AND MARKER. FIVE.

Q: OK. Uh, let's start with uh, let's start with your, your early memory, and paint a portrait of him for us if uh, for people who are uhm, who don't know him, wouldn't know him as you knew him. So tell, paint of a portrait of Mohammed and what he was like as, when you were a child.

SPEED. FIVE.

Q: Talk to me basically about uh how you, ah, respond to this, to that incident, to the, what he's saying to you.

Sheik Hassoon which was my father's spiritual adviser at the time, was wonderful. I did not have a grandfather in the house, and he certainly was like one.]]8679 Ahm, following the bombing we moved in with uh family and friends, and shortly thereafter my father was killed, ahm, at which I was present; and the changes continued for another three or four years in terms of the stalking and the challenges, moving out of New York City DC 8724 into Westchester County and coming across other members of the organization. The case not being settled, yet it left a continued haunt so that as we were in school and in this very small town in Westchester, or passing a neighborhood store, the presence would, ah, appear and challenge and stalk us. So I knew where to put those energies; and because I - my DC 8773 - the first part of my life with both of my parents in my life, ah, gave me such strength, I continued in spite of being teased and stalked by adult members of that organization.

Q: Ahm, when your father would come back from his trips to Africa? Do you have any quick stories to tell; do you remember those - that they must have been wonderful moments for you. Talk, talk about them? Or were they wond'-, wonderful moments?

a, ah, young person in school in the sixties, in the seventies, in the eighties, until last year. You know that, my pride, was always there. My comfort with myself being different, having a father that people questioned, ah, even people that looked like me questioned him. Made it difficult in school, not for me, but for them, working, you know, ahm, DC 8939 black people, white people, not knowing what to do with me. Yet I was fine. And it had a lot to do with the ease and the development and that freedom that I watched my parents possess.

Q: Do you have uhm, were there wonderful adventures that he would share with you when he came back that you - that - that stuck with you, that you, you remember, ah, that you still carry with you that you might?

like a - like a boy reborn; and the names DC 8997 of people, Gamal Abdul Nassar stayed with me because of the impression he left with my father. I had now have a sister who's named after Gamal Abdul Nassar; (audio what cuts momentarily) Patrice Lumumba went through there; another sister named after him, so those were the kinds of, ahm, lessons I received.] [When my father was abroad, we had a road map on the living room wall, and anytime you got a little DC 9043 lonesome and wondered where daddy was, we'd run over to that map -- and where is he now? And he's in Cairo, which is the capital of Egypt, and he's over here with Necruma, and he's ov -- so there was a different kind of passage that we maintained when he was abroad and far away, so that when he came back, we were connecting the dots,]]9074 you know. Ahm...

Q: Let's stop for a second.

MARK. SIX.

Q: So, ahm, you, you got there earlier and talk about, ah, the place, what - what - what you remember seeing in place and how you...

religion or anything as organizations that my father was involved in before had been. So there was a warmth certainly there; and [[0108 it was odd that my f ather wasn't there. My father was known to be a stickler on time; and there was some question uhm from his comrades what had happened;]]0123 and I had learned letter, about a decade ago, that, ahm, my father had a sense that things were drawing nigh, errr, and had parked some distance from the Audubon, uhm, preferring that if he was going to be DD 0160 gotten that it would not be around a crowd of people for others to be hurt. [[0170 So he was forty-five minutes late; and I do recall when he finally came in, the excitement of seeing daddy because prior to that it was the anticipation, "where is he?" Ahm, so he took his place in the Green Room, and as I had stated earlier, the hesitation and the order of which DD 0201 Brother Benjamin was presenting the day's agenda, ah, was apparent even to me.]]0210 Uhm I just think it was in the tension, in the air, or the truth forthcoming in the air

that one's antenna picks up; and certainly as a child, it was clear that life, again, was taking another turn. [[0244 I was facing the assassins so I saw them stand up and take my father's life; an image that, through Junior High School, I wondered if I could have prevented it. You know that kind of feeling, not responsible but could I have saved my father.]]0278 It's amazing listening to panels of survivors in various uh topics and how many children ah, or DD 0295 survivors, adult survivors think that they could have changed it if they had moved left or right. [[0308 And, as a young person, seeing those men beforehand, seeing them do it, it was as if everything was moving in slow motion; and as slowly as it was moving, you almost feel like if you could have put a stop to it.] I know... I was, I was not bothered by my thought. I knew it wasn't uhm something I could have done, DD 0341 but watching that take place, [it moved in slow motion, and, ah, watching my mother ache, suffer, uh see the look on her face knowing, ah, prevented me from my anxiety

because I was watching hers, so as a child, it's amazing how protective you are - are of your parents without them even knowing it, you know; and it meant more to me to comfort my mother, uhm to at least hope that she was all right. So after he was indeed shot, we were moved back behind the stage, and my mother went onto the DD 0416 stage with her husband: and, a lot of mayhem and confusion and, ah, things took place, and I felt old from that point on. Something else had changed.]0441

