The film was written and directed by John Akomfrah, with co-writer Edward George, and produced by Lina Gopaul.
The film pays homage to the life and the legacy of the African-American activist Malcolm X through a series of narrations and dramatic reenactments.
The film begins with narration from Cocoa Fusco saying, "FBI report June 12, 1964; anonymous called at 1:40 says Malcolm X will be bumped off".
Then attorney William Kunstler says: "I met him just a week or so before he died at an airport and he told me that he had had a telephone call with Martin Luther King Jr. and they were going to meet and try to amalgamate their two forces...divide the country into north and south, Martin in the south and Malcolm in the north.
Then several people including filmmaker Spike Lee, cultural critic Greg Tate, and Professor of Law Patricia Williams speak of Malcolm X.
The narrator then reveals that Louise and Earl were members of Marcus Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association, formed in 1914 to promote unity among people of African descent.
This led to Louise losing her mind due to the stress of attempting to maintain their house, and eventually being placed in a mental institution, with Malcolm X and his siblings being sent to foster homes.
Robin Kelley, Professor in the Department of History at the University of Michigan, describes this as a period of darkness prior to the transformation to Islam, with that the zoot suit representing a political statement that Malcolm X was not willing to participate in the war or suggesting a sense of anti-patriotism.
Imam Benjamin Karim claims that after the neurosurgeon told Malcolm X that Johnson would live, he simply raised his hands and the crowd melted away.
Coco Fusco reads the FBI files, revealing that they now acknowledged that Malcolm X should be viewed as a key figure because of his extensive activity of Mosque No.
When broadcasters announced that President John F. Kennedy had died, Malcolm X stated that it was a case of "the chickens coming home to roost".
Elijah Muhammad told the members of the Nation of Islam that if Malcolm X came back to Chicago, they must only give him a job washing dishes.
The film goes on to explain how Gabriel Prasa joined the Nation of Islam, after discovering that he had been bombing Africans in the military.
A group of people came to him wanting to purchase weapons because they had a problem with Malcolm X. Malcolm X wrote to Yuri Kochiyama as he traveled around the world, and received a promise from the United Nations that they would address the mistreatment of Negroes as a human rights issue and not a civil rights issue.
According to Wilfred Little, Malcolm X was told on one of his trips that he had changed the image of Muhammad, he had caused people to sacrifice their money and their daughters, and that he was going to have to pay for his mistakes.