This Day in History:, Malcolm X Is Assassinated.
February 21, 1965.
Malcolm X was assassinated by rivals
of the Nation of Islam in New York City.
He had been addressing his Organization
of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon
Ballroom in Washington Heights.
Founded months earlier, the organization
advocated black identity and held that racism —
not whites — was the greatest foe of the African American.
The Nation of Islam advocated
Black nationalism and racial separatism.
Malcolm’s new movement steadily
gained followers, becoming increasingly
influential in the civil rights movement.
An estimated 30,000 mourners
attended his funeral in Harlem