Come defend Malcolm X's family legacy
Options
tru_m.a.c
Members Posts: 9,091 ✭✭✭✭
NEW YORK -- A daughter of Malcolm X has been sentenced to five years of probation for stealing the identity of an elderly family friend to run up big credit card bills. Prosecutors say Malikah Shabazz (shuh-BAHZ') made $55,000 in illegal purchases.
The 46-year-old North Carolina resident pleaded guilty and was freed from jail in June. She has to pay back the full amount stolen as part of the deal.
Prosecutors in New York say Shabazz opened credit cards in the name of a 70-year-old New York City woman whose late husband was one of Malcolm X's bodyguards and was present when he was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem in 1965.
Shabazz's lawyer, Russell Rothberg, did not immediately return a call for comment Thursday.
February 8, 2011
Malcolm X Trove Hidden During Feud
By JOHN ELIGON
A feud over the estate of Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, has created divisions among the couple’s six daughters and has resulted in something none of them had intended: keeping part of their father’s legacy from the public.
The daughters have traded accusations of irresponsibility, mental incapacity and fiscal mismanagement of the estate, which is worth about $1.4 million. But the greater value may reside in a trove of unpublished works from Malcolm X and Dr. Shabazz.
As the dispute drags on in Westchester County Surrogate’s Court, efforts to publish the works have been thwarted by the daughters’ bickering; all must sign off on any plan to sell and release the material, which includes four journals that Malcolm X kept during trips to Africa and the Middle East in 1964, a year before his assassination.
The battle represents the latest turn in the complex journey of a family that has come to define the struggle and pride of blacks in America. The clash also underscores the difficulty of preserving the legacy of a prominent figure, especially when it requires uniting competing personalities and visions.
Dr. Shabazz died in 1997, three weeks after suffering extensive burns in a house fire set by one of her grandsons. No will was found, even though some believed that one had existed.
The matter of her estate moved to Surrogate’s Court, where proceedings often take years. But the Shabazz family’s fight has gone on for more than a decade, prolonged by disputes over what to do with the potentially valuable relics of the parents, as well as objections to the various accountings of the estate’s assets.
A lawyer appointed by the Westchester court to represent one of the daughters, Malikah Shabazz, has accused the two daughters assigned to administer the estate, Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz, and their former lawyer of spending estate money on themselves while allowing property and other estate assets to languish and a tax bill to skyrocket.
Their failure to account for money and property in the estate has made it difficult to work out the specifics of any licensing pacts, said Malikah Shabazz’s lawyer, Lori Anne Douglass.
Dr. Shabazz “worked very hard to try to leave her daughters in a better position,” Ms. Douglass said. “They did not get their inheritance. This estate made money for years. What happened?”
But L. Londell McMillan, the current lawyer for Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz, blamed Ms. Douglass for prolonging the estate dispute and delaying a publishing deal. Mr. McMillan said she “has poisoned the well and attempted to prevent the matter from closing and Malikah from communicating and cooperating.”
It is nothing new for siblings to bicker over their parents’ estate or any number of other issues. But the Shabazz family has been faced with unusual challenges.
Some of the daughters witnessed their father’s assassination in the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights more than four decades ago. Then came the death of their mother at age 61 after the fire, set by Dr. Shabazz’s grandson Malcolm, who was 12 at the time. Heartache and tension within the family followed.
“My recollection is that there were a lot of problems in this family, to put it mildly,” said Frank W. Streng, a lawyer who represented Malikah Shabazz in 2002.
Sprinkled throughout letters and e-mails filed in Surrogate’s Court are references by the sisters’ lawyers to the siblings’ tense relationship.
The first public indication of problems with the estate began in 2002, after a collection of Malcolm X items turned up at Butterfields, the San Francisco auction house. Malikah Shabazz was accused of taking some of her father’s unpublished writings — including letters, speeches and journals — to Florida without permission. She allegedly placed the items in storage but allowed her bill to go unpaid, and her father’s work wound up at auction.
