There were over 40,000 pages of FBI documents of which only about half are currently available to scholars and researchers. I think that this 40th anniversary of the assassination is a good opportunity for us to say that now is the time to declassify all FBI material on Malcolm X. There really is a need for us to challenge the US government for its refusal to open up its own archives 40 years after the death of Malcolm.

Malcolm X had a habit of scribbling notes in small pieces of paper that [Alex] Haley would surreptitiously pick up at the end of their discussions.

Malcolm X is a person who has inspired - he has been the muse of several generations of black cultural workers, artists, poets, playwrights.

One of the striking things about doing research on Malcolm X, and I believe that most Malcolm X researchers could tell you their own stories, is that there's this paradox of the absence of critical information.

We know from Talmadge Hayer, one of the men who carried out the assassination, who was shot by Ruben X as he tried to flee the Audubon after shooting Malcolm X, we know that Hayer confessed years later to his Imam in prison that there had been a walk-through a week prior to February 21st [1965] at the Audubon Ballroom.

There's a hidden history. You see, Malcolm X and [Alex ] Haley collaborated to produce a magnificent narrative about the life of Malcolm X, but the two men had very different motives in coming together.

What is clear is that Malcolm X incorporated within the framework of black nationalism a pan-Africanist and internationalist perspective. In doing so, he began to reassess radically earlier positions sexism and patriarchy. He began to break with notions of sexism that he had long held as a member of the Nation of Islam, and began to advance and push forward women leadership in the OAAU.