Malcolm X, A Man Wrongfully Assassinated

Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali

In the late 1950s, the United States has been an excellent field for the deployment of subversive actions against Washington. The post-war American society experienced many problems filled with very different and complex contradictions.

Perhaps the most acute in the post-war United States was the problem of the social and political position of black Americans, now commonly known as African-Americans. It was the harsh war years that gave African-Americans every reason to demand the same rights that white Americans had.

Black-Americans did not understand why despite had gone through the whole war, fought with the Japanese, Germans, Italians, yet, were deprived of elementary civil rights. In addition, the rise of the anti-colonial movement on the African continent has been very encouraging to African-Americans.

It seemed strange that in Ghana or Kenya Africans get all political rights, but in the United States of America, they remain second-rate people. In the USA, a mass movement began against segregation, from which less numerous, but more active and radical African-American political groups soon began to separate.

They were unhappy with their mediocre life. In their opinion, African Americans need to act more decisively, to follow the example of their counterparts in yesterday’s African colonies. Black radicals offered to completely isolate themselves from white Americans, to preserve and develop African identity.

Many of them were so negative about the white civilization that they even rejected Christianity, which was considered the religion of white Americans, and converted to Islam. Since the early 1960s, Muslim Nation religious and political movement gained significant popularity, joined by many emblematic figures of the African-American community, including Malcolm Little, who became known as Malcolm X and adopted the Muslim name al-Haj Malik al-Shabazz.

The year 1964 became a turning point in the life of boxer Cassius Clay when he accepted Islam and became Muhammad Ali. He met Malcolm X, with whom they became very close friends. But at that time, despite the fact that they were both Muslims, they were in a racist "Islamic" sect called the Nation of Islam.

The friendship between Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali ended after Malcolm set off on a hajj to Mecca and on a trip to Africa and the Middle East. In Mecca, he felt an extraordinary feeling of delight, seeing how a multilingual crowd of people gathered at the hajj from various parts of the world, jointly appealed to the One God, for whom everyone is equal, regardless of color and social status.

Seeing the brotherhood in Islam, how people of different races and nationalities pray in the same row, and that Islam is alien to all this, he revised all his views on his life. He refused once and for all from the ideas of black racism and embarked on the path of Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jamaa.

Malcolm X’s enduring major changes were not, however, accepted by Elijah Mohammed, the leader of the Nation of Islam sect. After leaving Elijah Mohammed, Muhammad Ali had to choose whose position to support. In the end, he remained with Elijah Muhammed, expressing his public support.

Kwame Nkrumah sits by Malcolm X at the American Committee on Africa rally in Harlem 1960

Ali broke with Malcolm X after his second fight with Sonny Liston. Having met at the airport of Ghana in Accra, the boxer did not respond to the greeting of Malcolm X. Without shaking Malcolm’s hand, Muhammad Ali said to Malcolm X that "it was wrong to leave Elijah."

In 1965, during one of his speeches, Malcolm X was killed by supporters of the Nation of Islam sect. After his death, Muhammad Ali said that Malcolm was his friend, "as long as he remained a supporter of the Nation of Islam."

It is noteworthy that Muhammad Ali himself came out of this Nation of Islam years later, realizing their delusion. The same thing happened with one of the alleged killers of Malcolm X, called Khalil Islam. While in prison, also renounced the sect and became Ahlu Sunna al Jamaa.