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Who Killed Malcolm X?
Available on Netflix SA
4/5
Netflix’s new six-part documentary sees film maker Abdur-Rahman Muhammad decide to do his own investigation into the assassination of US civil rights and religious figure Malcolm X in 1965.
Malcolm X’s case has been cold – yes cold, not solved – for 55 years. The fiery orator and now pop culture icon was assassinated by four assailants. Three men were apprehended, but one refuted the involvement of the others and claimed that his actual accomplices, four other men, escaped.
What is impressive is that the findings made through this project provided enough new insights to get this historical case reopened and investigated by the same team that exonerated the Central Park Five. Intrepid investigator Muhammad manages to unearth the story that shaped Malcolm X into the man he became.
We know his to be the volatile flip side of the turn-the-other-cheek approach adopted by such loved black icons as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. He was exceedingly more militant in that his quest for justice and equality would be waged “by any means necessary”.
Seeing how he was a thug before finding the teachings of Islam in jail, and hearing about his father dying as a result of a brutal lynch killing when X was a child, provides quite a bit of perspective.
The narrative is carefully fitted on to black and white imagery of X at school, his mug shot and, of course, video footage, albeit grainy, of some of his prolific speeches.
What it does do well, as any good piece in this genre should, is raise questions. Who are these other men? Who else helped arrange the death of Malcolm X?
X’s connection with political and religious movement Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad is explored. X was a once-favoured son of the Nation of Islam, but lost stock in the regime rapidly when his connection with Muhammad became strained. Muhammad is attributed with bringing Islam as a school of thought to black Americans. He became a wealthy man in his position as the father of this movement and so did his family, some of whom had disdain for X.
There’s also a segment dedicated to blatant efforts by then US President J Edgar Hoover’s FBI and other agencies to monitor Malcolm X’s movements.
Footage of Norman Butler and Thomas Johnson, the two Muslim men wrongfully charged with participating in the murder of X, is also inserted into the story. Johnson died, but they get Butler in for a sit-down, which is laudable research work. He served 20 years for this crime.
