Joe Bonanno (Chazz Palminteri) speaks with his wife how he created "The Commission", the governing body of the five mafia families of New York. This is historically incorrect. The architect of the Commission is in fact Charles "Lucky" Luciano, formed after the Castellammarese War in 1931.
Method Man's Sam Christian was based on the real Sam Christian (later known as Suleiman Bey) , who was the founder of the Philly Black Mafia. He was also a member of the Nation of Islam, where he and another gang leader Ronald Harvey were captains in the Fruit of Islam, a paramilitary wing of the organization. They were involved in numerous crimes, including drug trafficking, robberies and murders. Christian died on March 6, 2016.
At the end of Malcom's conversation with Captain Omar, Omar says that no one from Mosque Number 7 while harm Malcolm or his family. This is in a sense, a "double edged knife." Malcolm X's killers are evidenced to come from a mosque in New Jersey.