E-mail a friendAttallah Shabazz
airdate February 21, 2005
Attallah Shabazz, Malcolm X's eldest daughter, is a playwright, author, producer and motivational speaker. In her '98 book, From Mine Eyes, she writes about family victories and tragedies. Shabazz has been the director of various programs and also co-founded Nucleus, Inc., a theatrical company that toured the country offering positive messages for at-risk youth. PBS's American Experience series marks the 40th anniversary of her father's death with its film portrait, Malcolm X - Make It Plain.
Attallah Shabazz
Ms. Shabazz: Whenever I saw my father out publicly, you know, from a child's perspective, you know, at an airport, it was an invasion. You're going to pick up Daddy from the airport, and there's a slew of photographers and other people, and you haven't seen him in 2, 3 weeks, and all you want is that hug. I was certainly privy to the fact that we were being stalked as a family, that the atmosphere surrounding the house, the cars that would be parked. Faces that were familiar to me once upon a time, their attitudes had changed.
Tavis: Ms. Shabazz, nice to see you.
Ms. Shabazz: Nice to see you.
Tavis: I just saw you days ago at the passing of your friend, Ossie Davis, who eulogized your father.
Ms. Shabazz: Certainly more than a friend.
Tavis: Yeah, yeah.
Ms. Shabazz: Most certainly my uncle.
Tavis: Your uncle.
Ms. Shabazz: My uncle.
Tavis: Yeah. I asked Ossie Davis in this interview, this conversation we just aired moments ago, whether or not it seemed like 40 years ago for him. He said it did not. does it seem like 40 years ago for you?
Ms. Shabazz: No, because for us, I mean, I know it's 40 years when I think of how old my baby sisters are. I know it's 40 years when I think of other aspects of culture...
Tavis: Are the babies the twins?
Ms. Shabazz: My baby sisters are twins.
Tavis: The twins.
Ms. Shabazz: And they turned 40 this year. My mother was pregnant with them when my father was assassinated, but when you have such a laying on of hands that was so resonant and so present, um...and so defining, I think if the job was done well, that person is with you all the time, so I only know it's 40 years later when the calendar date presents it, but it feels like yesterday. I mean, my conversations with him, my confirmations from him are what guide me now.
Tavis: Mm-hmm. What stays with you most consistently and stays with you in a constant sort of way about your relationship with your father? I know there are a lot of memories, but are there things that consistently and constantly come to your remembrance or, that are part of the way you think or the way you process or--what's that--what's that--that linear line?
Ms. Shabazz: I think the fundamental characteristics that are direct from my father is grace and patience.
Tavis: Mm.
Ms. Shabazz: Unlike how he's portrayed or excerpted, even by those who love him and fashion him. It was really his, um...his room to accept growth and difference, which is not the way he's portrayed. And as a daughter, there was no aspect of "incorrect." There's just the process of growth, so that you never felt that there was a risk for sharing or bearing, or there's no sense of failure, and that my girl self, my lady self, was kind of set in stone by him, you know? My manner, beating to a different drummer, all of those things as you are was just fine.
Tavis: Mm-hmm. Let me ask a question that might be absolutely impossible to answer. Um...let me ask you anyway. When you see your father...
Ms. Shabazz: Mm-hmm.
Tavis: At such a young age gunned down, feet in front of you--literally, just feet away from you--how does one live a life where one doesn't become bitter and...ends up being an adult who, for lack of a better term, is rather well-adjusted? How--ha! I've known you for a few years. How does that happen when you see--when you witness something like that?
Ms. Shabazz: You know, first of all, it's interesting. Years ago, when Yolanda King and I met, we wondered how--
Tavis: Yolanda King, the eldest daughter...
Ms. Shabazz: Of Martin Luther King--we were sitting in a hotel room in Panama, actually, in 1979, and we were wondering about the irony. Why it was that she and her siblings had been spared and had the opportunity to have their mother sit them down and tell them their father had been killed, and why had God placed me in the room to witness my father being killed? And what that has done to each of our respective lives, how we approach life, and I must say, as tragic and as brutal as that was, no one can tell me otherwise, so there's no speculative. There's no haunt. There's no bogeyman or phantom. There's no "what if? Who did it?" All the speculations that the world lives with, I'm not in question. Um, when I think about the anguish the Kings went through, trying to get the answers from James Earl Ray--I don't have those kinds of things gnawing at me, so in that respect as I move on, I'm real clear about a lot of things as relates to history and the patterns of things. What people don't realize is that on that day, that was the single day that took his life, but there were 2 years that we were stalked and hunted by people--
Tavis: On Valentine's Day, just days before he was assassinated, the house was bombed.
