Ilyasah Shabazz

Raised by her aunt until she is six, Betty, who will later marry Malcolm X, joins her mother and stepfamily in 1940s Detroit, where she learns about the civil rights movement.

Malcolm Little's parents have always told him that he can achieve anything, but from what he can tell, that's a pack of lies -- after all, his father's been murdered, his mother's been taken away, and his dreams of becoming a lawyer have gotten him laughed out of school. There's no point in trying, he figures, and lured by the nightlife of Boston and New York, he escapes into a world of fancy suits, jazz, girls, and reefer. But Malcolm's efforts to...

“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...

The heart of the book is Malcolm's impressions, his personal observations on the people he meets and the circumstances he encounters, his own feelings of trepidation and inadequacy. There are segments in which the book will be complemented by passages from Malcolm's autobiography, though in our book his immediate reactions have not been disturbed by editors. And in several ways and instances the diary amplifies the autobiography.