Ilyasah Shabazz

We were raised very colour blind. I had gone to school and to camp for so long with white people, I think I was like 15 years old before I realised I was black.

Everyone wants me to be this political person... I'm not Malcolm X.

My mother didn't set out to surround us with white students or colleagues. My mother just sought a quality education. People have these expectations of who they think you should be. And I say it's because they don't really understand Malcolm X - or his wife.

Grass-roots work is not flashy, and rarely celebrated on the national media level, but that is where change begins.

We have been shaken by the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice - shaken, but not sufficiently unsettled. We must contextualize those losses, force our neighbors to become so deeply disturbed by what has occurred that they, too, are inspired to act to change the system.

My father, in 1952, just in his 20s, my father became the chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam. From 1952 to 1959, there were four temples. My father was responsible and credited for having maximized this membership. From four temples to 50 temples, there was so much work involved.

My mother witnessed the martyrdom of her husband, Hajj Malik Shabazz, Malcolm X, on Sunday, February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. My older sisters, Attallah, Qubilah and I were seated with our mother up front and stage right.

Betty Shabazz was the wife of a man who challenged a government that was historically unjust. She was harassed and placed under surveillance by the Nation of Islam (NOI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

My mother persevered through much adversity because she possessed faith in God, self-respect, and an awareness of history; most especially, she was astute in Africa's significant contribution to world history. Sister Betty refused to live her life as a victim.

After graduating high school, Betty attended the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Birmingham, Alabama, the alma mater of both her parents. My mother relocated to New York because she refused to accept the oppressive racism of the Jim Crow south.

It is our family's hope that the true legacy and context of Malcolm X's life continues to be shared with people from all walks of life in a positive manner that helps promote the goals and ideals for which Malcolm X so passionately advocated.

College was where I got to actually experience the difference between black and white.

Of course I was in love with my father as a child. He was Daddy, and our house came alive in a special way whenever he walked through the door. He'd romp and play with us; my sisters and I would literally squeal with excitement when Daddy came home.

I don't know that there is a, quote, 'hip-hop lifestyle.' I think the music responds to complex social issues and injustices; I think it also raises complex social questions.

Great men marry great women.

Everyone puts all of the advances that we've made on Dr. King, but there's a lot of people who were part of the civil rights movement.