Betty Shabazz life and biography

Betty Shabazz (also known as: Betty Jean Shabazz), born May 28, 1936 in Detroit Michigan, United States - died June 23, 1997 in Bronx, New York, United States is an African-American activist, health services administration and educator.


When Betty Shabazz married the dynamic civil rights leader Malcolm X, she could not anticipate the extent of her husband's fame or the course that their lives would take. Shabazz was catapulted into the American consciousness and the media spotlight following her husband's assassination in 1965 by three members of the Nation of Islam. Formerly an esteemed leader of the Nation, Malcolm broke with the black nationalist organization in 1963, after revising his separatist ideals and embracing a new philosophy of global unity. His young widow, pregnant with twin daughters at the time of his murder, was left to raise them--and their four sisters--by herself. In the ensuing years, Shabazz avoided publicity when she could, opting instead to provide a quiet, normal home life and full education for her children.

Betty was an adopted child who grew up in a fairly sheltered, middle-class household in Detroit, Michigan. She went to the local Methodist church with her parents on Sundays, parties on some Saturday nights with church friends, and movies on Fridays. While attending Northern High School, she joined the Del Sprites, a sorority affiliate. After high school graduation, she attended Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and encountered her first racial hostilities, which she didn't understand, and her parents refused to acknowledge. "They thought [the problems] were my fault," she later wrote in an autobiographical portrait printed in Essence magazine. After two years in Alabama, she moved to New York City to attend nursing school at Brooklyn State Hospital.

While at school in New York, a friend invited her to hear Malcolm X speak at an Islamic temple. When this friend said she'd arrange for them to be introduced after his speech, Betty's initial reaction was "big deal," she related in Essence in 1992. "But then," she continued, "I looked over and saw this man on the extreme right aisle sort of galloping to the podium. He was tall, he was thin, and the way he was galloping it looked as though he was going someplace much more important than the podium. ...Well, he got to the podium--and I sat up straight. I was impressed with him." They were introduced later, and she became even more impressed. They talked about the racism she encountered in Alabama, and she began to understand its causes, pervasiveness, and effects. Soon, Betty was attending all of Malcolm's lectures. By the time she graduated from nursing school in 1958, she was a member of the Nation of Islam.

Betty Shabazz explained in Essence, "I never 'dated' Malcolm as we think of it because at the time single men and women in the Muslims did not 'fraternize' as they called it. Men and women always went out in groups." In addition, Malcolm was busy with a relentless schedule of speaking engagements for the Nation of Islam. Nevertheless, their connection grew strong. Soon after she finished nursing school, Malcolm, who was traveling the country at the time, called her from Detroit and proposed. Before the week was out, they were married.

The marriage did not last as long as either had hoped. On February 21, 1965, while speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, he was gunned down. Shabazz had brought their four daughters to hear him speak that day. As the first of the 16 bullets that tore into Malcolm's body rang out, she threw her children down and covered them with her own body. After the shots, Shabazz tried to get to Malcolm, but someone held her back. When she finally did reach him, he was dead, and she wondered if she would survive herself.

Recovering from Tragedy

For three weeks, Shabazz did not sleep. She kept seeing her husband's body fall. "I really don't know where I'd be today if I had not gone to Mecca to make Hajj [a spiritual pilgrimage] shortly after Malcolm was assassinated," she confided in Essence. "Two young doctors--one from Harvard and the other from Dartmouth--invited me to go to Mecca in my husband's stead. And that is what helped put me back on track. I remembered Malcolm saying, 'Don't look back and don't cry. Remember, Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt.' I began to understand the meaning of that statement." She also had six daughters to raise. The twin daughters were born seven months after their father's death; Attallah, Malcolm and Betty's eldest daughter, was only six at the time of the assassination.

After returning from Mecca, Shabazz did not allow herself to grieve further--at least not visibly; her children needed her strength. "The girls knew only that something terrible had happened," she told Look magazine a few years after Malcolm's death. "After the shock, as I became aware again, I tried to soothe them. I couldn't let them see hysteria on my part. Later, I learned that I had to adopt a personality of positiveness and high humor. For, if I laughed, they laughed. ... I learned that I couldn't even express sadness around them. I didn't want them to worry." Shabazz threw herself into the care and education of her children. They studied French and Arabic, as well as ballet. Attallah even took classes in medicine offered to children by Columbia University.

