1977 Washington, D.C., Attack and Hostage Taking

From March 9 to March 11, 1977, twelve members of the Hanafi Movement, led by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, seized three buildings in Washington, D.C.: the headquarters of B'nai B'rith, the Islamic Center of Washington, and the District Building. In total, the gunmen took 149 hostages across the three locations. During the initial takeover of the District Building, hostage-takers fired on an opening elevator, killing Maurice Williams, a reporter for WHUR-FM radio, and mortally wounding D.C. Protective Services Division Police Officer Mack Cantrell, who died in the hospital days later of a heart attack. City councilman Marion Barry was struck by a ricocheting shotgun pellet that lodged near his heart; two other people were also injured.

Khaalis, born Ernest McGhee in Indiana in 1921, was a former national secretary of the Nation of Islam who split from the organization in 1958 to found the Hanafi Movement. In 1973, five men associated with the Nation of Islam broke into Khaalis' Washington, D.C. home and murdered five of his children, his nine-day-old grandson, and another man. The subsequent murder trial was delayed for years, and when it began in fall 1976, the sole surviving daughter, who had sustained brain damage, became incoherent under cross-examination and fled the courtroom, leading to a mistrial. The siege was motivated in part by Khaalis' anger over the handling of this case and the murder of Malcolm X, as well as objections to the film Mohammad, Messenger of God, which he believed was sacrilegious.

During the standoff, Khaalis demanded that those convicted of murdering his family and of killing Malcolm X be handed over to his custody, that the film's premiere be cancelled and the film destroyed, that $750 in legal fees from a contempt citation be refunded, and that he receive visits from Muslim leader Warith Deen Mohammed and boxer Muhammad Ali. The Justice Department, aided by intelligence operatives, negotiated with the hostage-takers. The contempt-related fees were returned and the film's premiere was cancelled, but the convicted killers were not surrendered to Khaalis. The siege ended after the ambassadors of Egypt, Pakistan, and Iran intervened directly, meeting with Khaalis and reading the Quran with him. All hostage-takers surrendered and hostages were released.

All twelve men were later tried and convicted. Khaalis was sentenced to 21 to 120 years in prison and died at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, North Carolina, on November 13, 2003. Abdul Muzikir, who shot and killed Williams, was sentenced to 70 years and released in 2022. Marion Barry recovered from his injuries and was later elected mayor of Washington, D.C. In 2007, the fifth-floor press room at the Wilson Building was named for Maurice Williams.