Malikah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, has been found dead in her home in Brooklyn.
Authorities say Shabazz, 56, was found inside her Midwood home on East 28th Street by her daughter. They say they are not treating her death as suspicious.
“I’m deeply saddened by the death of #MalikahShabazz. My heart goes out to her family, the descendants of Dr. Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X. Dr. Shabazz was pregnant with Malikah and her twin sister, Malaak, when Brother Malcolm was assassinated,” Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tweeted. “Be at peace, Malikah.”
Malcolm X’s assassination came amid a public dispute between Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam’s founder, Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm X had accused Muhammad of infidelity. He wanted away from the NOI in March of 1964.
Last week, two men who were arrested and charged for the 1965 assassination of the civil rights icon were exonerated after a nearly two-year-long probe.
Muhammad Aziz, 83, previously known as Norman Butler, spent 22 years in prison before he was paroled in 1985.
“The events that led to my exoneration should never have occurred,” he said, per ABC 7. Co-defendant Khalil Islam died in 2009. He also maintained that he was innocent.
“Those events were and are the result of a process that was corrupt to its core – one that is all too familiar – even in 2021. While I do not need a court, prosecutors, or a piece of paper to tell me I am innocent, I am glad that my family, my friends, and the attorneys who have worked and supported me all these years are finally seeing the truth we have all known, officially recognized. I am an 83-year-old man who was victimized by the criminal justice system, and I do not know how many more years I have to be creative. However, I hope the same system that was responsible for this travesty of justice also take responsibility for the immeasurable harm it caused me.”