The estate had to pay more than $300,000 to get the items back, Joseph Fleming, the former lawyer for Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz, wrote in a court petition in 2004. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem paid more than $400,000 in 2003 to borrow the collection for 75 years, and the center is currently the only place where the works can be viewed.
In a petition attached to the accounting, Mr. Fleming questioned Malikah Shabazz’s mental capacity and blamed her for losing potential licensing deals.
That petition eventually led to the appointment in 2007 of Ms. Douglass as Ms. Shabazz’s guardian ad litem, someone who represents a person’s interests in court but may not make decisions on the person’s behalf.
Two years later, Ms. Douglass issued a 30-page report accusing Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz of misappropriating assets, citing examples like the women’s advancing shares of their inheritance to their sisters and prepaying themselves commissions even when their lawyers advised against it.
The estate’s tax bill, meanwhile, more than doubled over the years because of penalties and interest. At more than $2 million, the bill is now greater than the tangible value of the estate, according to an accounting filed last year by Mr. McMillan.
Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz are not guilty of anything “other than, perhaps, giving the lawyers and accountants too much authority,” Mr. McMillan said, “under circumstances when their pain and suffering was at an all-time high.”
Despite their past disagreements over what to do with the estate, all the sisters other than Malikah Shabazz are now on the same page, Mr. McMillan added.
Mr. McMillan did not make Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz available for comment. Malikah Shabazz could not be reached for comment, but in a letter to the judge last year, she wrote that she had been subject to “overly dramatic bullying” to compel her to agree to a settlement, suggesting that “every bit of everything has been taken from my daughter and I.” But, she added, she did not “plan to at any time participate in any so-called settlements, or negotiations.”
Shabazz Youth Admits Setting The Fatal Fire
By MONTE WILLIAMS
YONKERS, July 10— Concluding the latest chapter in a tortuous saga of family suffering, Malcolm Shabazz, the 12-year-old grandson of Malcolm X, pleaded guilty today to the juvenile equivalent of second-degree manslaughter for starting a fire that killed his grandmother, Dr. Betty Shabazz.
Malcolm's lawyers, Percy Sutton and David N. Dinkins, the former New York City mayor, said after a hearing in Family Court that in consultation with the boy and his mother, Qubilah Shabazz, they had decided to accept a plea bargain to avoid an intimate description of Malcolm's troubled childhood in open court.
''We were trying to protect this child,'' Mr. Sutton said.
The lawyers also indicated that they wanted to prevent public court sessions in which they would have challenged other charges against the boy. Those charges have not been made public.
In pleading guilty, Malcolm admitted causing the fire but not having intended to cause his grandmother's death. Because of his age, he was not charged as an adult, and Judge Howard Spitz of Family Court will have broad discretion in determining what will happen to the boy. A sentencing or disposition hearing, as it is known in Family Court, is scheduled for next Tuesday.
Malcolm faces a maximum sentence of up to 18 months in a juvenile detention facility or a psychiatric hospital. The sentence would be renewable annually until he is 18.
In the last few years, young Malcolm had been in and out of Qubilah Shabazz's care as she tried to overcome alcohol abuse and domestic violence. They left New York for Minneapolis together in 1994, but a few months later, Malcolm was taken from his mother's home under a court order and placed in a children's shelter on the ground of neglect.
Malcolm had been living with his grandmother intermittently since early 1995 after his mother was indicted on charges of plotting to ? Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, whom Betty Shabazz had accused of playing a role in Malcolm X's assassination. The charges were eventually dropped.
Dr. Shabazz's grandson was reunited with his mother last winter, moving to San Antonio. But Malcolm was sent back to Dr. Shabazz in New York in the spring after he and his mother had failed to get along.
Shortly after the fire, police investigators said Malcolm had told them that he was angry at his grandmother because he did not want to live with her and wanted to return to his mother, who was living in Texas.
