Shooting of Malcom X - Book Report/Review Example

Full Assassination of Malcolm X 04/March The New York Times reported on 22nd February1965, that “Malcom X the 39-year-old leader of a militant Black Nationalist movement was shot to death yesterday afternoon at a rally of his followers in a ballroom in Washington Heights” under the headline, “Malcom X Shot to Death at Rally Here: Three Other Negroes Wounded - One is Held in Killing” (Kihss, 1965). The New York Times’ report on the assassination of Malcolm X can be considered as a stylistically presented unbiased description on the event.

Use of the word “Negros” to describe the African American ethnicity has been accustomed that time. Details of the event including the time, venue, participants, fusillade and the reactions of the people as well as the police statements, medical examiner’s report and the suspicions over the Black Muslims’ involvement had been described with details. Even the suspects address as retrieved from the F.B.I. records had been published in this article. The latter part of the article is devoted for describing the Black Muslims denying any involvement in the murder and the statements made by the associates who seemingly venerated Malcom X.

The article ends by describing how the police left the ballroom and cleaning women scrubbed the blood off from the stage preparing it for a scheduled ball dance. Another news article which was published in BBC regarding the same incident read as “Black nationalist leader shot dead.” The news highlight was “controversial black leader Malcolm X, who once called for a blacks-only state in the US, has been assassinated” (BBC, 1965). In this short report the author seemingly had been judgmental regarding the activities of Malcolm X and his reported associations with the Black Muslims extremist group.

Author had supported the idea that assassination of Malcolm X was planned by a group and described a previous murder to support this idea. This article did not report any statements from the witnesses or the followers of Malcolm X depicting the reluctance to praise his activities. Compared to the first article the second article lacks details regarding the crime. In contrary, the first article succeeded in arousing curiosity in readers’ mind, satisfying it with an ample amount of details and also brought the readers back into the present where Malcom X is no more.

ReferencesBBC. (1965, February 21). Black nationalist leader shot dead. BBC. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/21/Kihss, P. (1965, February 22). Malcom X Shot to Death at Rally Here. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/race/