Malcolm X did not have to die. He could have avoided it. He chose not to. Then again, because one can’t imagine him choosing differently, perhaps he did have to die. Such a man as Malcolm simply could not do otherwise.
Malcolm’s assassination is awkward to fit into a political narrative. Martin Luther King was killed by a white racist, while Malcolm was killed by black members of the Nation of Islam. Malcolm spent his life antagonizing and condemning white America for its crimes against his people, yet he died at the hands of a fanatical cult and an egomaniacal leader. It seems at first such a useless, avoidable, death—if Malcolm was to be a martyr, why was this what ended him? King’s death feels inevitable, but meaningful, while Malcolm’s can seem frustrating, especially in light of the political evolution he was undergoing in his final year. Why could Malcolm not have lived to see his project through? How could Elijah Muhammed be so cruel and petty as to destroy such a singularly important individual? Malcolm had not had a chance to build a political legacy, having only left the Nation the year before his death. He survives mostly as a character rather than as a set of ideas or accomplishments. But it did not need to be that way. Did it?
Perhaps it did. Because Malcolm’s death was not absurd or inexplicable. He didn’t die in a freak accident or a random act of violence. He died because he told the truth, and wouldn’t stop telling the truth, even as it became clear that doing so would end his life. Like Socrates, he could not keep himself from asking dangerous questions. If anything, Malcolm becomes more admirable, and more interesting, because the particular truth he died for wasn’t the truth that he is most known for telling. He didn’t die because of his insistent honesty about race. He died because he applied that honesty beyond race, and questioned and criticized his own mentor. Malcolm did not just defy the authority of white America, but was committed to seeking the truth on every question.