''We are here as a court of rehabilitation, not punitive, so you tell whoever is interviewing you exactly what's on your mind so that we can get a program which will fit your needs,'' the judge told Malcolm, who has a history of emotional troubles.
Sooooooooooooooooooooooo.....yeah.........whats really good???
The 46-year-old North Carolina resident pleaded guilty and was freed from jail in June. She has to pay back the full amount stolen as part of the deal.
Prosecutors in New York say Shabazz opened credit cards in the name of a 70-year-old New York City woman whose late husband was one of Malcolm X's bodyguards and was present when he was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem in 1965.
Shabazz's lawyer, Russell Rothberg, did not immediately return a call for comment Thursday.
February 8, 2011
Malcolm X Trove Hidden During Feud
By JOHN ELIGON
A feud over the estate of Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, has created divisions among the couple’s six daughters and has resulted in something none of them had intended: keeping part of their father’s legacy from the public.
The daughters have traded accusations of irresponsibility, mental incapacity and fiscal mismanagement of the estate, which is worth about $1.4 million. But the greater value may reside in a trove of unpublished works from Malcolm X and Dr. Shabazz.
As the dispute drags on in Westchester County Surrogate’s Court, efforts to publish the works have been thwarted by the daughters’ bickering; all must sign off on any plan to sell and release the material, which includes four journals that Malcolm X kept during trips to Africa and the Middle East in 1964, a year before his assassination.
The battle represents the latest turn in the complex journey of a family that has come to define the struggle and pride of blacks in America. The clash also underscores the difficulty of preserving the legacy of a prominent figure, especially when it requires uniting competing personalities and visions.
Dr. Shabazz died in 1997, three weeks after suffering extensive burns in a house fire set by one of her grandsons. No will was found, even though some believed that one had existed.
The matter of her estate moved to Surrogate’s Court, where proceedings often take years. But the Shabazz family’s fight has gone on for more than a decade, prolonged by disputes over what to do with the potentially valuable relics of the parents, as well as objections to the various accountings of the estate’s assets.
A lawyer appointed by the Westchester court to represent one of the daughters, Malikah Shabazz, has accused the two daughters assigned to administer the estate, Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz, and their former lawyer of spending estate money on themselves while allowing property and other estate assets to languish and a tax bill to skyrocket.
Their failure to account for money and property in the estate has made it difficult to work out the specifics of any licensing pacts, said Malikah Shabazz’s lawyer, Lori Anne Douglass.
Dr. Shabazz “worked very hard to try to leave her daughters in a better position,” Ms. Douglass said. “They did not get their inheritance. This estate made money for years. What happened?”
But L. Londell McMillan, the current lawyer for Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz, blamed Ms. Douglass for prolonging the estate dispute and delaying a publishing deal. Mr. McMillan said she “has poisoned the well and attempted to prevent the matter from closing and Malikah from communicating and cooperating.”
It is nothing new for siblings to bicker over their parents’ estate or any number of other issues. But the Shabazz family has been faced with unusual challenges.
Some of the daughters witnessed their father’s assassination in the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights more than four decades ago. Then came the death of their mother at age 61 after the fire, set by Dr. Shabazz’s grandson Malcolm, who was 12 at the time. Heartache and tension within the family followed.
“My recollection is that there were a lot of problems in this family, to put it mildly,” said Frank W. Streng, a lawyer who represented Malikah Shabazz in 2002.
Sprinkled throughout letters and e-mails filed in Surrogate’s Court are references by the sisters’ lawyers to the siblings’ tense relationship.
The first public indication of problems with the estate began in 2002, after a collection of Malcolm X items turned up at Butterfields, the San Francisco auction house. Malikah Shabazz was accused of taking some of her father’s unpublished writings — including letters, speeches and journals — to Florida without permission. She allegedly placed the items in storage but allowed her bill to go unpaid, and her father’s work wound up at auction.
