Attallah Shabazz talks about her father, Malcolm X, as this year marks the 40th anniversary of his assassination
/- Originally published in the NEWS FORUM February 20, 2005
GABE PRESSMAN, host:
Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, giant figure in the American civil rights struggle. Today we interview his eldest daughter, Attallah Shabazz. As a little girl, with her mother and sisters, she witnessed the assassination of her father in the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem. He seemed to know he would come to a violent end.
MALCOLM X: I have stated in a newspaper article about an effort to take my life back in January and at that time the mission was united. John Ali, the national secretary, admitted, I think it was Wednesday or Thursday, one of these days last week, that they absolutely were going to kill me.
PRESSMAN: The family's history was tragic. Malcolm X's father was murdered by the KKK, his mother committed to a mental institution. After becoming a cocaine addict, Malcolm X served time. Later, he became a leader in the black Muslim movement. A fiery preacher, he advocated black nationalism and separatism, but after a trip to Mecca, modified his views, saying, he no longer believed white people were inherently evil. Then he was shot down, just short of his 40th birthday. His wife, Betty, brought up the six daughters, then she lost her life in a tragic fire. The oldest daughter, Attallah, spoke recently at Ossie Davis' funeral. She has been a film producer, writer, lecturer, and Ms. Shabazz is our guest on NEWS FORUM, today.
Announcer: From Studio 6B in Rockefeller Center, this is a presentation from News Channel 4, Gabe Pressman's NEWS FORUM. Now here's host, senior correspondent, Gabe Pressman.
PRESSMAN: Good morning, Ms. Shabazz, and welcome.
Ms. ATTALLAH SHABAZZ: Good morning.
PRESSMAN: As we approach the 40th anniversary of the passing of your father, what thoughts do you have about his place in history?
Ms. SHABAZZ: You know, when I think of my father, I think of him first as a father, as a human being and that's how I know him, and how whole--I'm really proud that I got to know the human being that he is because as I grow into my own adulthood and parenthood and grandparenthood, you get to see characteristics that are familial, and as I look at my sisters and the children that we have, and I'm really happy that he was ours.
PRESSMAN: Do you see him in them?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Oh, yeah. You know, DNA is just DNA; can't get around it. No matter what. And I see it in all of my sisters, I see it in our children, I see it in the nature and the manner, my mother, as well.
PRESSMAN: What characteristics?
Ms. SHABAZZ: I think it is a--we think too much, we--our brains don't stop, according to people who are around us, and curiosity, and fascination, and exploration, and discovery is very much a Shabazz trait, and I think that the people that are often in our lives want us to just pick one thing, narrow it down, you know, slow down or something. But--and the grandchildren, they don't ask regular questions, like, `Why is the sky blue?,' you know, they're really intrigued by things. And I think another real characteristic that has to be DNA between both parents is the service one. I think we're all kind of moved by service, doing things.
PRESSMAN: But you're all, presumably, would be philosophy majors in college.
Ms. SHABAZZ: You know, it's--I think either you are what you are, and some people study to be what they want to be. And, I think, as a gene, that is not--that didn't begin with just my parents, but their parents before them, we're kind of a legacy or a descendantcy of service.
PRESSMAN: When you stood in the Riverside Church the other day and delivered a eulogy to Ossie Davis, did you feel that in a sense you were repaying Ossie for the eulogy he gave to your father?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Well, first, the eulogy was actually given by Harry Belafonte. I was on the list of people who gave reflections and remarks. And, I must say, for the people that my parents included in our lives, they've never made us feel like there was a debt to pay, it was just all people in the exchange of this universal direction, to make a difference. What it was, for me, was the caressing to be part of the circle, the cycle that would have had Uncle Ossie before us giving that address and remarks to my father, and me having the opportunity to be included.
PRESSMAN: You refer to, I think, Ossie Davis as one of our finest hopes, and Ossie Davis referred to your dad, when he delivered the eulogy, as one of our brightest hopes.
Ms. SHABAZZ: Actually repeated Uncle Ossie's words to my father, back to him. I just said, `Ditto.'
PRESSMAN: Ditto.
Ms. SHABAZZ: Yeah.
PRESSMAN: And you often referred to Ossie Davis as `Ditto,' didn't you?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Uncle.
PRESSMAN: Uncle?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Yeah, uncle.
