Loving life: the legacy of Betty Shabazz - Obituary

Black Issues in Higher Education, July 24, 1997 by Julianne Malveaux

The first time I met Betty Shabazz I was, frankly, in open-mouthed awe of her. I sort of buzzed around her, hovered in her orbit, but didn't say a word. She had been married to Malcolm X, I told myself. And after his assassination, she raised six daughters by herself. She earned a Ph.D. as an adult, and was running a major department at Medgar Evers College. The woman must be awesome, I told myself. So I watched and I wondered when and how I could approach her and share my admiration.

As things happen, she and I ended up at the same side of the swimming pool, our lounge chairs separated by one of those rickety tables that tries to support an umbrella. I introduced myself and awkwardly gushed out my admiration for her, so brimming over with hyperbole that I realized I was being foolish.

Still, I continued on for several minutes, until a deep chuckle emerged from someplace near her gut.

"Child," she told me with a husky laugh, "you had better get over all that."

That's the thing about Betty Shabazz that the obituaries missed - that humor, that approachability, that self-imposed notion that she was not larger than life, but simply life itself.

Since June 1, when the news that she was badly burned hit the media, I've thought much about Dr. Shabazz, her approachability and about the way she was able to put everyone at ease - all the while carrying the Malcolm X torch, all the while protecting his legacy.

Betty loved life, which is perhaps why she clung so tenaciously to it, living for three weeks after doctors said she would not make it because of the severity of her burns. Her love for life was reflected in her determination to live it well and wisely, - and to communicate that desire to others. As counselor and dean at Medgar Evers College, "Dr. Betty's" love for life equipped her to teach and talk about overcoming adversity. After all, who can say they "can't" overcome when they are speaking to an icon of a woman who has cleared every hurdle that adversity placed in her way.

Betty Shabazz didn't want to be a role model, but she could not help but be one. Her life is an example of triumph over tragedy, an affirmation of the way that African American women have "a habit of survival," of "making a way out of no way." As the widow of Malcolm X, Betty Shabazz had to rebuild her life, and redefine herself as a single mother. She triumphed in the process of her redefinition. As professor, educational administrator, talk show host, and leader, she became a role model for every woman who has had to reinvent her life in the face of misfortune.

With her death comes a set of lessons, as well. Her New York City memorial service at Riverside Church brimmed over with mourners - some well-known and some not. Although he has not been considered a friend to African American people, New York Mayor Rudolph Guiliani brought heartfelt condolences and was booed in the process. Atallah Shabazz shrugged off her grief for a moment and fiercely admonished the crowd to give respect to someone who came to pay respect to her mother. I could hear both Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X in her dignified fierceness, and was reminded, again, that there is a time and place for everything.

The most powerful lessons came from those who chose to address the delicate subject of the future of Malcolm Shabazz, Betty's young grandson who stands accused of setting the fire that caused her death. Haki Madhibuti and Maya Angelou did not shy away from the subject but implored the crowd to treat this young Black man as we would any younger brother, to surround him with the same love with which we seemed to surround Betty Shabazz's memory.

"God created him, but we made him," Maya Angelou said poignantly, tearfully.

Weeks, months, years after Dr. Shabazz's passing, we can pay tribute to her by doing the work she did so well - counseling, educating, and guiding our youth.

A few days after Betty Shabazz died, the Supreme Court ruled that people do not have the right to assisted suicide. While I have always supported people's right to choose death over life, Betty's death reminded me of the value of life. The way she lived and the way she died reminded me of something that Black scholar - W.E.B. DuBois - wrote in the twilight of his days, when he looked back over nearly 100 full years of challenge and controversy.

From Ghana, where he died, DuBois exhorted, "One thing alone I charge you. As you live, believe in life. Always human beings will live and progress to a greater, broader, and fuller life. The only possible death is to lose belief in this truth, simply because the great end comes slowly and because time is long."

Dr. Betty Shabazz may well have written such words. She lived by those powerful life-affirming principles. Those who knew and admired her have many ways of remembering her. I choose to remember her as life-loving, approachable, Malcolm's widow - but so much more than that, as mother, teacher, sister and leader.

Betty Shabazz was a sister who loved life so much that she clung to it, even in the midst of tragedy.