Ilyasah Shabazz | |
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 Shabazz in 2014 | |
| Born | July 22, 1962 New York City, U.S. |
| Education | State University of New York at New Paltz (BA) Fordham University (MA) |
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Ilyasah Shabazz (born July 22, 1962) is an American author, community organizer, social activist, and motivational speaker. She is the third daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz, and wrote a memoir titled Growing Up X .
Shabazz was born in Brooklyn, New York, on July 22, 1962. She was named after Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, the religious and Black nationalist group to which her parents belonged. [1] Shabazz is of African-American, African-Grenadian, English and Scottish descent.
In February 1965, when she was two years old, Shabazz was present, with her mother and sisters, at the assassination of her father. [2] She says she has no memory of the event. [3]
Shabazz had an apolitical upbringing in a racially integrated neighborhood in Mount Vernon, New York. Her family never took part in demonstrations or attended rallies. [4] Together with her sisters, she joined Jack and Jill, a social club for the children of well-off African Americans. [5] She considered an acting career, though her mother was not supportive. [6] Her mother instead took interest in trying to keep her father's presence alive, and baked her cookies, which she would break a piece off to give the impression that her father had eaten it before she arrived. [7]
Concerning her father, Shabazz told an interviewer, "My mother always talked about our father, her husband, but ... she didn't talk about these things that defined my father as the icon." [8] To learn about her father, Shabazz read his autobiography as a college student, [9] and enrolled in a class to learn more. [10]
Shabazz was a student at Hackley School. [11] After high school, she attended State University of New York at New Paltz. [12] When she arrived, other African-American students expected her to be a firebrand. They had already elected her an officer of the Black Student Union. [9]
After graduating, Shabazz earned a master's degree in Education and Human Resource Development from Fordham University. [13]
Shabazz worked for the city of Mount Vernon for more than a dozen years, serving at different times as Director of Public Relations, Director of Public Affairs and Special Events, and Director of Cultural Affairs. [14]
Shabazz wrote Growing Up X , her memoir of her childhood and her personal views on her father, in 2002. [15] It was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Nonfiction. [16] A devout Muslim, she made the pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj, in 2006 as her father had in 1964 and her mother did in 1965. [13] [17]
In 2014, Shabazz wrote Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to Become Malcolm X, a children's book about her father's childhood. [18] It was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Children's. [19] The following year, she wrote a young-adult novel, X, about the same subject. [20] The book was among the ten finalists considered for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature [21] [22] and it won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Youth/Teens. [23] It also won honors from the Coretta Scott King Awards [24] and the Walter Dean Myers Awards for Outstanding Children's Literature [25] and was named as a 2016 Bank Street Children's Book Committee's Best Book of the Year. [26] Her middle-grade novel about her mother's childhood, Betty Before X, was published in January 2018 alongside co-author Renée Watson. [27] [28] It was one of the 2019 Bank Street Children's Book Committee Best Books of the Year and received an "Outstanding Merit" recognition [29]
Shabazz is a trustee for the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, the Malcolm X Foundation, and the Harlem Symphony Orchestra. As of 2017, she is an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. [14]
Shabazz is a longtime resident of Southern Westchester. She grew up in Mount Vernon and presently lives in New Rochelle. [30] [31]
Malcolm X was an African American revolutionary, Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement until his assassination in 1965. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam (NOI) until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the African American community. A controversial figure accused of preaching violence, Malcolm X is also a widely celebrated figure within African American and Muslim communities for his pursuit of racial justice.
Qubilah Bahiyah Shabazz is the second daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz. In 1965, she witnessed the assassination of her father by three gunmen. She was arrested in 1995 in connection with an alleged plot to kill Louis Farrakhan, by then the leader of the Nation of Islam who she believed was responsible for the assassination of her father. She has maintained her innocence. She accepted a plea agreement under which she was required to undergo psychological counseling and treatment for her substance use disorders to avoid a prison sentence.
