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History > USA > Civil rights > Malcolm X    1925-1965

 

Talmadge Hayer

(later Mujahid Abdul Halim)

 

Malcolm X’s confessed killer

 

 

 

 

Mujahid Abdul Halim,

also known as Talmadge Hayer,

was shot in the leg after the assassination.

He later confessed to the killing.

 

Photograph: John Lent

Associated Press

 

2 Men Convicted of Killing Malcolm X

Will Be Exonerated Decades Later

The 1966 convictions of the two men

are expected to be thrown out after a lengthy investigation,

validating long-held doubts about who killed the civil rights leader.

NYT

Nov. 17, 2021    Updated 12:37 p.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/
nyregion/malcolm-x-killing-exonerated.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mujahid Abdul Halim,

then named Talmadge Hayer,

struggled with police outside the ballroom

where Malcolm X was shot and killed.

 

Photograph: WCBS-TV NEWS, via Associated Press

 

56 Years Ago, He Shot Malcolm X.

Now He Lives Quietly in Brooklyn.

Mujahid Abdul Halim is the one man

who confessed to his role in the assassination.

He long insisted

that the two men convicted with him were innocent.

NYT

Nov. 22, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/
nyregion/malcolm-x-assassination-halim-hayer.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Talmadge Hayer

(later Mujahid Abdul Halim)

 

 

Thomas Hagan

(born March 16, 1941)

former member of the Nation of Islam

convicted for assassinating Malcolm X

in 1965.

 

For a while he also went

by the name Talmadge X Hayer,

and his chosen Islamic name is

Mujahid Abdul Halim.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hagan

 

 

 

For decades,

the killing of Malcolm X

has captivated the attention of scholars

with a critical question:

 

Were the wrong men convicted of the crime?

 

One of three men,

Mujahid Abdul Halim,

confessed at the 1966 murder trial.

 

But he also testified

that his co-defendants

Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam

were innocent

and that he knew, but would not name,

the actual assassins.

 

A decade later,

Mr. Halim gave two sworn affidavits

as part of an unsuccessful appeal

by Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam.

 

In the documents,

he named four other men

who he said took part in the assassination,

all members of a Nation of Islam mosque

in Newark.

 

He gave only partial names.

 

The review

by the Manhattan district attorney’s office

did not pin the crime on any other suspects.

 

But scholars have formed their own conclusions

about the identities and roles of the four men

identified by Mr. Halim, who previously went

by the name Talmadge Hayer.

 

It is widely believed

among experts on the assassination

that William Bradley,

a member of the Newark mosque

who once served time in prison

on charges that included

threatening to kill three people,

fired the first shotgun blast.

 

Mr. Halim identified

the man with the shotgun as William X.

 

Mr. Bradley denied any involvement

and died in 2018.

 

The historian Manning Marable,

who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning

biography of Malcolm X in 2011,

suspected that Mr. Bradley was probably

pulled into the assassination plot

by two other members

of the Newark mosque

whom Mr. Halim identified:

 

Leon Davis and Benjamin Thomas.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/18/
nyregion/malcolm-x-convictions

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/18/
nyregion/malcolm-x-convictions

 

 

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/08/19/
archives/malcolm-x-an-unfinished-story-confessed-murderer-malcolm-x.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 10, 1965

 

3 Nation of Islam members

are indicted in the killing.

 

Mujahid Abdul Halim,

a member of the Nation of Islam,

was arrested as he fled the ballroom.

 

(He was known as Talmadge Hayer

at the time and later as Thomas Hagan.)

 

Within two weeks,

two other men were arrested

and later indicted in the killing:

 

Muhammad Abdul Aziz

(formerly Norman 3X Butler)

and Khalil Islam

(also known as Thomas 15X Johnson).

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/18/
nyregion/malcolm-x-convictions

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/18/
nyregion/malcolm-x-convictions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Feb. 21, 1965,

Mr. Halim, who was then 23,

was apprehended after being shot in the thigh

in the aftermath of Malcolm X’s assassination.

 

News photographers

captured the chaotic scene

as he was carried on a gurney

into the emergency room in his underwear,

hands covering his face,

surrounded by police officers.

 

Mr. Aziz,

then known as Norman 3X Butler,

was arrested five days later,

and Mr. Islam, known

as Thomas 15X Johnson,

another five days after that.

 

Within a week,

the three Nation of Islam loyalists

had been charged with murder.

 

But while Mr. Halim confessed

on the witness stand to taking part

in one of the most consequential

and confounding political assassinations

in U.S. history,

he swore his fellow defendants were innocent.

 

Mr. Halim (...),

who was born Thomas Hagan,

served more than four decades in prison

for Malcolm X’s murder,

earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees

behind bars.

 

He was granted work-release in 1988

and was employed as a counselor

for young people and the homeless

in New York City.

 

He was paroled in 2010

after being rejected 16 times

and moved in with his family

in Brooklyn.


In a 1977 affidavit,

Mr. Halim said

he and four other men

with ties to a mosque in Newark, N.J.,

had decided to kill Malcolm X

because he was a “hypocrite”

who had “gone against

the leader of the Nation of Islam,”

Elijah Muhammad.

 

He said

Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam were not involved.
 

 

Mr. Halim said

that after one man shot Malcolm X

in the chest with a shotgun,

he and another man

fired several more rounds at him with handguns.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/
nyregion/mujahid-halim-malcolm-x.html

 

 

 

One man — Talmadge Hayer,

who later changed his name

to Mujahid Abdul Halim —

was wounded and arrested at the ballroom,

and within 10 days,

two other men had been arrested:

 

Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam,

then known as Norman 3X Butler

and Thomas 15X Johnson,

two members of the Nation of Islam’s

Harlem mosque.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/18/
nyregion/malcolm-x-convictions

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/
nyregion/malcolm-x-assassination-halim-hayer.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/17/
nyregion/mujahid-halim-malcolm-x.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/11/18/
nyregion/malcolm-x-convictions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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