Shabazz, Ilyasah 1962–

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Ilyasah Shabazz 1962–

Author

As the daughter of assassinated Muslim leader Malcolm X and acclaimed educational figure Dr. Betty Shabazz, llyasah Shabazz occupies a role that The Plain Dealer has classified as “akin to black royalty.” No stranger to the drama and tribulation that such a designation evokes, llyasah emerged from an extraordinary youth and turbulent adulthood—one that witnessed numerous family misfortunes, including the tragic 1997 death of her mother—to claim the prominent voice that amplified the lives and careers of her parents. With the publication of her first book, Growing Up X —co-authored with Kim McLarin—she crafted a memoir that offers a unique and illuminating glimpse into the world of one of America’s most fascinating families. Furthermore, the book announced llyasah Shabbazz’s voice as authoritative, resonant, and yet independent from those of her remarkable parents.

Born in 1962, the third of six daughters of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz, llyasah grew up with a large set of shoes to fill. As she acknowledged in her book, “Growing as up the child of two astonishingly strong and determined people wasn’t always easy.” Her childhood, however, was anything but ordinary. She was only two years old on February 21, 1965, the day Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem in front of an audience that included the young llyasah, her mother, Betty Shabazz, and her four sisters, two of whom were unborn.

Even though she was in the room when he was killed, Shabazz does not remember her father’s death. In her book, she recounted the fateful winter afternoon when Betty Shabazz, pregnant with twins, brought her four daughters to see and hear their father speak. At the time, the family was staying with family. Days earlier, their home in Elmhurst, Queens had been firebombed.

Retrospectively, many sources, who were close to Malcolm X near the time of his death have said he knew the end was in sight. In 1964 he broke ties with the Nation of Islam, whose founder, Elijah Muhammad, had grown resentful over Malcolm X’s growing influence within the Black Muslim organization. Following this dramatic split, Malcolm X made his hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca—a religious journey decreed by the Qur’an. He returned with a renewed vision and fresh commitment to orthodox Islam and subsequently

At a Glance…

Born llyasah Shabazz, 1962, in Queens, New York; daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz. Education: State University of New Paltz, B.S., biology; Fordham University, M.S., education and human resource development.

Career: Mount Vernon High School, substitute teacher; City University of New York, coordinator of academic affairs; 40 Acres + Mule Filmworks (Spike Lee Productions), production assistant; William Morris Agency, assistant music agent; Pendulum Records, coordinator of promotions and marketing; KEDAR Entertainment, director of operations; SME Entertainment, vice president; City of Mount Vernon, New York, director of public affairs and special events; author: Growing Up X.

Memberships: United States Delegations; Executive Youth Board for the City of Mount Vemon; Women’s Leadership Forum.

founded his own Muslim association, the Organization of Afro-American Unity. This proved too much for the radicals within the Black Muslim sect to condone. But despite learning of members conspiring to plan his death, Malcolm X pressed on with his view for harmony and unity among all blacks, Muslim or not.

Upon taking the stage at the Audubon Ballroom that Sunday afternoon, however, his enemies sought to silence him, sending sixteen bullets tearing through his body. At the moment the shots rang out, Betty Shabazz instinctively pushed her children to the floor and covered their bodies with hers, providing a protection that would continue until her death 32 years later.

Even though Growing Up X, the first memoir written by a member of the Shabazz family, recounts the events surrounding the assassination with lucid familiarity, Shabazz has admitted lacking any real recollection of the weeks following the tragedy or even much of her father’s life. To her, Malcolm X is the man with whom she used to share her mother’s oatmeal cookies while watching the evening news. Even this, the book reveals, is a memory of which the author remains slightly uncertain. Her mother and oldest sister, Attallah, shared so many stories about her father that Shabazz to this day cannot discern “if I remember him or if the memories I have exist because they kept him so alive.”

The life and death of Malcolm X was rarely, if ever, discussed during Shabazz’s youth and adolescence. Betty Shabazz sought to shelter her daughters from what the Los Angeles Times described as “the volatile terrain of racial politics.” All of the Shabazz girls attended private, mostly-white schools in suburban Westchester County, New York. Their summers included trips to camp in Vermont and other amenities typically associated with an average, middle-class upbringing.

It was not until college that Shabazz truly began to understand and appreciate the international scope of her father’s efforts and achievements. Reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X as a freshman at the State University of New Paltz was a powerful experience for the young student. Not only did she come to value her father and his history in an entirely new light, but she also encountered the fear of failing to live up to the expectations society had for her. This insecurity was intensified by the pressure to adopt and contribute to the political fervor among some of the other African Americans at New Paltz.

To further explore her father’s life, Shabazz enrolled in a class about him and sought out relatives from his side of the family, prior to which she had never met. At the same time, respect for her mother deepened. Betty Shabazz had completed a Ph.D. and been appointed director of institutional advancement at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York. In addition, she was active in numerous social and political organizations and traveled around the country and globe spreading her husband’s agenda for human rights and social empowerment. With these projects heavily influencing Shabazz, by the time she was a junior she had settled into a comfortable routine that included a degree in biology, friends who accepted her for who she was, and thoughts of becoming a doctor.

