Gordon Belray
The Assassination of Malcolm X
2017 - revised 2021
72" x 52”
Archival print
It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That’s the only thing that can save this country.
February 19, 1965
Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965 at the Audubon Ballroom, Washington Heights, NYC, as he was about to deliver a speech introducing the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
The narrative compostion is assembled from manipulated archival photographs and film stills taken shortly after the assassination with the addition of subsequent crime scene photographs.
This is the final work in the tetralogy of modern American assassinations, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
the scene on the Audubon Ballroom stage shortly after the fatal shooting.
Malcolm X succumbs to gunshot wounds on the stage of the Audubon Ballroom.
Betty Shabazz, Malcolm's wife, weeps over his body while Yuri Kochiyama, a civil rights activist, supports his head, Sharon 6X Poole, undoing his tie, Richard Jones (kneeling), Joseph Reuben (standing right), William Bailey (standing left), Abdullah H. Abdur-Razzaq ? (kneeling front)..
Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun, a Sudanese Muslim scholar, Eugene Roberts (center doorway), an NYPD undercover agent, Lorrena ? (standing left), Sue Badger, Mae Mallory.
Malcolm X succumbs to gunshot wounds on the stage of the Audubon Ballroom.
Betty Shabazz, Malcolm's wife, weeps over his body while Yuri Kochiyama, a civil rights activist, supports his head.
2017 Version
