Goofs

Eli Goree's (Cassius Clay) bathrobe switches from closed to the left to closed to right many times between shots after he gets out of the pool.

At the time 0:30:13 when Malcolm is taking a picture of Muhammad Ali in the Box ring with a lubitel camera, all the characters are in reverse position that is correct because of the structure of this kind of cameras, but Muhammad Ali himself is seen as the same figure as we saw him seconds ago and still is shaking his left hand, and the left side of his towel is upper than the right side as it was before the camera seen.

One of the significant conflicts in the film is Malcolm's criticism of Sam Cooke for not being political enough with his music. However, Cooke had been recording more political songs for a couple of years. His most overtly political song, "A Change is Gonna Come" was released the week before the night depicted in the film. The movie depicts Cooke singing the song at the end of the film, falsely implying that Malcolm's cajoling contributed to his writing of it.

Malcolm X puts on a record of Sam Cooke's and plays "You Send Me" and the original Cooke version of "(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons" off the same album side. Those songs were never on the same album during Cooke's life and "Sentimental Reasons" was only released as a 45 single.

Sam Cooke was one of the biggest music stars in the world. The idea that large numbers of guests would walk out of his show may seem odd to some spectators that regarded it as a goof . However that was the case at the very first time Cooke performed at the Copacabana which is the performance the film shows. Some years later Cooke had another two weeks round of performances this time with great success.

When Malcolm returns to the motel room with his Rolleiflex but then later in the same scene, and at the end of the film at the party, his camera is now an SLR may confuse some spectators who see it as a goof. However this is not rare as Malcolm X had several cameras like a King Regula 111c and a Nikon 35MM still film camera and a Bell and Howell 70dr movie camera that he keep swapping around while socializing.

The film ends with Malcolm X watching Sam Cooke perform "A Change is Gonna Come" on TV while he and his family are seeking shelter from the firebombing of their house. In reality, the firebombing occurred on February 14th, 1965. Sam Cooke was murdered on December 11th, 1964, a month before the firebombing. The performance which Malcolm watches actually occurred on February 7th, 1964, a week before the film takes place.

Sam Cooke talks about the Valentinos reaching #94 on the charts with "It's All Over Now" and the Rolling Stones' cover of the song hitting #1 in the UK. But both of these happened months after the night where the scene takes place.

While the creators describe this as a fictional account of a real meeting, it should be noted that Cooke recorded "A Change Is Gonna Come" on January 30, 1964, and performed it on The Tonight Show on February 7, 1964. So both events took place before the Clay-Liston fight on February 25, 1964.