Malcolm X, an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement, was shot multiple times and died from his wounds in Manhattan, New York City, on February 21, 1965, at the age of 39 while preparing to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in the neighborhood of Washington Heights.

Speculation about the assassination and whether it was conceived or aided by leading or additional members of the Nation, or by law enforcement agencies, particularly the FBI and CIA, has persisted for decades after the shooting.

[7][8] On June 8, FBI surveillance recorded a telephone call in which Betty Shabazz was told that her husband was "as good as dead".

"[15] The September 1964 issue of Ebony dramatized Malcolm X's defiance of these threats by publishing a photograph of him holding an M1 carbine while peering out of a window.

[16][17] On February 18, Malcolm X relayed in an interview that he was a "marked man", referring to his severed ties with the Nation and how it would ultimately be the reason for his demise.

[20] On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was preparing to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom when someone in the 400-person audience yelled, "Nigger!

"[21][22][23] As Malcolm X and his bodyguards tried to quell the disturbance,[A] a man rushed forward and shot him once in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun[24][25] and two other men charged the stage firing semi-automatic handguns.

[26] Les Payne and Tamara Payne, in their Pulitzer Prize–winning biography The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, claim that the assassins were members of the Nation of Islam's Newark, New Jersey, mosque: William 25X (also known as William Bradley), who fired the shotgun; Leon Davis; and Thomas Hagan (for a period known as Talmadge X Hayer).

[38] On November 18, 2021, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. exonerated Butler, now known as Muhammad Abdul Aziz, and Johnson, now known as Khalil Islam, of the crime.

It featured interviews with several people who worked with him, including A. Peter Bailey and Earl Grant, as well as the daughter of Malcolm X, Ilyasah Shabazz.

[50] For the funeral on February 27, loudspeakers were set up for the overflow crowd outside Harlem's thousand-seat Faith Temple of the Church of God in Christ,[51][52] and a local television station carried the service live.

[51][54] Actor and activist Ossie Davis delivered the eulogy, describing Malcolm X as "our shining black prince ... who didn't hesitate to die because he loved us so": There are those who will consider it their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee, even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of the history of our turbulent times.

"[61] The New York Post wrote that "even his sharpest critics recognized his brilliance‍—‌often wild, unpredictable and eccentric, but nevertheless possessing promise that must now remain unrealized.

"[62] The New York Times wrote that Malcolm X was "an extraordinary and twisted man" who "turn[ed] many true gifts to evil purpose" and that his life was "strangely and pitifully wasted.

[66] The Ghanaian Times likened him to John Brown, Medgar Evers and Patrice Lumumba, and counted him among "a host of Africans and Americans who were martyred in freedom's cause.

I could not agree with either of these men, but I could see in them a capacity for leadership which I could respect, and which was just beginning to mature in judgment and statesmanship.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.

[72][73] Earl Grant, one of Malcolm X's associates who was present at the assassination, later wrote:[74] [A]bout five minutes later, a most incredible scene took place.

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.

[85] In a 1993 speech, Farrakhan seemed to confirm that the Nation of Islam was responsible for the assassination: We don't give a damn about no white man law if you attack what we love.

[97] On November 15, 2024, the family of Malcolm X filed a civil lawsuit in Manhattan's federal district court claiming that the New York Police Department, the C.I.A., and the F.B.I.

The suit claims that the agencies knew about the assassination plot but failed to intervene, and exposed him further by arresting his bodyguards and intentionally removing officers from the ballroom before he was shot.

The suit also claims that, after the assassination, the agencies fraudulently concealed information from his family and hamstrung efforts to identify his killers.

[100][102] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said that the film "will stimulate discussion, but it won't shed any light on the [assassination] itself... To say Death of a Prophet takes liberties with the facts is an understatement, but the degree to which it does can be a bit irritating at times...

Still, the film manages to capture an essential truth—Malcolm X was perceived in some circles and our government as a dangerous man because of his eloquence, self-discipline and unswerving dedication to black liberation.

Producer Marvin Worth had acquired the rights to The Autobiography of Malcolm X in 1967, but the production had difficulties telling the entire story, in part due to unresolved questions surrounding the assassination.

[104] Who Killed Malcolm X?, a 2020 Netflix docuseries on the event, led to a review of the murder by the office of the Manhattan District Attorney.