This post was originally
published April 28, 2010. I am
re-posting and amending it today, in honor of the 50th Anniversary
of Malcolm X’s assassination, later this week, Saturday, February 21st,
2015.
Many of us are aware of
the lore of Malcolm X. We know he was for
a time a street hustler from Omaha Nebraska. Born Malcolm
Little, he refined his hustle on the mean streets of New York and Boston.
By age 13, his father had died; his mother institutionalized. He
subsequently spent time in several foster homes while growing up.
Malcolm, who would become
one of America’s “No last name required” legends, evolved from practitioner of
petty street crimes to a member, and ultimately the foremost advocate, of the Nation
of Islam (NOI). After more than a decade as the firebrand public
face of the NOI, Malcolm broke ranks with the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad (Elijah Poole), the leader of the NOI. The
ensuing rift between these two men resulted in Malcolm leaving the NOI and
affiliating with the orthodox Sunni Muslims.
After this split, there
emerged a part of the lore that many people missed. Malcolm, in short order,
made a Hajj
(Pilgrimage to Mecca), changed his name again, this time to
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, and perhaps most important, renounced racism. On
February 21, 1965, 11 months after leaving the NOI, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz was assassinated while
giving a speech in the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan.
Enter Thomas Hagan!
Yesterday, the New York
State Department of Correctional Services paroled Thomas Hagan. He left the Lincoln Correctional Facility at 11:00
a.m. Ironically, the facility is located at the corner of West 110th Street and
Malcolm X Boulevard. Why is this ironic, you may ask? The biting irony lies in
the coincidence that Mr. Hagan, known in 1965 as Talmadge X Hayer, is the lone
“admitted” gunman involved in the slaying of Malcolm X. That Hagan should spend
his final days of confinement in a facility on the corner of a street
named for his victim is cruelly coincidental. To put the matter into even
sharper focus, the nexus ties his freedom portal directly back to the man he
murdered, and whose death resulted in his 44-year incarceration.
In many ways, Hagan being
released yesterday was simply the culmination of events long underway. In fact,
Mr. Hagan had been in a Work Release program since 1992 (18 years) that allowed
him to spend five days a week at home in Brooklyn with his family, and required
that he spend two days a week only at the minimum-security Lincoln
Correctional Facility.
Thomas Hagan became
eligible for parole in 1984. Last month he went before the parole board for the
15th time. After 14 rejections, the now 69 year-old Hagan finally gained
approval for his release. He is still on parole, but
will return to his family, and continue his efforts to become a substance
abuse counselor.
Hagan’s journey has been well
chronicled, and more than a little interesting. He was part of a group of three
NOI members who shot and killed Malcolm. He was, however, the only one of the
three apprehended on the spot. He was also the only person who ever confessed
and pled guilty for his role in the assassination. According to transcripts
from his March 3, 2010 hearing before the parole board, he said, “I have deep
regrets about my participation in that. I don’t think it should ever have
happened.”
In one of the more
interesting developments of the case, two other suspects were also convicted in
the killing. Both of them, Muhammad Abdul Aziz and Kahlil
Islam, denied involvement. Of course, that is not the
interesting part. For a suspect to declaring his innocence is an every day
occurrence. Being convicted, in spite of their declarations is common as well.
This scenario departed from the beaten path when Hagan, while admitting his own
guilt, testified that Aziz and Islam were not with him, were not a part of the
plan, and in fact were innocent.
All three were convicted
and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. Aziz was paroled in 1985; Islam was
freed in 1987. Both maintained they were
innocent from the start. At every step in the process, from the trial
throughout his 15 appearances for hearings before the parole board, Hagan
admitted his personal guilt, and consistently maintained the other two men were
innocent. The catch, if there was one, is that three men were involved in
killing Malcolm. Hagan admitted his own involvement, and even conceded there
were two other men involved, just not Aziz and Islam. I am left to infer that
either the parole board did not believe him, or they elected to continue
punishing him for refusing to roll over on his real co-conspirators.
