By Nadia Johnson

            “We want justice served for our father” is a statement made by Ilyasah Shabazz daughter of the late Malcolm X standing as aside her sister Qubilah Shabazz at the news conference, where they announced their intention of filing a 100M wrongful lawsuit against the FBI, CIA, NYPD in a story I first read in the Washington Post.

            Malcolm X served as a shining example of black manhood, instilling black pride into his people, teaching them that to be black was not just beautiful but also an honor. This prince among men was tragically assassinated on February 21, 1965 when he was preparing to give a speech at the Audubon Ballroom, he was just 39.  One of Malcolm X’s bodyguards was able to shoot and captured one of the assassins.

       A man who then wen t by the man of Talmadge Hayer. Hayer, who now goes by the name Mujahid Abdul Halim had confessed to committing the murder, but insisted that the other two men who were later arrested and charged with Malcolm X’s murder where innocence. Hayer spent 45 years in prison before being release in 2010 on parole. The other two men who were charge with Malcolm X’s murder were Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam both were members of the Nation of Islam. After spending decades in prison Aziz was paroled in 1985 and Islam was paroled in 1987.

            Since that time both to the men were featured in a Netflix documentary called “Who Killed Malcolm X?” it was within that same year that the New York district attorney began to reinvestigate the case. After following the available evidence from the case, the New York District Attorney’s Office had recommended that the two men’s first degree murder convictions should be vacated.

            The District office had acknowledged that there were some failing from the law enforcement. It was said that the FBI and NYPD did not honor their obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence to the prosecutors and the accused. The evidence that came into the light was the fact that there were witness and information that implicated others, other witness who failed to identified the defendant Islam and there is the fact that other were revealed to be FBI informants. It has been suggested that information was deliberately withheld.

This past October, Aziz and the estate Khalil Islam received 36 million settlements from the city of New York. The city’s Law Department said in a statement at the time that it agreed with the former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.’s conclusion that the men where wrongful convicted.

             Crump said in a statement on Tuesday that the city’s settlement and the District Attorney’s conclusion made it possible to build a case for a wrongful death against authorities involved in the 1965 investigation and give “Malcolm X’s daughters an opportunity to seek legal redress, finally”.

            I filled that this is a long time coming we in the black community have been waiting for the truth to come out about not only brother Malcolm’s death but also Dr. Martin Luther King’s death as well. For we know that both men were shinning leaders in our community and had they lived the state of the black community would have been drastically different. Which was something the establishment at the time did not want to happened, and for all the detestable reasons. But, if the state of New York can have compensated two men who were wrongfully accused and convicted of their father’s murder. Then maybe just maybe they can compensate those that were affected the most by their father’s death his family.