Malcolm X's legacy continues to haunt America's criminal justice system
Opinion by Peniel E. Joseph
Updated 6:13 PM ET, Thu November 18, 2021
after 56 years, of two Black men convicted of the assassination of Malcolm X rights a grave miscarriage of justice and opens new questions about race and America's criminal justice system.
Peniel Joseph
Spurred by decades of effort by historians and further accelerated by the widely acclaimed 2019 Netflix documentary series, "Who Killed Malcolm X," the Manhattan District Attorney's Office
reopened the investigation into Malcolm X's February 21, 1965, assassination. I participated in this film as an on-air historical analyst.
Two of the men found guilty in 1966, Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam (formerly Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson) have now been exonerated. Aziz, who is 83, was paroled in 1985 while Islam, who was released in 1987, died in 2009 at the age of 74.
According to The New York Times, the 22-month investigation -- conducted jointly by the Manhattan DA's office and lawyers for Aziz and Islam -- revealed that after Malcolm X's killing, the FBI and the New York Police Department withheld evidence that would likely have made a jury find the defendants not guilty.
2 men convicted of killing Malcolm X exonerated 03:54