Malcolm Latif Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X

I was tracking down this quote for our Independence Day –

“You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism
that you can’t face reality.
Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.”
~ Malcolm X

When I encountered the story of his grandson, Malcolm Latif Shabazz. I didn’t know the story until today, though it is an old one.

In Philadelphia, one landlord there remembered frequently having to let young Malcolm into the apartment because his mother was not at home. Malcolm showed some evidence of disturbance as a child. As a three-year-old, he reportedly set fire to his shoes.

In 1995, his mother Qubilah was charged with trying to hire an assassin to kill Louis Farrakhan. Under the terms of her plea agreement, she was required to undergo psychological counseling and treatment for drug and alcohol abuse for a two-year period in order to avoid a prison sentence. For the duration of her treatment, ten-year-old Malcolm was sent to live with Betty at her apartment in Yonkers NY.

In 1997, his mother called the police saying she wanted him committed to a mental hospital. After a brief stay, Malcolm was released. His mother said she was going to place him in foster care but sent Malcolm back to New York on April 26 to live with his grandmother instead.

On June 1 1997, Malcolm Shabazz (then 12 years old) started a fire in Betty Shabazz’s apartment. She suffered burns over 80 percent of her body. The police found Malcolm wandering the streets, barefoot and reeking of gasoline. Betty Shabazz died of her injuries on June 23 1997. At a hearing, experts described Malcolm as psychotic and schizophrenic. He was also described as “brilliant but disturbed.”

His lawyers accepted that he started the fire but argued he intended no real harm to his grandmother. Shabazz pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months of juvenile detention at Hillcrest Education Center in Pittsfield MA for manslaughter and arson, with possible annual extensions until his 18th birthday. Shabazz was eventually released after four years.

His version of the fire and the events leading up to it – he had been unhappy living in New York with his grandmother and had stated: “Being bad, doing anything to get them to send me back to my mother. Then I got the idea to set the fire.” Shabazz continued: “I set a fire in the hallway, and I didn’t think the whole thing through thoroughly, but she didn’t have to run through that fire … There was another way out of the house from her room. I guess what she thought was, I was stuck, and she had to run and get me because it was in front of my room as well. She ran through the fire. I did not picture that happening, that she would do that.”

Shabazz died in Mexico City on May 9 2013, at the age of 28. He was said to be on a tour to demand more rights for Mexican construction workers relocated to the US. His body, which according to prosecutors had been badly beaten with a rod of some kind, was found in the street in Plaza Garibaldi, a busy tourist spot.

Malcolm Latif Shabazz was survived by his mother and his two daughters. He was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale NY, near the graves of his grandparents, Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz.

“When a person is unable to complete a mourning task in childhood, he either has to surrender his emotions in order that they do not suddenly overwhelm him, or else he may be haunted constantly throughout his life with a sadness for which he can never find an appropriate explanation.”
~ Wyatt Emory Cooper, The Importance of Grieving