The estate had to pay more than $300,000 to get the items back, Joseph Fleming, the former lawyer for Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz, wrote in a court petition in 2004. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem paid more than $400,000 in 2003 to borrow the collection for 75 years, and the center is currently the only place where the works can be viewed.
In a petition attached to the accounting, Mr. Fleming questioned Malikah Shabazz’s mental capacity and blamed her for losing potential licensing deals.
That petition eventually led to the appointment in 2007 of Ms. Douglass as Ms. Shabazz’s guardian ad litem, someone who represents a person’s interests in court but may not make decisions on the person’s behalf.
Two years later, Ms. Douglass issued a 30-page report accusing Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz of misappropriating assets, citing examples like the women’s advancing shares of their inheritance to their sisters and prepaying themselves commissions even when their lawyers advised against it.
The estate’s tax bill, meanwhile, more than doubled over the years because of penalties and interest. At more than $2 million, the bill is now greater than the tangible value of the estate, according to an accounting filed last year by Mr. McMillan.
Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz are not guilty of anything “other than, perhaps, giving the lawyers and accountants too much authority,” Mr. McMillan said, “under circumstances when their pain and suffering was at an all-time high.”
Despite their past disagreements over what to do with the estate, all the sisters other than Malikah Shabazz are now on the same page, Mr. McMillan added.
Mr. McMillan did not make Ilyasah and Malaak Shabazz available for comment. Malikah Shabazz could not be reached for comment, but in a letter to the judge last year, she wrote that she had been subject to “overly dramatic bullying” to compel her to agree to a settlement, suggesting that “every bit of everything has been taken from my daughter and I.” But, she added, she did not “plan to at any time participate in any so-called settlements, or negotiations.”
Shabazz Youth Admits Setting The Fatal Fire
By MONTE WILLIAMS
YONKERS, July 10— Concluding the latest chapter in a tortuous saga of family suffering, Malcolm Shabazz, the 12-year-old grandson of Malcolm X, pleaded guilty today to the juvenile equivalent of second-degree manslaughter for starting a fire that killed his grandmother, Dr. Betty Shabazz.
Malcolm's lawyers, Percy Sutton and David N. Dinkins, the former New York City mayor, said after a hearing in Family Court that in consultation with the boy and his mother, Qubilah Shabazz, they had decided to accept a plea bargain to avoid an intimate description of Malcolm's troubled childhood in open court.
''We were trying to protect this child,'' Mr. Sutton said.
The lawyers also indicated that they wanted to prevent public court sessions in which they would have challenged other charges against the boy. Those charges have not been made public.
In pleading guilty, Malcolm admitted causing the fire but not having intended to cause his grandmother's death. Because of his age, he was not charged as an adult, and Judge Howard Spitz of Family Court will have broad discretion in determining what will happen to the boy. A sentencing or disposition hearing, as it is known in Family Court, is scheduled for next Tuesday.
Malcolm faces a maximum sentence of up to 18 months in a juvenile detention facility or a psychiatric hospital. The sentence would be renewable annually until he is 18.
In the last few years, young Malcolm had been in and out of Qubilah Shabazz's care as she tried to overcome alcohol abuse and domestic violence. They left New York for Minneapolis together in 1994, but a few months later, Malcolm was taken from his mother's home under a court order and placed in a children's shelter on the ground of neglect.
Malcolm had been living with his grandmother intermittently since early 1995 after his mother was indicted on charges of plotting to ? Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, whom Betty Shabazz had accused of playing a role in Malcolm X's assassination. The charges were eventually dropped.
Dr. Shabazz's grandson was reunited with his mother last winter, moving to San Antonio. But Malcolm was sent back to Dr. Shabazz in New York in the spring after he and his mother had failed to get along.
Shortly after the fire, police investigators said Malcolm had told them that he was angry at his grandmother because he did not want to live with her and wanted to return to his mother, who was living in Texas.