Ms. Shabazz: Our house was bombed, and it went on, so that was characteristic of what a couple of years had been, and um, the climate had changed. And what was really wonderful is that who really was in our corner was clearly in our corner, and Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were two of those persons who were in our corner at a time when it was risky to be so, and afterwards, for the last 40 years.
Tavis: I'm glad you raised that because I wanted to have you address that. When your father was assassinated, to your point, he wasn't one of those figures that people were rushing to embrace.
Ms. Shabazz: Not publicly.
Tavis: Not publicly. You know the story better than I do. They had to work to find a place to funeralize your father. People, you know, didn't even want to have Malcolm X--have Malcolm X's service take place in their church, so there began a search to find a place to funeralize your father, and then, to your point, publicly a lot of folk didn't want to embrace Malcolm X, and that's why you so loved Uncle Ossie and Aunt Ruby 'cause they were unafraid to step up...
Ms. Shabazz: Absolutely.
Tavis: And to say about Brother Malcolm what needed to be said. I raise all that because I'm curious as to how you survived during that period between his assassination and, for lack of a better time, when Spike Lee put your daddy on T-shirts and made a wonderful movie with Denzel Washington. He still got robbed, as far as I'm concerned, for the Academy Award. But it wasn't until, for a certain generation, that moment, that people really started to embrace Brother Malcolm en masse. How did you survive during that period when wasn't the most--
Ms. Shabazz: First of all, when you live with truth, truth is what governs, and I knew the grace of my father all the while. I was fortunate to know my father as a human being, and I did not need or require outside approval, and so that, even during the time in the nineties when the movie was around, and people were saying, "Well, I've just learned more about your father. You must really be proud now." And I thought to myself, I had waited these 30 years to be proud, you know, I would have gone through a really rough time. But, you know, in elementary school, junior high school, there were parents who did not want their children to play with us or to spend time around us, and I guess there was a jeopardy and a risk, and you have to understand truth in its place. But what I did know is that the few that were there were just enough. Were just fine. And I think in knowing the heart and the spirit of my father and his commitment and dedication and what he stood for and that he was fair to everyone...
Tavis: Mm-hmm.
Ms. Shabazz: He was always a fair person, so that becomes my compass. Watching my mother, I think--I didn't think as much of myself as much as being first-born and knowing my mother as a wife, um, and my mother being my first love and watching that tilt and wanting to be supportive to her, and I think that's usually a first-born kind of characteristic. You just try to fill in where you think there's a gap, and having 5 younger sisters, who I adore, you know? Knuckleheads as they may be, um, which is a--I just am wishing and hoping for them the peace, in the absence of having 2 parents, that are often referred to and remarked on and claimed and owned by, you know, a larger public, when on the intimate side, you just need a mother and a father.
Tavis: How has your father's life and your mother's life and legacy shaped the work that you do now? Tell me more about the work that you do.
Ms. Shabazz: Well, you know, it's something 'cause people will ask me what it is I do, you know? And I don't think that there's any one particular profession, so that while one will have a heading that's producer, diplomat, you know, a writer, I think all of--the bottom line to everything that I do is just that which connects, um, with people and finds the balance in the resources that we're--the atmosphere that we're in. And most recently, as I had mentioned when I had learned about Uncle Ossie, I was in a women's prison--not arrested--but a women's prison, where I had implemented a motivational program for, um, these ladies in Central America, and when I got the word that he had been gone, I had to switch into the gear that did not rob them of my intent, and name it after the people that were before me--my parents, my grandparents, um, Uncle Ossie, Aunt Ruby in her living existence, and so many others. I was really fortunate in my first decade of life to have been surrounded by men and women, some whom have gone, and those who are here are heading towards 90 and unsteady in well-being in certain aspects, but principally are--are just sound people that confirm my, um...idealism.
Tavis: This is an unfair question to ask you in 45 seconds. Um, for you--not for the world--for you, what is your father's abiding legacy?
Ms. Shabazz: Growth, evolution, patience, time. You know, without ego. Just the real dedication to a commitment, following through it, prayer. My father was a faith-filled man, and when he did not have the answer, he entrusted himself in that which was before him, and I think he did that well.
Tavis: I think the best we can do--the best thing we can do on this 40th anniversary, as we commemorate the life and legacy of Malcolm X, is to educate ourselves, empower ourselves about him. Certainly, there is the book. We all know 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X' by Alex Haley, and other tons of research these days about Malcolm X. So educate yourself, empower yourself about the life and legacy of this great man, Malcolm X. Nice to see you Ms. Shabazz.
Ms. Shabazz: Thank you.
Tavis: Glad to have you on.
Back to February 21, 2005