February 21, 2024 is the 59th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. His life, political rhetoric, and death remain a growing source of misunderstanding about Black/White relations in the U.S. and even the global community. In recent years, much has been made of how two of the men convicted of his murder have been exonerated of the crime. The struggle to interpret this assassination 59 years later goes to the heart of an ideological battle between afro-pessmist and afro-idealist intellectual forces. Since the 1970s, afro-pessimist academics that construe Black people as victims have dominated American public discourse. The original “beloved community” espoused by leaders such as MLK and James Farmer Jr. has largely been pushed aside in favor of a more cynical discourse on race and even economic life in America.

Thomas Hagan has never denied his role in killing Malcolm X. He played a role in exonerating the other two men convicted of the killing. After serving more than 40 years for the murder, Hagan was released from a New York jail in 2010 that was now located on Malcolm X Boulevard. Malcolm X has come to represent the new pessimist path forward on race relations imagining that his aspirations for a more militant political praxis were the untried solution to anti-Black discrimination. In reality, Malcolm X was assassinated because of his conscious and deliberate movement away from the violent rhetoric of the Nation of Islam and toward a more moderate view of........

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