''We are here as a court of rehabilitation, not punitive, so you tell whoever is interviewing you exactly what's on your mind so that we can get a program which will fit your needs,'' the judge told Malcolm, who has a history of emotional troubles.
Sooooooooooooooooooooooo.....yeah.........whats really good???
Comments
-
lmao at his own kids not givin' a ? about this ? and his legacy but y'all still ridin' pole.
Love the symbol, not the man. -
Them girls are destroying their father's legacy and family.
-
Idi Amin Dada wrote: »lmao at his own kids not givin' a ? about this ? and his legacy but y'all still ridin' pole.
Love the symbol, not the man.
The man himself was great. -
should we as black ppl come to their rescue??? unity, brotherhood, all that good ?
forgiveness. -
I believe his children were little when he was murdered. U can't blame him for how their mama and other relatives raised them. I'm sure his death really affected them negatively as well.
-
truth spitter wrote: »I believe his children were little when he was murdered. U can't blame him for how their mama and other relatives raised them. I'm sure his death really affected them negatively as well.
Why do you think bad parenting has anything to do with their crime. -
Sooooooooooooooooooooooo....Yeah what does his family who weren't even old enough to remember their dad before he was killed have to do with how they turned out?? All this does is proves the theory that a family growing up without a father has a higher chance of leading a troubled life.
So what point were you trying to prove with this post?? -
truth spitter wrote: »I believe his children were little when he was murdered. U can't blame him for how their mama and other relatives raised them. I'm sure his death really affected them negatively as well.Sooooooooooooooooooooooo....Yeah what does his family who weren't even old enough to remember their dad before he was killed have to do with how they turned out?? All this does is proves the theory that a family growing up without a father has a higher chance of leading a troubled life.
So what point were you trying to prove with this post??
must be directed at another poster
I specifically said defend his "families' legacy not the man himself -
Your family members (sons, daughters) are the true legacy of a man and it's a damn shame they're tarnishing his legacy like this.
On another note, those journals and any works/documents needs to get published asap. I'd love to read about Malcom's discoveries especially as they were written at the time of his disassociation with NOI. -
bi bi bi bi bi bi bi bi ? aint ? but hoes and tricks
-
Sooooooooooooooooooooooo....Yeah what does his family who weren't even old enough to remember their dad before he was killed have to do with how they turned out??
Beside them being the children of the great malcolm x and betty shabazz??? um nothing I guessAll this does is proves the theory that a family growing up without a father has a higher chance of leading a troubled life.
right into the trap.....So what point were you trying to prove with this post??
You helped prove one. At what point do we assign blame to the individual??? Is she allowed to say "I grew up without my father" for her entire life, for every bad thing she does? Can you really say that malcolms death is the reason she turned to credit card fraud? -
must be directed at another poster
I specifically said defend his "families' legacy not the man himself
Well again the question is what does his family 40 something years later have to do with the man at all besides blood relation?? No one even cares about his family's legacy, cuz they were never on the verge of a full on revolution before being gunned down by the government. So why should anyone really care about what they're doing good or bad?? They're just the kids of a very important public leader. C'mon don't act as if you weren't implying it. -
Well again the question is what does his family 40 something years later have to do with the man at all besides blood relation?? No one even cares about his family's legacy, cuz they were never on the verge of a full on revolution before being gunned down by the government. So why should anyone really care about what they're doing good or bad?? They're just the kids of a very important public leader. C'mon don't act as if you weren't implying it.
So you don't think being the child of a icon( not a movie star, but an actual political figure who paved the way for our race) doesn't automatically mean you have to hold yourself up to higher standards?
You telling me when you walk out of your house you don't accept the fact that you're representing everything your parents stood for? -
Beside them being the children of the great malcolm x and betty shabazz??? um nothing I guess
right into the trap.....
You helped prove one. At what point do we assign blame to the individual??? Is she allowed to say "I grew up without my father" for her entire life, for every bad thing she does? Can you really say that malcolms death is the reason she turned to credit card fraud?