Q: At that uh, did it register fully for you at that moment?

old, something else had just come into me, and, ah, kept me company. It kept me afloat.]]0524

Q: Uh, when you, af-af-af-after that you go back to the home and, ah, ah, and that's ah, I guess that - that's when things really begin to start registering, for everyone uh together, ahm, and you be - you're going to have to confront, deal with it on television; and again there's your - there's your father on television. Uhm do you remember that?

perspective, watching people they love, adult people they love cry, something holds you up. It did - it did for me, ah, to watch people who were strong people, vulnerable uh like that. Ahm, it was a different kind of feeling. I didn't collapse behind it. Ahm, we actually managed to move on; and it's something when I look back, I think I was nineteen before I realized I was one of those DD 0646 statistics that grew up in a single-parent household; and that amazed me because though I knew in fact that my father was gone, my mother did a heck of a job making us feel like he was ever present because I did not know I would be considered amongst those statistics of a broken home or single-parent household; and the household got its laughter back; cause my - my DD 0687 parents are very funny people; and my mother would continuously tell daddy stories that would have us laugh and, and keep his chuckle in the house, and I recall when the twins, who were not born when my father died, saying things like,

"You remember the time when daddy, ha, ha, ha..." And you'd wonder how they would come to that -- they weren't there, but this is how the stories had been told; and this is what kept us uhm bonded and, and strong in spite of what was going on and the impressions of my father outside of the threshold of our Shabazz Ponderosa.

Q: Were you as - as - as a child were you s'-, s'-, how did you - how'd you feel about the way Harlem responded, you know, ah - ah after your father's death, ah, the funeral, the uhm, the people coming to view, ahm, the community, itself, just a general tone.

Uhm, we became pretty much, ah, private after that, as we were when my father was alive and we moved up to Westchester County, a house that he and my mother had bought in lieu of the house that was being taken; and, ah, attempted to blend in and join the world there; and there were some adversities. They did not want us to move in. A petition was signed for us not to DD 0859 move in. Ahm, whether that storm and my mother became an admired uhm community leader, a spokesperson, just simply as a mother, uhm as an educator, and all of those things, uhm those animosities had actually left after about three years, when they realized who she was and learned more about Malcolm Shabazz.

Q: Did you, ahm, as your grew older, did - were there times when you decided that- that you wanted to know your, your father better? There, there were things that you needed to reconcile and know about him; and, and what would - what were those - if

there, it was, what were those things and how'd you go about it?

Q: OK. Let's pick up where you were talking about the, ah, reading of the biography, and uhm your own effort to

learn about uh Malcolm, that half of the process.

world; and upon learning my grandmother, I learned more of myself, my father, his origins, the pains indeed of his, he and his siblings; ah, information not discussed much, ahm, hence I spilled over to my generation of siblings and cousins and our children, uhm things that we need to heal. And my grandmother, I fell in love with. Uh the more time I spent around her, I met myself; and prior to her dying uh two Christmas' ago, we spent time DD 1254 together, and I knew when she left here that my quest had indeed been met; that not only did I get to know my grandmother, but she knew me. When she picked up the phone, and heard my voice, she knew it was me. She knew enough about me to inquire what city am I in now as I called, 'am I home in New York or Los Angeles?' And we talked about Grenade a bit, and her favorite things, the smells, the scent, DD 1307 the flowers, her desires as a young woman; things that made her giggle; and when I returned home after seeing her the last time alive - I have a wall-size portrait

of my father - who I knew and knew the boy's side of. Suddenly I saw my father in pampers. I got to see it from another whole perspective and as his mother, I got that through her. So in that oh more than twenty-year quest, I got to know my grandmother, ahm, who I'm in love with even as she's gone; and also got to know DD 1379 characteristics that are innate evidently because my family did not grow up around my father's family; and yet there are mannerisms and quirks and characteristics that are definitely there in my sisters, in myself. Ah, and I like that.]]1414

Q: Do you remember when your father and his brothers and sisters were able to get your grandmother out the, out in the hospital. Uhm is that become, is that a, an important moment for him, something that you remember as a child?

Q: It's turned on again.

Q: Not a nice situation?

SPEEDING. MARK. EIGHT.

