African Americans - Politics and Government - History, African American Religious Biography, 20th Century American History - Civil Rights, Civil Rights - African American History, African Americans - Law, Politics, & Government, African Americans - Religi
Growing up X
Ilyasah Shabazz, Kim McLarin
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Overview
“Ilyasah Shabazz has written a compelling and lyrical coming-of-age story as well as a candid and heart-warming tribute to her parents. Growing Up X is destined to become a classic.”–SPIKE LEE
February 21, 1965: Malcolm X is assassinated in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom. June 23, 1997: After surviving for a remarkable twenty-two days, his widow, Betty Shabazz, dies of burns suffered in a fire. In the years between, their six daughters reach adulthood, forged by the memory of their parents’ love, the meaning of their cause, and the power of their faith. Now, at long last, one of them has recorded that tumultuous journey in an unforgettable memoir: Growing Up X.
Born in 1962, Ilyasah was the middle child, a rambunctious livewire who fought for–and won–attention in an all-female household. She carried on the legacy of a renowned father and indomitable mother while navigating childhood and, along the way, learning to do the hustle. She was a different color from other kids at camp and yet, years later as a young woman, was not radical enough for her college classmates. Her story is, sbove all else, a tribute to a mother of almost unimaginable forbearance, a woman who, “from that day at the Audubon when she heard the shots and threw her body on [ours, never] stopped shielding her children.”
Synopsis
“Ilyasah Shabazz has written a compelling and lyrical coming-of-age story as well as a candid and heart-warming tribute to her parents. Growing Up X is destined to become a classic.”
–SPIKE LEE
February 21, 1965: Malcolm X is assassinated in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom. June 23, 1997: After surviving for a remarkable twenty-two days, his widow, Betty Shabazz, dies of burns suffered in a fire. In the years between, their six daughters reach adulthood, forged by the memory of their parents’ love, the meaning of their cause, and the power of their faith. Now, at long last, one of them has recorded that tumultuous journey in an unforgettable memoir: Growing Up X.
Born in 1962, Ilyasah was the middle child, a rambunctious livewire who fought for–and won–attention in an all-female household. She carried on the legacy of a renowned father and indomitable mother while navigating childhood and, along the way, learning to do the hustle. She was a different color from other kids at camp and yet, years later as a young woman, was not radical enough for her college classmates. Her story is, sbove all else, a tribute to a mother of almost unimaginable forbearance, a woman who, “from that day at the Audubon when she heard the shots and threw her body on [ours, never] stopped shielding her children.”
Book Magazine
Thirty-seven years after Malcolm X's assassination, his life and words remain vital and controversial. Unfortunately, this memoir, by his third daughter, doesn't deepen our understanding of the complex, charismatic man. Apart from the author's moving account of the death of her mother, Betty Shabazz, in 1997—from burns sustained in a fire set by one of her grandsons—the memoir mainly consists of not-very-remarkable memories of childhood, summer camp, first boyfriends and college parties. These accounts are interspersed with admiration and praise for the author's martyred father and her courageous mother. Readers seeking substantive insight into the character of Malcolm X or Betty Shabazz, or even a novel perspective on current race relations in America, will be disappointed.
—Eric Wargo
Editorials
Thirty-seven years after Malcolm X's assassination, his life and words remain vital and controversial. Unfortunately, this memoir, by his third daughter, doesn't deepen our understanding of the complex, charismatic man. Apart from the author's moving account of the death of her mother, Betty Shabazz, in 1997—from burns sustained in a fire set by one of her grandsons—the memoir mainly consists of not-very-remarkable memories of childhood, summer camp, first boyfriends and college parties. These accounts are interspersed with admiration and praise for the author's martyred father and her courageous mother. Readers seeking substantive insight into the character of Malcolm X or Betty Shabazz, or even a novel perspective on current race relations in America, will be disappointed.
