This Day in History: <br />Malcolm X Is Assassinated February 21, 1965 The African American nationalist <br />and religious leader was <br />assassinated by rival Black Muslims <br />of the Nation of Islam in New York City. He had been addressing <br />his Organization of Afro-<br />American Unity at the Audubon <br />Ballroom in Washington Heights. Founded just months earlier by Malcolm, <br />the organization advocated black identity <br />and held that racism — not the white race — <br />was the greatest foe of the African American. The Nation of Islam — from which <br />Malcolm X had separated before <br />his pilgrimage to Mecca — advocated <br />black nationalism and racial separatism. Malcolm’s new movement <br />steadily gained followers, <br />becoming increasingly influential <br />in the civil rights movement. An estimated 30,000 <br />mourners attended <br />his funeral in Harlem.
