Malcolm X
Allegations of conspiracy

Within days the question of who bore responsibility for the assassination was being publicly debated. On February 23, James Farmer, leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, announced at a news conference that local drug dealers, and not the Nation of Islam, were to blame. Others accused the NYPD, the FBI, or the CIA, citing the lack of police protection, the ease with which the assassins entered the Audubon Ballroom, and the failure of the police to preserve the crime scene. Earl Grant, one of Malcolm X's associates who was present at the assassination, later wrote:

bout five minutes later, a most incredible scene took place. Into the hall sauntered about a dozen policemen. They were strolling at about the pace one would expect of them if they were patrolling a quiet park. They did not seem to be at all excited or concerned about the circumstances. I could hardly believe my eyes. Here were New York City policemen, entering a room from which at least a dozen shots had been heard, and yet not one of them had his gun out! As a matter of absolute fact, some of them even had their hands in their pockets.

In the 1970s, the public learned about COINTELPRO and other secret FBI programs established to infiltrate and disrupt civil rights organizations during the 1950s and 1960s. Louis Lomax wrote that John Ali, national secretary of the Nation of Islam, was a former FBI agent. Malcolm X had confided to a reporter that Ali exacerbated tensions between him and Elijah Muhammad and that he considered Ali his "archenemy" within the Nation of Islam leadership. Ali had a meeting with Talmadge Hayer, one of the men convicted of killing Malcolm X, the night before the assassination.

The Shabazz family are among those who have accused Louis Farrakhan of involvement in Malcolm X's assassination. In a 1993 speech Farrakhan seemed to acknowledge the possibility that the Nation of Islam was responsible:

Was Malcolm your traitor or ours? And if we dealt with him like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell business is it of yours? A nation has to be able to deal with traitors and cutthroats and turncoats.

In a 60 Minutes interview that aired during May 2000, Farrakhan stated that some things he said may have led to the assassination of Malcolm X. "I may have been complicit in words that I spoke," he said, adding "I acknowledge that and regret that any word that I have said caused the loss of life of a human being." A few days later Farrakhan denied that he "ordered the assassination" of Malcolm X, although he again acknowledged that he "created the atmosphere that ultimately led to Malcolm X's assassination."

No consensus has been reached on who was responsible for the assassination. In August 2014, an online petition was started using the White House online petition mechanism to call on the government to release, without alteration, any files they still held relating to the murder of Malcolm X. In January 2019, members of the families of Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy were among dozens of Americans who signed a public statement calling for a truth and reconciliation commission to persuade Congress or the Justice Department to review the assassinations of all four leaders during the 1960s.

A February 21, 2021, press conference attended by three of Malcolm X's daughters and members of deceased NYPD undercover officer Raymond Wood's family released his authorized posthumous letter that stated in part: "I was told to encourage leaders and members of the civil rights groups to commit felonious acts." The Guardian reports that "The arrests kept the two men from managing door security at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights on the day of the shooting, according to the letter." On February 26, 2021, the daughter of Raymond Wood, Kelly Wood, stated that the letter presented at the February 21 press conference is fake. Kelly Wood stated that the letter was created by her cousin Reggie Wood for attention and book sales.

In early 2023, members of Malcolm X's family said they would file a $100 million wrongful death lawsuit against the CIA, the FBI, the NYPD and others for allegedly concealing evidence related to the assassination and for alleged involvement to it. The attorney representing the family is Benjamin Crump.
change_case:english_capital, combination:repeat_prompt