PRESSMAN: You were very close to Ruby Dee, his wife's family?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Yes, right. Aunt Ruby's brother--I mean people know that the Shabazzes in 1965--February 14th, 1965, our house was bombed, firebombed. It was Aunt Ruby's eldest brother who we lived with...
PRESSMAN: Was this in Queens or Mt. Vernon?
Ms. SHABAZZ: In Queens.
PRESSMAN: Queens.
Ms. SHABAZZ: It's who we lived with. But prior--before that, it was a decade of interactive families, and before the--life became very challenging, there were a number of families that were united, we were all part of the sandbox, the same bathwater, kind of, thing, and so that when Uncle Ossie delivered the eulogy most thought it was just a notable actor delivering the address, but this was a big brother delivering the eulogy for--regarding his little brother.
PRESSMAN: Now your dad--I knew him very slightly on the streets of Harlem, and I remember the first time I heard him speak, and he talked to me very, very briefly on the sidewalk, and he referred to the white devils, the tormenters, and it kind of alarmed me, you know. I was a young reporter, I'd never met this man, he was magnetic, and he scared me a little bit, you know. I said, `My God, I'm one of the white devils.' And then over the years, there was a complete transformation, as I saw him evolve, and he grew and grew. Do you remember his militant phase?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Well, you know, it's really interesting who Malcolm was on behalf of Malcolm and who Malcolm was on behalf of the organization he represented. And his analogy of the whites being the devils was not his own. It was that of the doctrine of the nation of Islam.
PRESSMAN: ...(Unintelligible).
Ms. SHABAZZ: So I wasn't taught any of the tenets of the nation of Islam, so to speak, so I wasn't haunted by the notion of a white devil or that all whites were. And his assessment was also `if the shoe fit, then wear it,' but if you were not amongst them, those who were acting or carrying out ill deeds--because in our environment in Queens, it was a--you know, an ethnically diverse neighborhood, you know. In old New York, you know, you had, you know, Italians and Irish and Jewish and black and Caribbean, West Indians and Caribbean Latinos...
PRESSMAN: Right.
Ms. SHABAZZ: ...and we were all going to the same elementary schools, so we did not live in a segregated environment. But in terms of the context of the era, the period of the time, we certainly had been experiencing as, up to that point, in the '60s, characteristics of racism that still rendered people, even in the so-called North, challenged or in--or oppressed.
PRESSMAN: Ossie Davis said of Malcolm X, speaking about the demonization that had taken place of him, `Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm, did you ever touch him or have him smile at you, did you ever really listen to him? Malcolm was our manhood, our living black manhood.' What do these words mean to you?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Well, you know, Uncle Ossie knew him as a human being, not as an entity, not as an icon, not as a myth, certainly not as a firebrand separatist, all of the adjectives that I certainly had to grow up with in the '60, '70s, '80s, through the '90s, and there's some who still feel so, but to have known Malcolm personally, he was a very warm, engaging, generous, inviting human being. And I don't say that because he was my father. I'm lucky that that's my father, but anyone that got to know him personally--once you knew him up close, you weren't intimidated by him. Some of the language that preceded him, the misinterpretation--and I think some people need the force to answer issues in their own lives. I mean, there are people who in his best interest will still use quotes from a period of time just to answer some of the challenges that they're going through.
PRESSMAN: As a little girl, what did he mean to you as a father?
Ms. SHABAZZ: What did my father mean to me? My father was my first friend, on record, my first buddy, the first person with whom I understood that you can say and share anything and there was no risk or jeopardy to the revelations of discovery of any kind. My father, as a Shabazz, likened to his own parents. They explored, and I was naturally like that, so any conversation there was to have, he was available for it.
And he would pick me up from school, drop me off at 9:00 to school, and pick me up at 3:15, and somewhere between 3:15 and 7:00, before returning for dinner, I would move around with him, and, you know, children should be seen and not heard in those days but I was present. So I got to watch the interaction and fellowshipping and/or him teaching a class. Then we would invariably stop and bring something home to my mother, whether it's produce for dinner, whether it was a gift, whether it was flowers, but he would always walk back in the house with something, and we would then by then sit down and have dinner.
PRESSMAN: So the image that some folks had, particularly white folks, at the time, of this ogre, was not quite accurate?
Ms. SHABAZZ: No, but how much ever is? There's always that--having grown up the way I've grown up, I always know that there's more to every story.
