On the eve of the 53 year anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination, Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan took to social media to vehemently deny a long-standing rumor that has clouded him.
On Feb. 21, 1965, in New York’s Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm X was scheduled to give a speech when he was shot several times in a hail of bullets as his wife Betty Shabazz and their daughters sat in the audience and watched. Malcolm’s death was an insurmountable blow to the black nationalist movement, but his teachings and philosophies continued.
As the movement progressed, it has long been assumed that Farrakhan had something to do with Malcolm X’s murder. On Tuesday (Feb. 20), Farrakhan addressed those assumptions by stating he had nothing to do with the historical figure’s brutal killing.
“I did not kill Malcolm X. The enemy is so frightened that black people listen to Farrakhan that they put it out that Farrakhan had something to with the murder of Malcolm X,” Farrakhan captioned his Instagram post. “This is how wicked the media is. Don’t you know as much as they hate me if they had any proof that I did something like that, don’t you know they’d take me off the street in the twinkling of an eye and bury me under the jail.”
Back in 2010, Thomas Hagan, who is the only man to admit to having had any part in Malcolm X’s assassination, was released from prison after serving 44 years. Hagan was 69 years old.