Law and Disorder January 20, 2025

Malcolm X Shabazz et al. v. USAA groundbreaking legal case seeks justice for the family of most iconic civil rights leaders, Malcolm X. In an unprecedented lawsuit filed by his daughters, the Shabazz family is challenging the U.S. government, the City of New York, and several high-ranking law enforcement agencies. At the heart of the case is the claim that state actors, including the FBI and NYPD, played an active role in the assassination of Malcolm X on February 22, 1965, and that this involvement has been systematically covered up for decades.This suit, Malcolm X Shabazz et al. v. USA, not only seeks justice for the wrongful death of Malcolm X but aims to hold the government accountable for its complicity in the assassination.The case draws on newly uncovered evidence that links federal agencies to the events surrounding Malcolm X’s death, as well as the subsequent framing and wrongful conviction of two men who were exonerated in 2021. The legal team behind this case includes civil rights attorneys Benjamin Crump and G. Flint Taylor, and if successful, their argument could rewrite the historical narrative surrounding one of America’s tragic and significant moments. At the core of this case is the question: How deep was the state's involvement in silencing Malcolm X? Was the assassination part of a coordinated campaign by law enforcement agencies determined to prevent the rise of powerful Black leaders? The lawsuit raises profound questions about the government's role in suppressing movements for racial justice and civil rights, both in the past and in the present.Guest - Flint Taylor of the Peoples Law Office. Flint represented the family of Fred Hampton and revealed that the FBI and Chicago Police Department murdered him in 1969. Flint is an editor of the Police Misconduct Law Reporter and is author of The Torture Machine: Racism And Police Violence In Chicago.----A History Of Anti-Black RacismNational chauvinism and racism are essential features of fascism. The practice of white racism in the United States during the Jim Crow era was something that Hitler’s party in Germany studied and emulated. This kind of anti-black racism went on in the United States from shortly after the Civil War up until the 1960s. It has never really gone away as the mass mobilizations of the Black Lives Matter movement has recently demonstrated. This Black resistance, this fight back, will be a central aspect of anti-fascist activity in the future.Guest – Bill Mullen is professor emeritus of American studies at Purdue University and the co-founder of The Campus Anti-fascist Network. He’s also co-author of The Black Antifascist Tradition and his new book published last month We Charge Genocide: American Ashes and the Rule of Law.