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Today, 50 Years Later, Shotgun Assassin of Malcolm X, William Bradley, Freely Walks the Streets of Newark.

William Bradley (aka Al-Mustafa Shabazz), shotgun assassin of Malcolm X.

SEE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ARTICLE HERE

Today, February 21th, 2015, marks the 50th year of the murder of Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz), and disgracefully his chief assassin, now known to the world as William Bradley (aka Al-Mustafa Shabazz), walks the streets of Newark, N.J. a free man. Many people are looking for answers which explain this appalling affront to justice and the legacy of Malcolm X. There is a simple answer; a collective failure on all our part to care enough about justice for Malcolm, and failing to demand the government track down and prosecute his killers decades ago. But that is now water under the bridge, it is not too late.

Ultimately responsibility rests squarely with the government, which even at this late hour refuses to release tens of thousands of documents related to the assassination of Malcolm X. Many people are understandably incensed at the very notion of William Bradley (Al-Mustafa Shabazz) strolling around town in his Mercedes-Benz and living in his beautiful gated home, but there is something we CAN do.

It must be remembered that there is no statute of limitations on murder! Right now our communities must channel their fury into the mobilization of petition drives and direct action to pressure the New York County District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, Jr. to reopen the investigation and ultimately arrest Bradley. This is what must be done, scholars and historians will sort the details out later.

Cyrus Vance Jr. (212) 335 – 9000

Justice for Trayvon Martin Rally, Wash. DC, 3/24/12

This rally for Trayvon Martin was organized four ordinary women – Meagan Goffney, Maliaka Mealy, Heather Rasberry, and Yolanda Carr – who put it together in only a week. They expected around 25 people to show up but instead got about 5000! People are furious about this atrocity and judging from the discussions I’ve been having, an arrest better come soon!

Scenes from the MLK Dedication, Oct. 16, 2011

 

My son and I had a great time at the MLK Memorial dedication this past Sunday on the Washington, DC mall. The weather couldn’t have been any better, and the people were as friendly as could be. But one should not compare this gathering in any way to the 1963 March on Washington, either in crowd numbers or in racial composition. This thing was about 98.5 percent African-American, but everyone there enthusiastically celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.  It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning with your family on a perfectly sunny fall day. Enjoy the pictures.

 

New York Times Article on Malcolm X Investigation

Alvin Sykes, the man leading the effort to get William Bradley indicted and convicted for the murder of Malcolm X

The drumbeat to bring William Bradley to justice has only just begun. Although we face an uphill battle, as this NY Times article makes clear, nevertheless I feel confident that we as a nation will put this man in jail.

The death of Malcolm X, shot dead at the Audubon Ballroom in Upper Manhattan in 1965, never inflamed
the public imagination in the same way the assassinations of John F. Kennedy
and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did. But scholars have long believed
that a bungled investigation resulted in the imprisonment of the innocent and
allowed some of those responsible to go free. Over the decades, efforts to
reopen the case have failed.

Now a best-selling biography has helped to renew calls for a full investigation. But
this time they may well gain traction because the legal environment has
changed: prosecutors in the South have demonstrated that it is possible to
pursue and win cases that are decades old and, as a byproduct, they have made
the failures of the police in the civil rights era abundantly clear.

At the same time, news has emerged that the man long suspected of having fired the
shot that killed Malcolm X but who was never arrested is living in Newark under
a different name.

“Time is running out; these guys are very old,” said Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a graduate student at Howard University who first published the identity of
the Newark man on his blog and was a source for the biography’s
author, Manning Marable. “I wanted justice to be done, and I knew that Dr.
Marable wanted justice to be done.”

Dr. Marable, a historian at Columbia University, died days before the
publication of the book, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.”

The effort to reopen the case has attracted the attention of the
nation’s most persistent advocate of civil rights-era justice, Alvin Sykes of
Kansas City, Mo. Mr. Sykes was instrumental in the reopening of the
investigation into the killing of Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955 and in
persuading Congress to allocate millions of dollars to the investigation of
civil rights cold cases. Mr. Sykes has asked both the Justice Department and, this
week, the New York State attorney general “to conduct the most comprehensive
and credible search by the government for the truth concerning Malcolm X’s
assassination.”

One Year Since World Learned Who Really Killed Malcolm X; Time to Sue Has Expired.

William Bradley aka Al-Mustafa Shabazz, Shotgun Assassin of Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz)

Yesterday, April 22, 2011. marked the one year anniversary of the world first learning of  the true identity of the murderer of Malcolm X, a man whose name has now gone down in infamy, that of William Bradley (aka Al-Mustafa Shabazz) of Newark, New Jersey. This is very significant because the statute of limitations on libel in New Jersey is one year, which expired yesterday, making it impossible for Bradley to ever sue me for exposing him to the world. He can never legally say I lied about him or that he is not who I said he is. His dastardly act is now part of the public record and infamy is stamped upon him wherever he goes.

Truth be told, Bradley had no grounds to sue anyone anyway because his name has been part of the public record for decades. If he was going to sue anyone for libel, he would have had to have done it when his name first appeared in the scholarly literature, which of course he never did.  That is why despite all the huffing and puffing from his wife about “not taking this sitting done”; that is precisely what they are doing, sitting down and hoping this goes away. But that’s impossible now because Bradley’s camouflage has been completely blown off, and his every waking hour is lived with the knowledge that we all know who he is. Bradley is a pariah in decent society and an offense in the African-American community. If it is true that he’s repented of this fiendish act in accordance with the Islamic faith (as some have tried to argue), then let him seek the forgiveness of Malcolm’s family, which has experienced a long trail of misery as the result of his demise. Let Bradley come out from behind his wife and own up to what he has done by turning himself in. Of course no one expects this will happen.

