The annual Malcolm X Day Birthday Pilgrimage has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originally scheduled for May 19, this is the first year the event has been cancelled to the public since Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965. Every year mourners celebrate the civil rights leader by going to his gravesite at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, NY.
“The COVID-19 disease is a human-to-human contagious disease and there are too many important people in our struggle that make the pilgrimage over the years,” Dr. Leonard Jeffries said in a statement.