Ilyasah Shabazz is producing a television series based on the life of her father, Malcolm X.
While fans of Malcolm have seen versions of his story played out on film, a television story will be something new.
According to Variety, the series will be based on two of Shabazz’s novels, “X: A Novel” and “The Awakening of Malcolm X.”
“X: A Novel” follows Malcolm from his childhood to his imprisonment for theft at age twenty, when he found the faith that would lead him to forge a new path and command a voice that still resonates today. “The Awakening of Malcolm X,” is a powerful narrative account of the activist’s adolescent years in jail, written by his daughter Ilyasah Shabazz, Coretta Scott King-John Steptoe award-winning author, Tiffany D. Jackson.
Shabazz will serve as executive producer for the series along with State Street Pictures’ Bob Tietel and George Tillman and 3 Arts Entertainment’s Jermaine Johnson and Molly Madden. State Street currently has a first-look deal with Sony.
Shabazz is a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, an activist, a community organizer, motivational speaker and educator.
Shabazz sadly witnessed the assassination of her father at the Audubon Ballroom in 1965. Earlier this year, Reggie Wood (relative of Ray Wood) held a press conference where he would make shocking claims regarding Malcolm X’s killing.
“Without any training, Wood’s job was to infiltrate civil rights organizations and encourage leaders and members to commit felonious acts,” he wrote. “He was also tasked with ensuring that Malcolm X’s security detail was arrested days prior to the assassination, guaranteeing Malcolm X didn’t have door security while at the Audubon Ballroom, where he was killed on Feb. 21, 1965,” civil rights attorney, Benjamin Crump revealed at the conference.
“We want the truth uncovered. And if it’s the Manhattan district attorney, the United States Congress, we would like them to do a thorough investigation on the assassination of our father, Malcolm X,” Shabazz later said in an interview with Democracy Now!