PRESSMAN: Well, let's come back on that, discuss some lovely details of your life, after this.
(Announcements)
PRESSMAN: We're back here with Ms. Shabazz on the anniversary of the passing of her father, which actually is the 20th of February. Ossie Davis said of him, `We will know him for what he was, and is, a prince, our own black shining prince who didn't hesitate to die because he loved us so.' Those words, I suppose, are the fondest words ever uttered about him.
Ms. SHABAZZ: Oh, no, I actually am the recipient of many fond words that are uttered, but it was the first, I think, fond words that were documented, early on when no one was ready to say that or put that on record.
PRESSMAN: Stirring words?
Ms. SHABAZZ: That most loving, complimentary words were that Uncle Ossie dared to share before people. That, you know, as we expressed and eulogized Ossie Davis the other day, you heard from everyone who spoke about a man who was eloquent even in the face of challenge and risk, and I am really grateful for this summit of people my parents had around them. It was a very rich group of men and women at a time when we were making sure that our pride was not daunted, interfered with.
PRESSMAN: What do you remember of that horrible day?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Of which horrible day?
PRESSMAN: The day when your father was assassinated.
Ms. SHABAZZ: Well, I--you know, I remember all of it, vividly. There was a time when were not going out with my father, publicly.
PRESSMAN: How old were you then?
Ms. SHABAZZ: I was in grade school Mr. Pressman, but we don't have to put numbers on record.
PRESSMAN: Well--OK.
Ms. SHABAZZ: OK. So--and it was interesting because it was a Sunday morning and we were at the Wallace's, this is Aunt Ruby's brother's house, and my father called and said to my mother, `Why don't you come down?,' and that was out of sorts, and I knew it, but at the same time excited. And so two of my little sisters--I had three little sisters at that time--but the baby was six months, and my two sisters after me, we all got ready to go down, and I think there was another something going on for me because I was certainly around a lot, overheard a lot.
PRESSMAN: And your mother was pregnant?
Ms. SHABAZZ: My mother was pregnant with my baby sisters, the twins. We thought it was a boy at the time, so we referred to her stomach as Malik, and six months later they were born. But I remember the day, and it changed everything, yeah.
PRESSMAN: Do you--when you look back on that day of what happened in the Audubon Ballroom, do you think sometimes that this family had an unnecessary portion of tragedy, your mother died in the tragic fire, your father's father was apparently killed by the KKK?
Ms. SHABAZZ: You know, more than apparently, most certainly was killed by the KKK.
PRESSMAN: All right.
Ms. SHABAZZ: But, you know, I think the difference for the Shabazzes and the Kings or the Kennedys is just that you get to hear about it. I think there are many people who go through horrors and tragedies and upsets and losses, and so I don't try to have any kind of front seat knowledge on those things. I'm just sensitive to it. It means I get to hear the condolences more often, or the remembrances, or the reflections more often than others. But I think all of us on this Earth have to go through our share and balances of the triumphs and the losses and the tragedies. And I would say in my life I've only had two tragedies. I did not have a sad childhood or a tragic life, nor is there a morbid saga to `What is the Shabazz legacy?' I would rather take into consideration that which we contributed, that which we lived for, that which our parents stood for as the signature to what is Shabazz, that the assassination of my father before my eyes is a truth that I reckon with on a regular basis, but no one can pull the wool over my eyes because I know what I know.
PRESSMAN: He talked about black manhood, but what about black womanhood, as represented by your own mom?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Well, my father was a--celebrated my mother's black womanhood. We got to hear it on a regular basis. My mother blushed with regularity because my father sweet-talked her, and courted her, romanced her, through the time that he was alive, that for the 32 years my mother lived without him, the mere mention of his name would make her blush. She was very protective of her husband, and my father loved her demonstratively, and so I was a witness to that. That's what so precious when I think about Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. They were not just a couple but you could actually see Aunt Ruby look up at him with her big eyes as if they were courting.
PRESSMAN: You call her Aunt Ruby. Was she really your biological aunt?
Ms. SHABAZZ: You know, I--it's always interesting when one breaks down how one is in someone else's life, because it's not a toy relationship, it's not a play relationship, because we're not playing house. Aunt Ruby is Aunt Ruby, and she's Aunt Ruby because of the emotional affection and because of the depth of her commitment that never changed. Our children--we are aunts and uncles to each other's children. I'm a godparent to a couple of the children in the same network of families. We are four generations now unmoved and Aunt Ruby, biological or otherwise, is most certainly my aunt.
