Sometimes Even Conspiracy Theorists Have a Point

The exoneration of two men wrongly convicted of helping to murder Malcolm X is good news for the cause of justice. But it raises the question of why, until Netflix aired the series “Who Killed Malcolm X?” earlier this year, hardly anybody but a handful of scholars and biographers paid attention to the considerable body of evidence that Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam had been railroaded.

Even at the time of the assassination, there were those who insisted that the events that unfolded in the Audubon Ballroom in February 1965 had not been properly investigated. Even when it was revealed two decades later that an undercover police detective had witnessed the murder — a fact never disclosed to the defense — the nation shrugged and went on to the next story.