—Eric Wargo
Publishers Weekly
One of Malcolm X's six daughters, Shabazz was two when he was assassinated in February 1965. The bulk of the book covers the day-to-day specifics of Shabazz's childhood and adolescence as a middle-class African-American Muslim girl, punctuated by small brushes with her parents' past. Malcolm X is justifiably sentimentalized via the fragmentary memories and second-hand stories of Shabazz's childhood perspective (including a visit to the soon-to-be Muhammad Ali's training camp). Shabazz's mother, Dr. Betty Shabazz, eventually a professor of health administration at Medgar Evers College, is a constant presence in the book; "Mommy" shepherds Ilyasah and the other girls through school, and herself through graduate work, with "amazing strength and perseverance." Ilyasah's often ordinary existence is rendered in unadorned prose (to the point of listing teachers she had in various schools or chronicling a standoff with neighborhood girls), and her insights into herself and those around her can be cursory (a rape is covered in two pages) if honestly rendered. Shabazz is working on a book about her parents, which may explain why it sometimes feels like anecdotes and information are being held back. By the time Ilyasah comes to a more nuanced understanding of her identity as the daughter of Malcolm X, Betty Shabazz is killed by a fire set by one of Ilyasah's nephews in 1997. The book ends there, with exhortations that "Life is not a destination; it is a journey." (May) Forecast: Despite this memoir's thinness, it should generate a great deal of attention, not least via a 15-city author tour and a host of media appearances. Media interest in Islam has not resulted in a resurgence of interest in the Nation of Islam, but this book could be a first step, though it is far from a political or religious history. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.KLIATT
The Autobiography of Malcolm X is frequently required reading in high school courses, and certainly this memoir by one of his six daughters, complete with a section of b/w photographs, will interest many. Ilyasah was two years old when her father was gunned down. Her mother, pregnant with twins, covered little Ilyasah with her own body that horrible day. It is this mother, Betty Shabazz, who is the real focus of Ilyasah's memoir. She died in 1997, burned by a fire started by the 12-year-old troubled grandson who lived with her. Ilyasah honors her enormous courage and strength, raising six little girls alone, keeping alive the memory of her beloved husband, developing her own career and urging her daughters to fulfill their own destinies. The family members are devout Moslems, but they certainly don't fit any stereotypical notions about what this means in modern America. Betty Shabazz wanted her daughters to get the best educations possible, and this generally meant that the girls attended private schools with predominantly white students. Ilyasah describes the complications of these experiences, doubly challenging, perhaps, because the other students and teachers knew she was the daughter of Malcolm X. Ilyasah doesn't go into great detail about the tragic events in her sister Qubilah's life. (Qubilah was arrested for plotting the murder of Louis Farrakhan, believing that he had been responsible for the assassination of her father.) Ilyasah, herself, has had many difficulties: she was raped as a teenager; she had several heartbreaking love affairs as a young woman; and she lost her mother in terrible circumstances. Just as her mother had raised her, she has found her own strength to facetragedies and difficulties. She is smart, beautiful, and strong—a tribute to the love and nurturing of her parents. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2002, Ballantine, One World, 235p. illus.,— Claire Rosser
VOYA
Presented as a behind-the-scenes look at the life of Ilyasah Shabazz's father, Malcolm X, the book is actually a tribute to her mother, Dr. Betty Shabazz. Ilyasah was only two when her father was assassinated, and she candidly admits, "I'm not sure how much I really remember of my father." In the first half of the book, she tells how her mother put her life back together for her six young daughters, returning to school to obtain bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees so that she could provide the best of everything for her children. Friends and family helped Betty raise her daughters in the Muslim faith chosen by her husband, and she was fiercely protective of her children. This part of the book would be easier to read if the author did not skip around through time and lose her train of thought so frequently. The second half of the book focuses on Ilyasah's ordinary search for her purpose in the world, the only highlight her account of learning how to deal with her father's legacy. Throughout, she repeats that her mother was the most important person in her life. The book ends where it begins, with an account of Betty's injuries and death in 1997 resulting from a fire started by grandson Malcolm. One cannot help but wonder if such a private woman would appreciate the public account of her death, but the book allows the Shabazz family to publicly forgive young Malcolm his terrible mistake. Photos. VOYA Codes: 2Q 2P S A/YA (Better editing or work by the author might have warranted a 3Q; For the YA with a special interest in the subject; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult and Young Adult). 2002, One World/Ballantine, 235p,— Carolyn Carpan