PRESSMAN: I understand. Getting to the substantive side of your father's work, if he were alive today, how do you think he'd feel about the state of progress that's been made in the cause that he believed in so fervently?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Well, I think we've had opportunities in the last 40 years where we've taken a giant step forward and two steps back, and maybe three steps forward and one step back, which is the course and time and cycle and people. I don't think my father alone could have done any of it. He insisted on a congress of people, a summit of people. If all of them had been able to live and sustain their brethrenship in the cause of the balance of humanity's needs, I think we would have been in a difference place, but I think it threatens the status quo. I think what runs and rules now is very selfish. if you think about someone else, we would not be so restrictive in our gains. We would want to share the bounty. And I think we are kind of stingy as a culture.
PRESSMAN: We--you mean the culture of America?
Ms. SHABAZZ: I think the era, the times, it's just a little bit more selfish. I grew up in a time where you gave before you received, and I just think it's across the board. I think we live fast and quick. We don't nurture or embrace, we don't pause or stop, we don't give thanks, it's just--and I am a throwback, a nostalgic throwback. I am idealistic and I do believe in the countenance and the sustenance and the substantive rooting and balancing, a pause in the beginning of the day and a thank you at the end. It's what gets me--the grace of my parents, even when life was challenging and unfriendly to them, they were still very giving.
PRESSMAN: So you think your dad would be very disappointed at the state of black progress?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Well, when you--I mean, break it down, if you would. I think there are progressions. We've--I've already mentioned that. But I would presume--I mean, you're--one is presuming, if Malcolm was not around, and then came back out of nowhere, well, then, he would have to take a course and be brought up to date along with everyone else. I would rather think that had he and his brethren, male and female, been able to live without their lives taken--these aren't people who've passed away in terms of my father. These are lives and ideals that were taken by virtue of assassination, premeditated disruption, of course, in my way. Now we do it by character assassination, but it's the same kind of selfish focus that will interfere with the bounty being spread around. So in terms of black progression today, I have to cut and paste, and it's hard for me to cut and paste when I'm walking through it.
I think there's a lot to acknowledge in terms of where we are. What I don't want to do is, in the effort at being a strong multicultural multinational culture, to remove the potency of what is signature African, because sometimes we just sort of gloss over it. People will talk about it; even in the melting pot, they will make it a mutt, but we lose the potency and the significance of what is African, and what is other specific in culture. When we're here in the United States and we talk abut them or us, you can't do that in the US because them and us--I am already. I am both them and us when we talk about being American and being Islamic.
PRESSMAN: OK. Let's talk about a few other things after this message.
(Announcements)
PRESSMAN: We're back here with Ms. Shabazz. Is there anyone on the landscape, political or otherwise, who has the fire and the leadership qualities that Malcolm X had?
Ms. SHABAZZ: Well, I wouldn't do that to anyone at this point, but I certainly am watching a composite. We don't want any one whole person to have to endure that. I think that if we all work together and everyone lend and share and exchange their assets and their strengths and work in union with the ideals that we have, then it doesn't have to be on any one person and no one family has to suffer any loss alone but that, as a culture, a multinational culture, ...(unintelligible), a theological culture, we need to know more about who we are in this globe. And the United States is the host to the landscape of the commonwealth of the globe and we need to be more aware of who's here and be more of a welcoming host to the people that are around us.
PRESSMAN: Are you very concerned that the United States is losing its moral leadership?
Ms. SHABAZZ: No, because I think that the best of us walk all day long and there are lessons to learn, and I think everyone has the opportunity to make a difference, and if we had blown it yesterday there is a way to fix it tomorrow.
PRESSMAN: So you're an optimist and you think...
Ms. SHABAZZ: I'm absolutely an optimist. Where would I be otherwise?
PRESSMAN: And you think your father was, too?
Ms. SHABAZZ: My father was certainly an optimist but he was also a man of faith and he was governed by his commitment and his faith, and he believed that the best was available to everyone. Everyone had to be a beneficiary.
PRESSMAN: And as the poet Browning said, `And the best is yet to come'?
Ms. SHABAZZ: The best is yet to come; let's hope.
PRESSMAN: Thank you very much, Ms. Shabazz, for joining us this morning, daughter of Malcolm X. I'm Gabe Pressman. Good day.
