not even in the building. Nevertheless Johnson spent 21 years in prison while Butler spent 19. Hayer was released in 2010.
The events surrounding the murder of Omowale Malcolm X seem to be such that words like ‘conspiracy’ were invented for. He had been under FBI surveillance since 1953 as was the organization where he did the majority of his work, the Nation of Islam (NOI). But more than mere surveillance, the likelihood is that the NOI was infiltrated at some of the highest levels – this being a period of intensive USA government’s (via the FBI) counter intelligence programme (COINTELPRO – http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/COINTELPRO-FBI.docs.html).
In his thoroughly researched book Conspiracys: Unravelling the Assassination of Malcolm X, (one the preeminent texts in the field, boasting almost 1300 references across 130 pages of endnotes) author Baba Zak Kondo advances the notion that Omowale Malcolm X’s was a result of an intersection of inimical forces of the NOI and the USA government. In his compelling volume he provides evidence of the real assassins and outlines how the seemingly contrary forces of the NOI and the USA government combined to extinguish the life of our “Black shining prince.”
So we ask the question:
Who killed Omowale Malcolm X and why?
- Will you be attending the Omowale Malcolm X observance on the 22nd?
- Why were two innocent men framed for the murder of Omowale Malcolm X?
- Was the NOI really infiltrated by the USA government?
- Was the murder really the result of NOI and USA government actions?
- Who benefitted from Omowale Malcolm X’s murder?
- What lessons can we learn from the murder?
Our special guests are:
Baba. Zak Kondo: Dr. Baba Zak A. Kondo has spent more than 23 years teaching History and Black Studies on the college level full-time. He spent 15 of those years at Bowie State University in Maryland, where he founded and coordinated the Pan African Studies program. He also taught at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania and Goddard College in Vermont. He recently ended a four-year stint as an Adjunct History Professor at Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, New Jersey. This past spring, he completed his eighth year at Baltimore City Community College.
Dr. Baba Kondo is a regarded as one of the foremost authorities on Malcolm X in the world. He is author of one of the most authoritative works on Malcolm’s assassination [Conspiracys: Unraveling the Assassination of Malcolm X] and served as a consultant on three films on Malcolm X. He consulted on Spike Lee’s motion picture, Malcolm X; Blacksides’ documentary, Malcolm X: Make it Plain and Xceptions’ documentary, Brother Minister: The Assassination of Malcolm X. His work on Malcolm X has been required reading at several colleges and universities, including Seton Hall University, University of Massachusetts – Amherst and Bowie State University. Dr. Kondo has also served as a consultant to two documentaries on the Black Panther Party.
Dr. Baba Kondo counts as his mentors the late Kwame Ture, the late Vivian Gordon, Dr. Haki Madhubuti, Herman Ferguson, a former aide to Malcolm X and a member of the Revolutionary Action Movement and Mama Assata Shakur.
Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and UNIA-ACL Ambassador for the UK. A veteran activist of over 30 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An Africentric Guide To Excellence