Ray Wood

Ray Wood
Born	1933/1934 Chester, South Carolina, United States
Died	2020
Nationality	New Afrikan

Raymond A. Wood (1933/1934 – 2020) was an NYPD officer who infiltrated the the Congress of Racial Equality and Black Liberation Movement and helped organize the assassination of Malcolm X.

CORE infiltration

Under the name Ray Woodall, Wood pretended to be a law student at Fordham University and infiltrated the Bronx chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality in 1964. He became housing chairman and persuaded Chairman Herbert Callender into making a citizen's arrest of Mayor Robert Wagner for discrimination and corruption. He falsely told Callender that the citizen's arrest was legal.

Bomb plot hoax

Under the direction of the FBI, Wood invented a fictional plot to bomb the Statue of Liberty. The plot led to the arrest of four people, including Co-Chair of the OAAU Cultural Committee Walter Bowe and Malcolm X's security guard Khaleel Sayyed, arrested only a week before Malcolm's assassination. Wood was promoted and received the New York Medal of Honor and a note of congratulation from Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach.

Malcolm X assassination

See main article: Malcolm X#Assassination

Wood was in the Audubon Hall at the time of Malcolm X's assassination but had instructions not to interfere. The crowd attacked him afterwards, and the NYPD then rescued him and put him in a holding cell for three hours.

Confession

In January 2011, Wood wrote a confession saying that he tried to resign from the NYPD but was threatened and forced to work as an agent provocateur. At the time, he understood that the bomb plot was meant to remove Malcolm's security for his speech on February 21, 1965, but did not know about the plot to assassinate him. He gave the letter to his cousin Reggie Wood, who published it after Wood's death in 2020.