Q: Tell me what uh, what - what you've uh, what do you carry from your father. What have you got? What do you feel is part (unintel)?

regardless; uh feeling entitled to start again. Ah, regardless of shortcomings, ill choices, I have never felt haunted by them because he gave me a sense of self- worth; and that we're all entitled to trial and error, him having been uh an ex- con and yet make choices in his life continuously to grow on and on; uhm and as he presented that to a general audience -- when I speak to audiences now who are in DD 1569 college and they don't think there's a future, I have to remind them my father was doing time at the very age that they are, you know, and bring that reality there and hence you can be, do, have anything that you desire. For some of us, it's a - it's a steeper hill, but not, that might be destiny's challenge for you to accomplish, and that's what my father's given me. [[1606 My father was always very DD 1607 honest, very clear, and when his opinions or learnings changed, he took responsibility for the old thought and explained to you the transition for the new thought. That is a freedom for me. ]]1628

[1629 Ahm, [it was as a young woman at a time where people would have said I had three strikes against me, being black, female, and Islamic and - and a minority and all aspects of those things mentioned. And in spite of those things I felt, instead of them being a burden, it was a birthmark. Ah, that's what I have from my father, and, a smile. He smiled often. ]]1676

Q: Ahm, if you were -- there is kind of, and I don't to - I don't like to say this, but there - there, but there's a new, there's this renewed popularity. And, ah, as I use the word popularity because uhm, it, it is bordering on popular, ah, attraction and interest in your father. Ahm, how - how do you uhm, how do you feel about that on it? And what do you -- where - where do you want to see him -- how would you like to see your father remembered?

father as Malcolm X Shabazz would have loved for people to have had a sense of what they're coming to now much sooner. Yet, all the while I'm glad that there's a public comfort that enables young people and - and ah others to learn about Malcolm Shabazz. [[1781 Five years ago, you could not have gone to school with a Malcolm X T- Shirt without being suspect. You could DD 1792 not at an office read the autobiography on your lunch hour without being suspect; so at a time where the mention of his name is - is comfortable and palatable, I hope that more and more people utilize this period, this era, this resurgence to indeed learn who he is before that climate changes again. ]]1831

Q: Who is he?

is life that he lived to the fullest, each one was, it could have been his last job, his final statement. He was committed.]]1898

Q: Are you, are you comfortable or uhm does it matter to you that you know who is responsible for killing your father?

Q: No, does it matter uhm and for what reasons?

Q: There are some people who say, "Well we - we can tell you who pulled the trigger. But we can't tell you for what reason, or who might have been behind it...

Q: Okay, let's start with, ah, your - your early memory of your father, ahm; and - and paint a portrait of him for us if, if ahm, for people who are, ahm, that don't know him; wouldn't know him as you knew him as a child. Paint a portrait of your father and what he was like as a -- when you were a child...

to the human side very early; and, there was a lot of laughter in my household contrary to the image that people imagined. Ah, the household of a black nationalist's, mine having been, ah, what people don't realize is that we come from a line of, you know, ah, public servants in my household; and it was a natural thing. It was not a career goal or an in------ intention -- just think that for my father growing up with parents who were very active in the Garvey movement and nurturing and motivating people of color, and DC 6161 reinstating their self-worth, not in comparison to a - another being, but simply as a fact - data; that, that was passed on with or without, regardless of my father's, ahm, early involvement with any organization. Because while he was a loyal member of the organization, I simultaneous to that same period of time was not indoctrinated in that organization. So I was simply raised as he DC 6207 was raised in his first decade of his life. That is often left out. People talk about my father's life from fifteen years old; but

nobody asks about that decade where every member of his family was intact, mother and father was there. The period that matters; the period that left something with my life; the first, you know, decade or so of my life with my family intact; and how important it is to make sure that you are open and fair and honest and clear, ah, in the images that you give your children, ahm, are positive DC 6262 ones because no one knew when he was going to leave; but my memories can get me through a day, you know.

Q: Mm mmm. Talk to me about that, ahm, (unintel/noise) early years as a child, and what his family and what his family was to him and whether he talked to you, ahm, about his mother and his father, his family, and, ahm, if there was a story that he would tell you about his youth? What do you know about that?

synonymous to other members of my father's sibling line, ah, sharing in terms of this sense of internationalism early as first- generation West Indians as opposed to, ah, black Americans as a whole other, ah, rearing, and - and - ah, explanation to the plight of the slave trade. And for them to be involved, my grandmother -- people simply think of her as, -- ahm, the limited offers - information offers - a woman who went insane. Ahm, mm, people don't know or realize that my grandmother, ah, authored a lot of the text for the paper, the newspaper, the Universal DC 6378 Negro Improvement Association; that she spoke more than one language; that she kept her children abreast; that she nurtured and - and assisted her husband. My grandfather was the soft-spoken one. My grandmother was the quick-witted one; so it is that fire and, ah, fervor that people see in my father - he got from his mother. Ah, and a 1--, quite a bit DC 6414 from his own father. But the images that existed in the early part of their life, passing the newspaper from place to place;

listening to their parents speak, recognizing early their role and their comfort with being black and brown children in a time when it was a curse, a burden. I think that following my grandfather's, ahm, death, and my grandmother being taken away and the children being separated, you now have what you have in a lot of urban communities -- DC 6460 children trying to survive -- and too many times we, even as black people, don't tell their early story to know that there was a beginning, that there was a root. We just sensationalise and, ahm, Malcolm's life in the street as a hustler. But, there's so much to who he became after his pilgrimage had a lot to do with who he was in the first decade of his life.