The Shabazz children also studied black history. "Malcolm was a firm believer in the value and importance of our heritage. He believed that we have valuable and distinct cultural traditions which need to be institutionalized so that they can be passed on to our heirs." Shabazz further explained her educational perspective to Ebony in 1969: "I. . . want them to travel so they can know more about Africa, the West Indies and the Middle East. I want them to go to some of the places that their father visited. In this way I feel they will broaden their scope and become of maximum use to themselves, their families, and their people.

Continuing Education

Although raising and educating her daughters took up most of her time, Shabazz still managed to further her education. Between 1970 and 1975, she completed a master's degree in public health administration and received a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In 1976, she joined the faculty of Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn as associate professor of health administration. Shortly thereafter, she became director of the school's Department of Communications and Public Relations.

Although Shabazz made occasional appearances on behalf of civil rights, she remained a private person, preferring the intimacy of her family and close friends to any suggestion of public life. She was, however, "committed to the broadest possible distribution [of Malcolm's message]" as she told Publishers Weekly in 1991. She also wanted to protect his image from base commercialization. Shabazz served as a consultant on the Spike Lee film Malcolm X, which was released in 1992, and also hired a licensing firm to help maintain some control over the use of his name. She entered into several legal battles over copyright infringements of his writings, name, and the symbol X. As she told the Washington Post, the marketing of Malcolm's image had "gotten out of hand."

Moving On

In 1994, nearly 30 years after the assassination of Malcolm X, Shabazz spoke out for the first time against the Nation of Islam and linked Nation leader Louis Farrakhan to his death. Farrakhan denied the allegations, claiming only that the turbulent, racially hostile atmosphere of the 1960s was responsible for Malcolm's death.

In January of 1995 Shabazz's daughter, Qubilah, was arrested for hiring a hit man to kill Farrakhan. The hit man turned out to be a government informer. Surprisingly, Farrakhan defended Qubilah and claimed that she had been duped by government agents who wanted to sow discord within the Nation of Islam and throughout the African American community. In May of that year, Shabazz and Farrakhan ended their bitter feud by shaking hands at a fundraiser at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. The fundraiser had been arranged by Farrakhan to help pay for Qubilah Shabazz's legal fees. In October of 1995, Shabazz spoke at the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. Farrakhan was the main organizer of the march.


A Tragic End

Although Qubilah was not sent to prison for her part in the plot to assassinate Farrakhan, she was required to undergo psychological counseling and treatment for drug and alcohol abuse for a two-year period. During this time Qubilah's 12-year-old son, Malcolm, was sent to live with Shabazz at her home in Yonkers, New York. Angered that he was forced to live with his grandmother, Malcolm set fire to her home on June 1, 1997. Shabazz suffered third-degree burns over 80 percent of her body. For the next three weeks, she remained in extremely critical condition at Jacobi Medical Center in Bronx, New York, and underwent five operations to replace burned tissue. On June 23, 1997, Shabazz passed away. Her grandson was placed in a juvenile detention center for 18 months.

More than 2,000 mourners attended a memorial service for Shabazz at New York City's Riverside Church where several speakers, including Coretta Scott King, Myrlie Evers-Williams, poet Maya Angelou, actor-activist Ossie Davis, New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and U.S. Representative Maxine Waters remembered Shabazz for her strength, warm personality, and love for her children. In a statement released after Shabazz's death, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson declared that "she never stopped giving and she never became cynical. She leaves today the legacy of one who epitomized hope and healing."

February 21, 2005: Shabazz and her husband, slain civil rights leader Malcolm X, will be honored with a memorial and education center at the site of the Audubon Ballroom in New York, where Malcolm X was shot and killed.



PERSONAL INFORMATION

Born May 28, 1936; died June 23, 1997, in Bronx, NY; adopted and raised by the Sanders family in Detroit, MI; married Malcolm X (formerly known as Malcolm Little; later took the name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz; a civil rights activist), 1958; children: Attallah, Qubilah, Ilyasah, Gamilah, Malaak, Malikah. Education: Attended Tuskegee Institute; Brooklyn State Hospital School of Nursing, R.N. and B.A, 1958; received master's degree in public health administration from Jersey City State College; University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Ph.D. in education administration, 1975. Memberships: Delta Sigma Theta.

AWARDS

Betty Shabazz Cultural Center was established at Mount Holyoke College.

CAREER

Medgar Evers College, City University of New York, Brooklyn, associate professor of health administration, beginning 1976; became director of Department of Communications and Public Relations.

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