| Attallah Shabazz | |||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 16 November 1958 | ||||||||||
| Birth Place: | New York City, U.S. | ||||||||||
| Education: | Briarcliff College | ||||||||||
| Parents: | Malcolm X Betty Shabazz
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Attallah Shabazz (born November 16, 1958) is an American actress, author, diplomat, and motivational speaker, and the eldest daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz.
Shabazz was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 16, 1958. Shabazz says her name is Arabic for "the gift of God" (Arabic: عَطَاء الله|[[Ataullah|`Aṭā'allāh]]) and she is not named after Attila the Hun as her father's autobiography states.[1] [2] [3]
In February 1965, her sister Qubilah woke the family in the middle of the night with her screams; the house was on fire.[4] Shabazz recalled that night in a 1989 interview: "I almost didn't realize how dangerous it was—my father was that calm, that together a parent. My eyes were burning, I was coughing, but before you knew it, he had us all out of there, and we were safe at a friend's house. My mother's like that too. Together."[1]
A week later, Shabazz was at Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, with her mother and sisters, when her father was assassinated.[5] She was six at the time and reportedly the only one of his children who has clear memories of him.[6] In 2005, she told journalist Gabe Pressman that she remembered the events of that day "vividly":[7]