Betty Shabazz: A Remarkable Story of Survival and Faith Before and After Malcolm X

This major biography documents the remarkable life of a heroine of the black revolution. Betty Shabazz was the wife, and then, tragically, the widow of one of America's most famous African-American leaders. She was the mother of their six daughters, and a warrior for her people in her own right who also suffered a terrible death.

Betty Shabazz was just shy of her thirtieth birthday, pregnant with twins and surrounded by her four daughters when her husband, Malcolm X, was gunned down in front of her and their children.

During their romantic and turbulent seven-year marriage, Betty Shabazz, as a traditional Muslim wife, pressed his white shirts, fixed his seven-course dinners and typed his speeches. Malcolm spent a staggering number of hours traveling, lecturing, organizing rallies and thundering for justice, freedom and Allah's Last Messenger. With Malcolm's death, she took on the mantel of his cause and became an almost tyrannical custodian of Malcolm's memory.

In this dramatic, powerfulbiography, author Russell J. Rickford has pieced together historical documents along with the memories of family, friends, colleagues and confidants to create a dazzling portrait of Betty Shabazz, who lived a life of tragedy and triumph, with a legacy that rises above the label of "the widow of Malcolm X" to the status of heroine.