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.
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. 🙏🏽
Photographer: Richard Saunders. Richard Saunders Collection, Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library
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