Tag Archives: Black History

Remembering Malcolm X

Rare Photo of Malcolm X at the barbershop

February 21, 1965 | Entering the auditorium at last, Malcolm cried “As-salaam alaikum [Peace be unto you].” The audience replied in unison: “Wa-alaikum salaam [And unto you be peace].” Suddenly a disturbance broke out several rows back. “Get your hand off my pockets!” a man shouted. “Don’t be messing with my pockets!” At the distraction, Malcolm raised his hands. “Now brothers!” he cried, “Be cool, don’t get excited . . .”

As he spoke, three men rushed down the aisle toward him. Eight feet away, they opened fire. One man with a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun blasted Malcolm at point-blank range. “There was what sounded like an explosion,” said a dazed woman.

Malcolm X in prayer | Photographer unknown

Minutes after the shooting, Malcolm’s body was lifted from the stage, placed on a rolling bed that had been wheeled over from the nearby Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, and rushed to an emergency operating room. A team of doctors laid open his chest, tried to revive him via open-heart massage. But Malcolm X was dead.
[Excerpt from TIME]

Peace be unto his family. 🙏🏽

Malcolm X, wife Betty Shabazz, and daughters Attallah and Qubilah, circa 1962.
Photographer: Richard Saunders. Richard Saunders Collection, Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library