Shabazz’s plans for medical school were put on indefinite hold during the summer of 1984. While finishing up her final credits at New Paltz University and working at a department store, she and a few friends who came in from out of town drove down to New York for the evening. Because everyone else had been drinking, Shabazz agreed to drive home despite feeling extreme fatigue. When she emerged from a coma three days later, she awoke to learn of the devastating accident she had narrowly survived. One of the other passengers, a close friend, was paralyzed due to severe spinal trauma. During the two months she spent recovering in the hospital and the several additional months it took for the facial lacerations to fade away, Shabazz came to a new understanding of discrimination and the challenges faced by those with physical disabilities and deformities.

After the accident, Shabazz wrote in her book, “life was like a whirlwind” as she recuperated from the trauma and ventured forward into post-collegiate life with a series of twists, turns, and new endeavors. For a short time, she worked as a substitute teacher at Mount Vernon High School, a task that brought her face to face with the challenges of underfunded secondary education. She found herself frustrated by the low expectations and apathy that encompassed the school. The challenge of engaging an eager yet previously unattended group of students was a difficult one, but Shabazz succeeded by encouraging her pupils to express their passion in a fashion more relevant to them than the rote exercises to which they were accustomed.

Soon, however, Shabazz found herself yearning for life in the city and she moved to Brooklyn. Once there, her mother assisted in finding her a job in the office of academic affairs at City University of New York, where she administered programs geared toward encouraging inner-city high school dropouts to pursue college education. Thereafter, Shabazz fancied herself an actress and, again with the help of her mother, found herself auditioning for soap operas and film roles, but to no avail. She met and befriended film director Spike Lee, who gave her a job as a production assistant shooting Michael Jordan commercials. From there, Shabazz took a position as an assistant at the William Morris Agency where she participated in the, as she wrote in Growing Up X, “fast life of parties and concerts and receptions,” all the while looking for fresh talent, booking shows, scheduling tours, and keeping ears open for the next big trend in music. She subsequently left William Morris to take a job as coordinator of marketing and promotions for Pendulum Records.

Surrounded by the music industry and the emerging hip-hop scene, Shabazz soon developed artistic inclinations of her own. A friend helped land her a record deal in which Shabazz and her sister, Gamilah, planned to record, she wrote in Growing Up X, “freestyle, hip-hop poetry about science and knowledge and identity.” However, before studio sessions were completed, Gamilah abandoned the project after making a cameo appearance with another band on the Arsenio Hall Show.

It was around this time that Shabazz met Jerrod Mustaf, a professional basketball player for the Phoenix Suns with whom she quickly fell in love. She described Jerrod in Growing Up X as an atypical athlete who “loved reading and who seemed to be spiritually connected as a Muslim.” After eight months of dating, Shabazz moved to Phoenix to join him. The duo started an entertainment business with which Shabazz planned to produce a hip-hop musical she had written, complete with up-and-coming recording artists they had signed.

The grand plan fell through when Shabazz discovered Jerrod’s infidelity. Not wanting to discard months of effort, Shabazz tried to carry on but soon grew weary and returned to New York. Reunited with her mother, their relationship grew stronger than ever. In 1995 Shabazz was invited to speak at a brunch hosted by the National Political Congress of Black Women honoring her mother alongside the widows of Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers. In her book, Shabazz recalled the opportunity as an event that intensified the bond between her and her mother: “For the first time in my life, I stood up before an audience and spoke without fear of disappointing expectations.”

Prior to that, Shabazz harbored a significant fear of public speaking. Early on in college, she decided she lacked the oratorical mastery that her father possessed. After accepting an invitation to be a keynote speaker at a “Daughters of the Revolution” talk at the Delta Sigma Theta convention, she feigned illness at the last second because of tremendous stage fright. It was at a time when the expectations being thrust upon her severely impeded her from establishing a confident identity.

Today, however, public speaking and lecture presentations, including a full-scale book tour, are among Shabazz’s many strengths. After completing a Masters of Science degree in education and human resource development from Fordham University, Shabazz eventually became the director of public affairs and special events for the city of Mount Vernon, New York, her hometown.

Growing Up X is a book that, in addition to tracing Shabazz’s personal development, serves as a memorial to her parents. In 1997 Betty Shabazz died after sustaining burns over 80% of her body in a fire set by her troubled grandson, Malcolm, who had been sent to live with her while his mother, Qubilah, underwent substance-abuse treatment. The ordeal, including the defiant 22 days she survived following the blaze, attracted international attention as friends, colleagues, and prominent figures—including President Bill Clinton, for whom Shabazz had served as a voluntary adviser—paid their respects.

Shabazz hopes to inspire people by telling her stories. She strives to keep the spirits of Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X alive in her heart and seeks to use her voice to empower others by exhorting them to, as she wrote in Growing Up X, “challenge injustice and oppression in every shape and form. “She plans to publish a new book about the her parents’ relationship in 2003.