Well, does it matter who the father is?? an absentee father regardless of the life they may have had is still an absentee father. That will have some sort of affect on a child in some way or another. Do that strip all blame from the individual...of course not. But it is a big contributor into the string of events that may have led to that person making the decisions they make when they are older.
Daddy issues wasn't just a word that was made up, there is some truth to it. Especially in how it affect women. -
So you don't think being the child of a icon( not a movie star, but an actual political figure who paved the way for our race) doesn't automatically mean you have to hold yourself up to higher standards?
You telling me when you walk out of your house you don't accept the fact that you're representing everything your parents stood for?
No I don't represent everything my parents stood for. We made share some of the same values and beliefs, but I'm my own man who have to make a life for myself just like may parents did for themselves.
What if my parents were racists and hated all people who weren't black?? Because they're my parents I'm supposed to carry on that hateful tradiditon?? -
No I don't represent everything my parents stood for. We made share some of the same values and beliefs, but I'm my own man who have to make a life for myself just like may parents did for themselves.
What if my parents were racists and hated all people who weren't black?? Because they're my parents I'm supposed to carry on that hateful tradiditon??
but they're not so why are you bringing in hypothetical arguments to fit your cause
at the end of the day, w/e you do in life, will be tied to your parents legacy....stop arguing for the sake of arguing -
ether-i-am wrote: »THE MAN is behind this.
lol I'm waiting for this argument
guess nobody wants to take it up though -
wasn't too long ago when James browns folks were so busy arguing over the money they couldn't even bury the man.
-
Being great isn't genetic... if that was the case t/s would be a world champion ? .
-
He's been dead over 40 years. The shenanigans his triflin ass kids have nothing to do with his legacy and what he stood for.
did I say defend malcolm x's legacy or defend his family???
you gettin that 100k money and still misreading ish???Being great isn't genetic... if that was the case t/s would be a world champion ? .
*copy pastes in corniest IC jokes thread* -
but they're not so why are you bringing in hypothetical arguments to fit your cause
at the end of the day, w/e you do in life, will be tied to your parents legacy....stop arguing for the sake of arguing
^^^this post doesn't make too much sense
cuzzo had a legitimate point with his analogy about racist parents -
blakfyahking wrote: »^^^this post doesn't make too much sense
cuzzo had a legitimate point with his analogy about racist parents
Not really. His point was, if my parents represented a horrible institution like racism and I don't, are you saying I must follow in their belief system because I'm their child. No that was not my point.
My point, and I don't know why the IC plays dumb on real world scenarios, but when you raise a child, and send them out the house, whether its to school, to the gym, to the barbershop, they are a reflection of you. When a child leaves their home, what's the first thing a parent says, "Don't disrespect me. Don't make me look bad."
Unfortunately Malcolm was never able to raise them in his image. BUT given the strength of their mother, and the pedastal of "pride" and "honor" that their names carried, you'd think that they would do everything in their power to keep from dishonoring their father. Not only that, but you'd think that the ppl AROUND them would go out of their way too, to put their lives in a better position, just out of respect for their father.
Are we really arguing over respecting the legacy of your parents? Bringing shame to a family is a debate in itself now? -
Which is why I find it funny how ppl are insinuating that I'm blaming Malcolm. I'd like to see the post where I said it was Malcolm's fault.
Don't worry I'll wait......
Y'all really suck at reading comprehension -
Are we really arguing over respecting the legacy of your parents? Bringing shame to a family is a debate in itself now?
well yeah, we pretty much are arguing over the topic of legacy from your parents
especially if you talmbout black folks
a significant amount of black people then and now consistently fail to properly rear and steer their children, why should anybody have given malcolm's children any special treatment? plenty of black kids running around disrespecting their parent's legacy :shrugs
you really blaming Betty Shabazz for that? Or are you blaming the Shabazz children for living how they want to live? -
well, he "WAS" a muslim
#kanyeshrug
