Black History Month: Dr. Betty Shabazz, Widow Of Malcolm X, Became A Great City Educator | NY1

NY1′s series on African-American women who helped shape the civil rights movement continues with Dr. Betty Shabazz, who soldiered on after her husband Malcolm X was slain and becoming a leading educator in New York City and founded a center in the Washington Heights location of her husband’s death. NY1′s Cheryl Wills filed the following report.

New Yorkers fondly call 3940 Broadway in Washington Heights, Manhattan “The House That Betty Built,” but it is home to one of the most tragic events in African-American History.

Back on February 21, 1965, the building was known as the Audubon Ballroom and civil rights leader Malcolm X was murdered there in cold blood as he gave a speech, in plain sight of his pregnant wife, Betty Shabazz, and his four daughters.

Now, the building is the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, a place of peace that Shabazz envisioned before she passed away in 1997.

A ribbon cutting this month at the center welcomed a new exhibit called “Freedom’s Sisters,” which honors the legacy of 20 African-American women who helped shape the civil rights movement.

Two of Betty Shabazz’s daughters, Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz, paid tribute to their mother’s legacy.

“I remember asking my mother, how was she able to do this?” said Ilyasah Shabazz. “She witnessed her husband’s assassination right here in this center and she had four babies, she was pregnant with twins, the wife of a man who challenged the government. And never accepting ‘no’ or ‘I can’t’ as an answer.”

“People always ask me, ‘What’s it like to be the daughter of Malcolm X?’ Easy. What’s it like to be the daughter of Dr. Betty Shabazz?” says Malaak Shabazz.

Read more: Black History Month: Dr. Betty Shabazz, Widow Of Malcolm X, Became A Great City Educator – NY1.com.

Check out:

Freedom’s Sisters – The Untold Story

Uptown Gem – The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Center

The Shabazz Center Celebrates the Life & Legacy of Malcolm X Today

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