Product Description

The gunmen rose from the crowd and set their sights on Malcolm X. The thunder of shotgun blasts ripped through the ballroom, and Betty Shabazz turned to see her husband float backward, keel over and crash to the ballroom stage. She grabbed her children, hurling them beneath a booth and shielding them with her body while the room erupted into screams and chaos. As she lay there squeezing her family, the Betty Shabazz who was the dutiful and obedient wife of the Civil Rights Movement's most feared leader ceased to be, and the woman who emerged would become one of the greatest heroines of our day.

Betty Shabazz, Surviving Malcolm X is the first major biography of Dr. Betty Shabazz, the unsung and controversial champion of the Civil Rights era. From her early marriage to black liberation's raging voice through her evolution into a powerful and outspoken African-American leader, Betty Shabazz was in constant struggle to bring freedom and justice to her people. Yet, at times her greatest fight was to struggle through tragedy and hold on to her faith amidst the stereotypes forced on her by a culture of racism and the very people she was trying to liberate.

To read Betty Shabazz, Surviving Malcolm X is to experience this remarkable life. With eloquent and intimate prose, Russell J. Rickford puts you on the scene as a young Betty Sanders is taken in by foster parents after a troubled childhood. You are there as Malcolm X comes home from a hard day of railing against oppression to hug his children, dote on his wife and laugh. You dive under the table at the Audubon Ballroom as bullets strike Malcolm down. You struggle with Betty Shabazz as she fights to raise six girls alone while earning a doctorate. You stand triumphant with her as she claims her own individuality and fights to build respect for Malcolm. And you stand watch with her daughters as Betty passes away, a victim of yet another tragedy, but this time after a life lived full.

Russell J. Rickford has conducted extensive research to compile this biography, interviewing more than seventy of Betty Shabazz's family members, friends, colleagues and contemporaries as well as researching countless records and documents, including recently declassified FBI, CIA and New York Police files. This is the first complete look at the life of Betty Shabazz and a new insight into the man who was known as Malcolm X.

Betty Shabazz is the story of a strong woman who faced incredible tragedy and emerged triumphant, compassionate and always full of life. In the end, it is the story of a nation torn apart by hatred learning to heal and forgive.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #491771 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 656 pages

From Publishers Weekly
As much an exceptionally well-culled oral history of mid-century black radicalism as it is a sympathetic, evenhanded look at its subject, this first biography of Dr. Shabazz makes it compellingly clear that the widow of Malcolm X was an inspiring force in her own right. Rickford (Spoken Soul), a former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter, writes in a straightforward reportorial style as concise and analytical as it is breezy and accessible. He draws together the multiple strands of Shabazz's life by quoting an impressive range of firsthand sources, both friendly and skeptical, and presenting their comments with a judicious disinterest that well serves his clear admiration of his subject. After a scattered childhood that landed her among loving foster parents in Detroit and a formative stint at Tuskegee Institute, the 23-year-old Betty Dean Sandlin, Brooklyn nursing student, married 32-year-old Nation of Islam minister Malcolm X in 1958, and lost him seven years later. The manner in which Rickford depicts Malcolm and Betty's finally very different forms of radicalism and faith is central to the book and ends up as a nuanced reckoning of black militancy's toll on its soldiers. The second half details Betty's years after Malcolm's murder, centered on her hard-won 1975 doctorate and professorship at CUNY's Medgar Evers College, but Malcolm haunts almost every page, up to Betty's tragic death in 1997 in a fire set by a grandson. Rickford's skeptical ear (" `When ya die, niggas lie on ya,' hissed one of my sources") keeps the book from tilting toward hagiography, and his inclusion of telling (and often funny) bits of urban myth, aphorism and domestic detail (Malcolm took coffee "integrated"-his word-with cream) give the narrative warmth and punch.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Just as the achievements of her husband, Malcolm X, were overshadowed by those of Martin Luther King Jr., Betty Shabazz's accomplishments have been overshadowed by those of King's widow. Rickford corrects that imbalance with this penetrating biography. Drawing on interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, as well as documentation from FBI, CIA, and police files, Rickford details Shabazz's early life; how she met, married, and lived with Malcolm; and how she made a life for herself after his assassination. Betty chafed at the role of quiet, patient, and obedient Muslim wife and mother. But she deeply loved her fiery, driven husband, reluctantly sharing him with first the Black Muslims and later the black nationalist movement. It took years after his death before she fully understood the scope of her husband's influence. By then she had transformed herself from Mrs. Malcolm to Dr. Shabazz, the protector of her husband's legacy. Rickford details her career as a civil rights leader, her valiant efforts to raise her six daughters alone, and the final tragedy that ended her life. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Russell J. Rickford is the coauthor of Spoken Soul, about the expressive qualities of black vernacular, and he is a former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Howard University and studied under such black scholars as Molefi Kete Asante, Russell Adams, Charles Metz and E. Ethelbert Miller. He was born in Guyana and currently lives in New York City, where he is a PhD candidate in history at Columbia University.

Customer Reviews

Oh MY God
I would of never in my mind think that a person could write this kind of book it is almost like Betty Shabazz is saying tell my story Tell them I feel really glad that I purchased this wonderful work All women should read it

Quite Informative,revealing, and historical
This book is not only an informative and revealing biography of one of America's hero's, Dr. Betty Shabazz. This is also a historical biography of a remarkable woman. Most informative is the likeness and kinship many woman can identify with especially struggling mothers, aunts,and grandmothers who find themselves trying to raise young boys alone. Often without the assistance of fathers, grandfathers, and positve male role-models.

Hers not only is the story of being Mrs. Malcolm X, Dr. Betty Shabazz, but also tragically grandmother/mother/counselor to our often time rebellious and misunderstood young black males searching for their fathers and father figures.

But in the mist of this tragic situation her family can and must relish in the life of this remarkable, remarkable Queen Mother Betty.....

Mr. Rickford gives us just that in this important piece of literature.

Nisha Watson
Durham, North Carolina

fascinating
a very interesting, gripping story. you won't be able to put it down. it's about time the black woman's side of things got its due.