Library Journal
The third of the six daughters of assassinated Black Muslim leader Malcolm X (or Hajj Malik El-Shabazz) and Dr. Betty Dean Sanders, Shabazz reminisces about her childhood and life in the 32 years between her father's being gunned down while speaking at Harlem's Audubon Ballroom in 1965 and her mother's dying of injuries suffered in a house fire in 1997. Two years old when her father died, Ilyasah has only a few remembered moments with him, but she offers much more to correct what she views as the usually fragmented and false understanding of him and his contribution to America and the world. While promoting her father's legacy as a messenger of black self-assurance, self-respect, and self-defense, Ilyasah also argues that great men marry great women, for her true hero is her mother. "Mommy" dominates the narrative, and her often hard-learned lessons carry the character and course of the journey toward the self-identity shared here. This interesting memoir, the first by any of the children of Malcolm X, is valuable for rounding out our understanding of the man and his milieu. Recommended for collections on African American biography. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/02.] Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Shabazz was two years old when her father was murdered in the presence of his young family, and she describes how her mother heroically raised her and her sisters in his absence. Betty Shabazz got help from friends and wealthy celebrities to buy a big, beautiful home in Mt. Vernon, NY, after the Nation of Islam evicted them from the small house it had provided during Malcolm X's ministry. The girls led comfortable, sheltered, upper-middle-class lives, complete with housekeepers, chauffeured cars, exclusive social clubs, and expensive, predominantly white private schools and summer camps. In her well-meaning attempts to protect her daughters from emotional trauma, their mother didn't teach them anything about their father's work and philosophy. Shabazz was in college when she read The Autobiography of Malcolm X for the first time. The author obviously idolizes her mother, who was always studying and working hard to provide for her daughters in style, but also indicates that she was controlling-even to the point of selecting Shabazz's college and dismissing her daughter's expressed desire to attend a black university. Teens who have been inspired by the life and speeches of Malcolm X will undoubtedly find this memoir interesting.-Joyce Fay Fletcher, Rippon Middle School, Prince William County, VA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
Malcolm X's daughter follows her father's famed Autobiography with a forgettable memoir, plainly written and significantly lacking a narrative arc. Although Shabazz grows up in these pages, she doesn't appear to mature. From the start, the reader is presented with a fun-loving girl who loves her mother-cloyingly referred to as "Mommy" throughout-and who changes little along the way. Shabazz's mother, Betty, was doubtless a strong woman who made the best of difficult circumstances, having lost a beloved husband and raising five daughters on her own. But it is also clear that she was an overbearing parent. Throughout, Shabazz offers anecdotes intended to demonstrate her mother's good sense, while they in effect tend to reveal Shabazz's inability to speak for herself. This may be for the best, since when her voice does come through, it is painfully self-congratulatory and unaware-as when she describes childhood artwork hung in her mother's front hall as "a thought-provoking selection of neon triangles painted by me, [and] a provocative handprint transformed into a turkey by Malaak." None of this is to say that Shabazz has no material to work with, having grown up with a world-famous, absent, yet omnipresent father. Her undertaking, however, of fitting herself into the legacy of Malcolm X is apparently, in her view, unproblematic. Yet she seems never to have missed having a father, nor does she ever suggest regret that most of what she knows about him comes from his autobiography. She is, apparently, content to be a third-tier luminary who has met a lot of famous people because her father was great. If Shabazz is seeking to preserve a legacy, she does so in a manner that offers no substance.Book Details
Published
January 1, 2003
Publisher
Random House Publishing Group
Pages
256
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780345444967