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CounterPunch Exclusives

Malcolm X, Noam Chomsky, Sexual Predator Associations and Legacy Twists

Elijah Muhammad standing behind microphones at podium / World Telegram & Sun photo by Stanley Wolfson.

“An extraordinary and twisted man, turning many true gifts to evil purpose. . . . Malcolm X had the ingredients for leadership, but his ruthless and fanatical belief in violence . . . set him apart from the responsible leaders of the civil rights movement and the overwhelming majority of Negroes.” —New York Times, February 22, 1965 (one day after Malcolm X’s assassination) “Malcolm X had been a pimp, a cocaine addict and a thief. He was an unashamed demagogue. His gospel was hatred. —Time, March 5, 1965 “I can assure you he [Noam Chomsky] is not as passive or gullible as his wife claims. He knew about Epstein’s abuse of children. They all knew. And like others in the Epstein orbit, he did not care. . . . His association with Epstein is a terrible and, to many, unforgivable stain. It irreparably tarnishes his legacy.” — Chris Hedges, “Noam Chomsky, Jeffrey Epstein and the Politics of Betrayal,” February 8, 2026

“An extraordinary and twisted man, turning many true gifts to evil purpose. . . . Malcolm X had the ingredients for leadership, but his ruthless and fanatical belief in violence . . . set him apart from the responsible leaders of the civil rights movement and the overwhelming majority of Negroes.”

—New York Times, February 22, 1965 (one day after Malcolm X’s assassination)

“Malcolm X had been a pimp, a cocaine addict and a thief. He was an unashamed demagogue. His gospel was hatred.

“I can assure you he [Noam Chomsky] is not as passive or gullible as his wife claims. He knew about Epstein’s abuse of children. They all knew. And like others in the Epstein orbit, he did not care. . . . His association with Epstein is a terrible and, to many, unforgivable stain. It irreparably tarnishes his legacy.”

— Chris Hedges, “Noam Chomsky, Jeffrey Epstein and the Politics of Betrayal,” February 8, 2026

Malcolm X was far more deeply involved with a sexual predator—his superior, Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI)—than Noam Chomsky was involved with Jeffrey Epstein. However, Malcolm X’s association with Muhammad has had virtually no effect on Malcolm’s legacy, which has skyrocketed among the general public since his death.

In “This American Life: The Making and Remaking of Malcolm X” (New Yorker, 2011), David Remnick writes, “In 1992, Spike Lee set off a bout of ‘Malcolmania,’ with his three-hour-plus film. In its wake, people as unlikely as Dan Quayle talked sympathetically about Malcolm. . . . Bill Clinton wore an ‘X’ cap.” In 1999, 34 years after Malcolm X’s 1965 assassination (which at the time was applauded by most of U.S. society), the U.S. post office issued a Malcolm X stamp. This elevation, for labor and socialist activist Ike Naheem (“To the Memory of Malcolm X: Fifty Years After His Assassination,” 2015), has unfortunately come at the expense of Malcolm X being: “transformed by ‘mainstream’ forces into a harmless icon, with his sharp revolutionary anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist political program diluted and softened,” which for Naheem, “is a travesty of the actual Malcolm X and his actual political and moral trajectory.”

What about Malcolm X’s deep association with Elijah Muhammad? Malcolm X’s biographer, Manning Marable, concludes Malcolm should have known that Muhammad was a sexual predator well before Malcolm publicly acknowledged it, however, he stayed in denial because of powerful psychological forces. Marable was a great admirer of Malcolm, but his love for him does not prevent Marable from being highly critical of Malcolm’s flaws and blind spots:

“Yet the central irony of Malcolm’s career was that his critical powers of observation, so important in fashioning his dynamic public addresses, virtually disappeared in his mundane evaluations of those in his day-to-day personal circle.” —Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011)

“Yet the central irony of Malcolm’s career was that his critical powers of observation, so important in fashioning his dynamic public addresses, virtually disappeared in his mundane evaluations of those in his day-to-day personal circle.” —Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (2011)

The initial psychological attractiveness for Malcolm X to Elijah Muhammad’s NOI is understandable, as it validated Malcolm’s feelings about the illegitimacy of white authority, offered him a strong community, and provided the previously criminal and selfish Malcolm with a spiritual path to care about something larger than himself. Malcolm put all his trust and faith in Elijah Muhammad; however, no different than Epstein, Muhammad was not only a sexual predator but a consummate exploiter of people, and he used Malcolm X’s charisma, speaking talents, and organizing skills to greatly expand his power.

Ultimately, Malcolm X publicly acknowledged that Elijah Muhammad was sexually involved with several young NOI secretaries and had fathered children with them. The African American Historical Society reports that Elijah Muhammad “impregnated seven women, including several of his teenage secretaries, and fathered thirteen children outside of his marriage.”

When should Malcolm X have known that Elijah Muhammad was a sexual predator? When did Malcolm acknowledge it to himself, and when did he acknowledge it to the world? What psychological forces kept Malcolm in denial, and then what political forces did Malcolm have to........

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