Ilyasah Shabazz | |
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 Shabazz in 2014 | |
| Born | (1962-07-22)July 22, 1962 (age 63) 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, andmotivational speaker. She is the third daughter ofMalcolm X andBetty Shabazz, and wrote amemoir titledGrowing Up X.
Shabazz was born inBrooklyn,New York, on July 22, 1962. She was named afterElijah Muhammad, leader of theNation of Islam, the religious andBlack nationalist group to which her parents belonged.[1] Shabazz is ofAfrican-American,African-Grenadian,English andScottish descent.
In February 1965, when she was two years old, Shabazz was present, with her mother and sisters, at theassassination of her father.[2] She says she has no memory of the event.[3]
Shabazz had an apolitical upbringing in aracially integrated neighborhood inMount Vernon, New York. Her family never took part in demonstrations or attended rallies.[4] Together with her sisters, she joinedJack 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 readhis autobiography as a college student,[9] and enrolled in a class to learn more.[10]
Shabazz was a student atHackley School.[11] After high school, she attendedState 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 amaster's degree in Education and Human Resource Development fromFordham University and a PhD fromWorcester State 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 wroteGrowing Up X, her memoir of her childhood and her personal views on her father, in 2002.[15] It was nominated for anNAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Nonfiction.[16] A devout Muslim, she made thepilgrimage to Mecca, thehajj, in 2006 as her father had in 1964 and her mother did in 1965.[13][17]
In 2014, Shabazz wroteMalcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to Become Malcolm X, a children's book about her father's childhood.[18] It was nominated for anNAACP 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 theNational Book Award for Young People's Literature[21][22] and it won anNAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Youth/Teens.[23] It also won honors from theCoretta Scott King Awards[24] and theWalter 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] Hermiddle-grade novel about her mother's childhood,Betty Before X, was published in January 2018 alongside co-authorRenée 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 theMalcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, theMalcolm X Foundation, and the Harlem Symphony Orchestra. As of 2017, she is an adjunct professor atJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice.[14]
Shabazz is a longtime resident ofSouthern Westchester. She grew up in Mount Vernon and presently lives inNew Rochelle.[30][31]
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