FBI Opens File on Malcolm [X] Little — As a Communist !
An FBI Memorandum dated this day represented the opening of an FBI file on Malcolm Little as a suspected communist.
At the time, Malcolm was involved in a minor way with the Nation of Islam and had not yet adopted the name “Malcolm X.” The FBI memorandum clearly stated “Character of case: Security Matter-C,” indicating communist belief, association or activity. The memorandum then indicated “Security Matter-MCI,” Muslim Cult of Islam.
The document is available in Clayborne Carson, ed., Malcolm X: The FBI File (2012), pp. 97-103.
In the 1950s the FBI was still preoccupied with communism, and the Communist Party in particular, and did not take the Nation of Islam very seriously. That changed in the 1960s as the civil rights movement escalated and the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X in particular became more prominent in national affairs. The FBI’s notorious COINTELPRO program (for COunter INTELligencePROgram), which had been created in 1956 specifically to target and disrupt the Communist Party, in August 1967 added “Black Nationalist-Hate Groups” as a target.
Malcolm was paroled from prison in Massachusetts on August 7, 1952 and released to the custody of parole authorities in Michigan. He was living in Inkster, Michigan, when the FBI file was created. The evidence of Malcolm’s communist beliefs (there was no evidence or allegation of Communist Party affiliation) came from letters he wrote to friends, who evidently turned them over to the FBI. The FBI memorandum cited three letters Malcolm wrote to an acquaintance or friend who was apparently still in prison in Massachusetts in 1953 and who told the FBI. The FBI memorandum stated that the person told the FBI that Malcolm “had written two letters that included comments on Communism.” Notes written by the informant also stated that Malcolm stated that “he has always been a Communist.” The FBI files contain no verification of that claim.
It is evident from the FBI’s contact with the recipient of Malcolm’s letters that the Bureau had an extensive network of informants in the African-American community. By 1967, the Bureau had an estimated 3,000 such informants.
Read the new biography: Les Payne and Tamara Payne, The Dead Are Rising: The Life of Malcolm X (2021)
Read the great new book on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King: Peniel Joseph, The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King (2020)
Read: Clayborne Carson, ed, Malcolm X: The FBI File (2012)
Visit the Malcolm X Center in Omaha
Watch a compilation of Malcolm X speeches and interviews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9AmuYqjRyg
See the Spike Lee film: Malcolm X (1992)
Read the acclaimed biography: Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011)
Visit the Malcolm X Center in Omaha