Malikah Shabazz, daughter of slain Black civil rights leader Malcolm X, died Monday.
The 56-year-old Shabazz was found unconscious by her daughter at her home in Brooklyn, according to the New York Police Department.
Shabazz is the youngest of the legendary US leader Malcolm X’s six daughters.
The death appears to be due to natural causes at this time, cops told CNN.
“I’m deeply saddened by the death of #MalikahShabazz. My heart goes out to her family, the descendants of Dr. Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X. Dr. Shabazz was pregnant with Malikah and her twin sister, Malaak, when Brother Malcolm was assassinated. Be at peace, Malikah,” Bernice King, a daughter of the late Martin Luther King Jr., offered her condolences.
Malcolm X was one of the most powerful voices in the fight against racism before his shooting death in New York in 1965.
He rose to fame as the Nation of Islam’s chief spokesperson, proclaiming the Black Muslim organisation’s message at the time: racial separatism as a road to self-actualisation.
X famously urged Black people to claim civil rights “by any means necessary.”
Malcolm X spent more than a decade building the Nation of Islam before becoming disillusioned and breaking acrimoniously with it in 1964, about a year before he was gunned down in New York City on February 21, 1965.
Last Thursday, two men convicted of the assassination were exonerated during a court hearing. New York County Supreme Court Administrative Judge Ellen Biben granted the motion to vacate the convictions of Muhammad A. Aziz and the late Khalil Islam.
