A letter shared by the family of a deceased former New York police officer alleges that the officer, the New York City Police Department and the FBI played a role in the murder of the powerful civil rights leader Malcolm X. The outspoken antiracism activist and former spokesman for the Nation of Islam died on February 21, 1965, after being shot while delivering remarks at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.
Ray Wood, a former undercover police officer, wrote in a newly released confession letter that the NYPD and FBI worked with him to make sure the two men in charge of Malcolm X’s security detail were arrested in the days before the speech.
Ray Wood first shared his confession with family when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 2011. At the time, he asked his cousin, Reggie, not to share the letter until after he died. Ray Wood died in November, and Reggie Wood shared his cousin’s confession publicly on Saturday, flanked by a group that included Malcolm X’s daughters, Qubiliah Shabazz, Ilyasah Shabazz and Gamilah Shabazz, and civil rights attorneys Benjamin Crump, Ray Hamlin and Paul Napoli.
“For 10 years, I have carried this confession secretly in fear of what could happen to my family and myself if the government found out what I knew,” Reggie Wood said Saturday.
Ray Wood confessed that he, the NYPD and the U.S. government all made sure Malcolm X wasn’t adequately protected from assassination during his final speech. “I participated in actions that in hindsight were deplorable and detrimental to the advancement of my own, Black people,” Wood said.