Angela Evelyn Bassett is an American actress. Known for her work in film and television since the 1980s, she has received various accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards. In 2023, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and she received an Academy Honorary Award.
Betty Shabazz, also known as Betty X, was an American educator and civil rights advocate. She was married to Malcolm X.
Malcolm Latif Shabazz was the grandson of civil rights activists Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz, through their daughter, Qubilah Shabazz. Malcolm Shabazz made headlines for multiple arrests during his life, including setting a fire that killed his grandmother, Betty. He was murdered in Mexico on May 9, 2013, at the age of 28.
Yolanda Denise King was an activist for African-American rights and first-born child of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, who pursued artistic and entertainment endeavors and public speaking. Her childhood experience was greatly influenced by her father's highly public activism.
Kim McLarin is an American novelist, best known for Growing Up X: A Memoir by the Daughter of Malcolm X, co-authored with Ilyasah Shabazz, and Jump at the Sun. Her works include contemporary novels, short stories and non-fiction.
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention is a biography of Malcolm X written by American historian Manning Marable. It won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for History.
Growing Up X: A Memoir by the Daughter of Malcolm X is a 2002 book by Ilyasah Shabazz, the third daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz. Shabazz wrote the book with Kim McLarin.
Malcolm X, also known as Malcolm X: His Own Story As It Really Happened, is a 1972 American documentary film directed by Arnold Perl. It is based on the 1965 book The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
The Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, also called the Shabazz Center, is a memorial to Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz located at 3940 Broadway and West 165th Street in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The building which once housed the Audubon Ballroom, where Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965. It opened on May 19, 2005, the 80th anniversary of Malcolm X's birth.
Russell John Rickford is an American scholar and activist who is an associate professor in the History Department at Cornell University. He has written the only in-depth biography on Betty Shabazz, the wife of Malcolm X.
The Diary of Malcolm X is a record of Malcolm X's thoughts during 1964, a year that included his pilgrimage to Mecca and two trips to Africa. The diary was scheduled for publication in 2013, but a legal dispute between the publisher and some of Malcolm X's daughters resulted in a delay.
Attallah Shabazz is an American actress, author, diplomat, and motivational speaker, and the eldest daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz.
Clara Villarosa is an American entrepreneur, author, publisher and motivational speaker. She is the co-founder of Villarosa Media and was the founder of Hue-Man Bookstores in Denver, Colorado and Harlem, New York, one of the highest earning African-American bookstores in the country from the 1980s to the 2010s. Her book, Down to Business: The First 10 Steps to Entrepreneurship for Women was nominated for an NAACP Image Award. Villarosa founded the African American Booksellers Association.
Tiffany D. Jackson is an American author and filmmaker. She writes young adult fiction and makes horror films. She is best known for her NAACP Image Award—nominated debut novel Allegedly.
Renée Watson is an American teaching artist and author of children's books, best known for her award-winning and New York Times bestselling young adult novel Piecing Me Together, for which she received the John Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Author Award, and Bank Street Children's Book Committee's Josette Frank Award for fiction. Watson founded the nonprofit I, Too, Arts Collective to provide creative arts programs to the Harlem community. She is a member of The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective.
Kekla Magoon is an American author, best known for her NAACP Image Award-nominated young adult novel The Rock and the River, How It Went Down, The Season of Styx Malone, and X. In 2021, she received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her body of work. Her works also include middle grade novels, short stories, and historical, socio-political, and economy-related non-fiction.
Malcolm X, an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement, was shot multiple times and died from his wounds in Manhattan, New York City on February 21, 1965, at age 39. While preparing to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, Malcolm X was shot multiple times and killed. Three members of the Nation of Islam—Muhammad Abdul Aziz, Khalil Islam, and Thomas Hagan—were charged, tried, and convicted of the murder and given indeterminate life sentences, but in November 2021, Aziz and Islam were exonerated.
X: A Novel is a young adult novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon, published January 6, 2015 by Candlewick Press.
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