No matter how you look at
it, there is a lot about this part of the case that begs numerous questions.
For example, what are the odds that if Hagan had two co-conspirators, witnesses
at the Audubon Ballroom mistakenly identified, Aziz and Islam, who apparently
were there, and they could not have extricated themselves by identifying
the other parties? Why would Hagan take the fall for Aziz and Islam? If Aziz
and Islam were in fact innocent, why would Hagan not identify the actual
culprits?
Of course, there are other
equally compelling queries, but that will do for our purposes. There has long
been an undercurrent of rumor and innuendo implicating NOI, in general,
and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in particular, in Malcolm’s murder. Malcolm
had deeply revered Elijah Muhammad, due to the role of his teachings in
motivating Malcolm to turn his life around.
Yet, when Malcolm learned that the Prophet, as Muhammad was known, had
father 8 children by six different teenage girls, he began to distance himself
from the NOI’s leader. There are those who also theorize a step further
that the current NOI Leader, the Honorable
Louis Farrakhan, may have been involved directly or indirectly,
I am not a detective; nor
am I writing this post to solve a cold case. In taking just a cursory look at
the matter, however, one could certainly see how individuals close to the
situation might have been encouraged, incentivized, induced, threatened, or
otherwise persuaded to recall specific details differently, or not at all. This
matter has garnered some of the same kind of mystique as that of President
John F. Kennedy and Dealey Plaza (the grassy knoll legend),
and as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Lorraine Motel. One marked distinction in
those two cases is that conspiracy theorists have been trying to establish for
over 40 years that Lee Harvey Oswald and
James Earl Ray did not act alone; while we know Talmadge X Hayer (Thomas Hagan) did not. We
are just uncertain who acted as his accomplices.
As with Kennedy and King,
other theories emerged. To be considered an icon, one must certainly be the
source of more than one legend. Obviously Malcolm emerged as a change agent at
a time of great social travail, and national strife. As a black leader, he was
alleged to have been constantly under the watchful eye of the enigmatic J.
Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Back in the day, the
agency was widely believed to have infiltrated all major black organizations,
including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),
the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPPSD),
and even the NOI, as well as numerous others. The alleged purposes for these
infiltrations were basic, to keep tabs on the plans and activities of the
groups and their leaders, but also to sow seeds of confusion, clamor, and
chaos. If in the process of so doing, one or more of the leaders happened to
get taken out, even better, or so the theory goes.
After
Malcolm left the Nation of Islam in March 1964, agents pondered the prospect of
a depoliticized more religious Malcolm, but they still perceived him as a
threat. On June 5, 1964, J. Edgar Hoover sent a telegram to the FBI's New York
office that simply and plainly instructed, "Do something about Malcolm X
enough of this black violence in NY."
During
Malcolm’s era, in New York, the strategic operations of the FBI were frequently
complemented by, if not coordinated with the New York City Police. As a result, the actions of the police on the
day of Malcolm’s assassination were pointedly unusual. Normally, up to two-dozen police officers
were assigned to his rallies. On
February 21, 1965, just one week after his home had been fire bombed, none were
assigned at the entrance of the Audubon Theater.
In
retrospect, we may wonder what that something was, ultimately. We do not know, with certainty. However, what we do know is what subsequently
happened to him. Perhaps…the Honorable
Elijah Muhammad was simply a foil.
So, on April 27, 2010, Thomas
Hagan gained a measure of freedom. By stepping out of prison, and into his
future, he begins to reconstruct what is left of his life. He has been out of
the game, at least in some part, more than four decades. It is difficult, at
least for me, to avoid wondering what might be different had Malcolm been here
to spend those decades, working in his own way, to retool America, and to
reshape “We
the People,” who live here. Because of his central role in
Malcolm’s absence, “Thomas Hagan, AKA Talmadge X Hayer, is Someone You ShouldKnow!”
I’m done; holla back!
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