Rally Commemorates Birthday of Slain Black Nationalist Leader Malcolm X

More than 1,000 people gathered Saturday at a Southwest Los Angeles park to commemorate the 65th birthday of slain black leader Malcolm X, organizers said.

The rally, organized by the African-American National Malcolm X Commemorative Committee, was held “to let people know we have not forgotten his striving” and to press legislators to declare the leader’s birthday a holiday, organizer Brian Breye said.

Bands played and speakers such as poet Sonya Sanchez and civil rights activist Marcus Garvey Jr. invoked the memory of Malcolm X, a member of the Nation of Islam and leader in the black nationalist movement who was killed in 1965.

Malcolm X overcame a prison record acquired in his teens to become a leader in the 1960s of the burgeoning Nation of Islam, a black American religious sect. He was shot to death in February, 1965, a short time after he publicly broke with Nation of Islam leadership over its strident anti-white message.