And finally, let me say it has been quite a struggle this past year getting the mainstream media to pick up on the story. They were afraid of being sued or just not interested. But with the passing of Dr. Marable they understood that history was being made and went into a frenzy to be a part of it. This then is the tremendous legacy of Manning Marable, that by being a Columbia professor he elevated the story in a way that I simply could not. I recognized that fact early on and so disclosed to him Bradley’s identity without reservation or regret. It is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life. Dr. Marable and myself understood the huge historical significance of this explosive material and weren’t about to let jealousy or envy get in the way of sharing it with our people. I only wish some of the other scholars out there, the haters, felt the same way.

Reporter Amy Ellis Nutt, Writer of William Bradley Assassin Story, Wins Pulitzer Prize.

 This past week Newark Star Ledger reporter Amy Ellis Nutt, who wrote the explosive story on William Bradley, the shotgun assassin of Malcolm X, won the Pulitzer Prize in journalism for a story she did last year. My congratulations go out to her, and I’m looking forward to reading all the interesting nuggets she’s turning up about Bradley for her future reporting. Folks, lets just say that the walls are closing in on William Bradley (Al-Mustafa Shabazz). It is my firm belief that when this is all over with, this story will earn for Amy her second Pulitzer Prize. Let’s all stay turned.

Calls For Investigation of William Bradley, Shotgun Assassin of Malcolm X, Have Begun.

 

 After two weeks since the release of Manning Marable’s biography of Malcolm X, the calls for the case to be reopened have now begun.

 

Mary Sanchez
The Kansas City Star

“The full force of the blast perforated the chest, cutting into ‘the thoracic cavity, the left lung, pericardium, heart, aorta, right lung.'”

Medically, this is how Malcolm X died, according to the new book “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” by Manning Marable.

But who fired the shotgun?

The last of Malcolm X’s three convicted assassins was paroled last year, which might seem like odd timing for questions about guilt.

But Marable’s painstakingly researched book contends some of the wrong men did time for the killing. It’s indisputable that there were several shooters.

Marable, who died days before his book’s release last week, believed a man who was never charged fired the fatal shot. And he also believed that one man who served time wasn’t even at the New York ballroom where Malcolm X died.

It’s likely the dogged pursuits of Kansas City-based legal sleuth Alvin Sykes will be involved if anything new is proved about the conspiracy-laden 1965 murder.

Sykes is responsible for a federal bill that created a unit in the Department of Justice to prosecute old civil rights era murders.

He’s requesting the Malcolm X case be reviewed and/or investigated.

Sykes enjoys tracking splinters of information as much as he covets time to ferret out arcane pieces of legal language. I’ve known him for 20 years.

Never once has he cited a federal code, a court citation, a snippet of newly unearthed evidence that I couldn’t verify.

Marable’s work includes new interviews, source documents and theories long bantered about, but never fully denied or proved. Malcolm X’s death has long been shrouded by the dealings of that era: informants, infighting among black militants, power struggles within the Nation of Islam and allegations of lackluster handling of the initial investigation.

Sykes is already at work contacting Department of Justice officials, combing legal sources to see how jurisdiction can be established and tapping networks to connect with Malcolm X’s children for their support in pressing the new leads.

The work will also help Sykes continue questioning how the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act is being implemented. It was a huge achievement when he got it passed in 2008. But that’s a moot point if more cases aren’t carefully chosen for attention and then pursued fully.

Those who argue it’s best to leave the past dead and buried tend to discount how unsolved murders — or clouded cases such as this — chase the living through the descendants of the murdered, the accused, the never fully exonerated.

Rarely are these old civil rights cases as simplistic as people wish to believe. Their nuances often challenge how we’d like to recount history.

And sometimes, it seems the truth simply won’t let itself be known until a proper amount of time has passed.

Dr. Manning Marable Has Died at the Age of 60.

It is with sadness that I must announce the passing of Professor Manning Marable of Columbia University, who succumbed this afternoon to pneumonia after undergoing a double lung transplant a few months back.  As most of the readers of this blog probably know, I had a warm relationship with the professor and collaborated with him on a number of projects, not the least of which is his long-awaited nearly 600 page biography entitled Malcolm X:  A Life of Reinvention, due to hit the bookshelves Monday.  Sadly, Manning didn’t get to see the response to his life’s work, or the opportunity to expound upon and defend it. Our prayers go out to his family, and he is survived by his wife, Leith Mullins, his children, Malaika Marable-Serrano, 36, and twins Joshua Marable and Sojourner Grimmet, both 35, along with three grandchildren and two step children.

Black Scholar Dr Ron Walters Dead, 72.

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Dr. Ron Walters, an extraordinary political analyst, activist, and scholar, who succumbed to cancer on Sept 10th at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda Md. I remember Prof. Walters fondly from my undergraduate days at  Howard University where he taught political science. Of his many accomplishments, he was the driving force behind Rev. Jesse Jackson’s historic 1984 run for the presidency and the author of 10 books. I last saw him in Jan, 2009 at a book signing here in Washington, DC which I wrote about briefly. He will be greatly missed.