Malcolm X was assassinated in New York on February the 21st 1965. Just prior to his murder he had been sent a series of nine questions about his life, faith, and hope for the future by the Director General of the Islamic Centre of Geneva. Malcolm responded with “incisive and candid written responses” and his answer to the final question posed was typed up on the morning of February 21, 1965, hours before his death.
“It is, to the best of my knowledge, the final document written by Malcolm X;” writes lecturer, Ali Hammoud a doctoral candidate from Western Sydney University, where his ‘research interests are broadly centred around Islamic intellectual history’ and according to Ali, Malcom X had visited Gaza in 1964, a trip that was to inspire his written piece on Zionism and also demonstrated his view that Zionism was not only a threat to Palestine but to the wider Third World,”
According to the official website of Malcolm X, he was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. The murder of his father in 1931, followed by the deterioration of his mother’s mental health led Malcolm and his siblings to go into foster care which was to later see him become involved in Boston’s criminal underworld and entrenched in the “Black mecca” lifestyle of New York City’s Harlem. He was eventually arrested and convicted on burglary charges, sentenced to 10 years in prison but paroled after seven years that were utilised in furthering his education. (source)
Malcolm X had become intrigued in a religious organisation “the Nation of Islam (NOI)” where the leader of the organisation Elijah Muhammad taught him that white society actively worked to keep African-Americans from empowering themselves and achieving political, economic and social success.
When paroled in 1952, Malcolm ditched the subanem “Little” considering it a slave name and chose to use his new surname “X” instead to signify his lost tribal name and due to his intelligence the articulate Malcolm X was appointed minister and national spokesman for the NOI and utilised newspaper columns, radio and television to communicate the NOIs message across the United States. (source)
Malcolm X was to find himself surrounded by crowds and controversy, at a time where racial tensions ran increasingly high he became a media magnet and also featured in a week-long television special in 1959, called The Hate That Hate Produced . By now he had also captured the government’s attention, subsequently, FBI agents infiltrated the organisation (one even acted as Malcolm’s bodyguard) and secretly placed bugs, wiretaps, cameras and other surveillance equipment to monitor the group’s activities. (source)
A pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia proved life altering for him as for the first time, Malcolm shared his thoughts and beliefs with different cultures, and found the response to be overwhelmingly positive. On his return he said he had met “blonde-haired, blued-eyed men I could call my brothers.” He returned to the United States with a new outlook on integration and a new hope for the future. This time when Malcolm spoke, instead of just preaching to African-Americans, he had a message for all races.
Undercover FBI informants working in the NOI warned officials that Malcolm had been marked for assassination and according to his biography, one undercover officer had even been ordered to help plant a bomb in Malcolm’s car. Due to repeated attempts on his life, he rarely traveled anywhere without bodyguards. (source)