Q: Talk to me -- what in - in terms of your own family life and the things that your father grew up to learn, ah, that were important to his youth, you know, like passing the paper, like sitting around the dinner table, and everyone had to be at

dinner and talk of things --- Are these things that he --- that - that were part of your life as well?

Q: Do you remember as a child growing up within the organization of the Nation of Islam, was that a part of your life, the community that was the Nation of Islam?

brown, black, the history, the lineage ahm, not in comparison to another group of people, not less than, not better than, not superior. inferi--, inferior. I did not know those, ahm, terminologies so that I had a healthy dose of learning, ah, human relationships; and when I was growing up and started to hear other people's assessments of my father, could they possibly be talking about the same man? You know ...

Q: Did you - wh--, as a child do you remember seeing him on TV or seeing this - this man outside the house who was on TV, and, and ah, and ah, was this - this ah, kind of public person, and how it - it ah, affected you? What did you see; what did you feel?

of photographers and other people, and you haven't seen him in two or three weeks, and all you want is that hug. So, ahm, we have, we have always been a very private family.]]6931 I think a lot of people whose parents have been as noted as mine have been -- they have been acclimated to the public eye, ah, much more than now. I guess if it wasn't for a "X" cap (unintel) or the resurgence, if I may use that terminology, I wouldn't have as many people talking to me right now; but I'm glad for other out people's interests because I already know who they're learning.

MISC: TWO BOX # 96 CODE:DC 7500-9250

Q: Let's talk a - a little more about the, ahm, public image that - that you -- you see as a child, and how you - you then translate that into the person that you know; or - or how you're affected by it.

Q: Oh, okay, well did you - did your father ever take you to events, and did you attend them with him? Or, or you say you would meet him - meet him sometime at the airport?

who is learning Malcolm now as an adult, is trying to fill in the blanks and - and figure out and delve all of the, ahm, perspectives that he had -- from a child's perspective, and God is your parent, ahm... I don't know if that's clear. Ahm, [[7669 I know that when things started to change as much as they -- my parents were, of course very protective, and no, ahm, tense in how they handled the household. Indeed there was a change. Ahm, the people that were around us once, we DC 7710 couldn't go around again, at all! Not just 'not today, not tomorrow', it was a banning, so that those were the things that were different for me. My parents weren't different. It was the things that were going on in our lives that me -- with a --- a child with rhythm, with the continuity of certain things, was not in place.]]7748 Ah, simultaneous to that rhythm changing, [[7755 a new (unintel/nth) DC 7757 rhythm was introduced such as my father's international correspondence, and the people of the foreign world being a part of my household; hence the learning continues, and

for(or from) a child, as long as this learning of the -- whatever the change -- is DC 7777 a positive one, and it seems comfortable with the parents, the old one is all right where it is. So I continued along with my sisters, mother, family, ah, friends, to move on in that direction. It was a very natural, ahm, ah, change.]]7803

Q: Did you father know or your mother -- or did they both talk to you about the changes that were taking place at that time?

Q: And what you could possibly expect to (unintel/noise)...?

Q: Okay. Well ... (chuckle) Well I didn't like it either.

Q: No. I didn't like that either, so ...

MISC: THREE

Q: Tell me about the trip to Florida and your memories of that and what it meant to you as a - as a young girl?

companionship. Ahm, [8032 and Mohammed Ali made it easy. He was great with youngsters as was my father; very easy going, buddy/pal kind of parent, and with whom you can - you could share a secret and feel like it was really just between the two of you,8033] and, ah...

Q: Ah, so when, ah, when you returned, ah, were you ever aware that - that there was this - this - th--, th--, a struggle going on around the house about the possibility of staying there; and, ah, as a child...

Q: Whether you would keep the house?

Q: if you want to stop, we can stop. Want to stop for a second?

MISC; FOUR

Q: Talking about the house, ahm, ahm, were you aware of there being ahm, ah, concern about keeping the house?

that came to an assessment very easily; and when I look back, most of my assessments weren't wrong. That's why you can't misjudge a young person. Ahm, but the atmosphere surrounding my household had changed. People who were once a friend or comrade no longer were; so it was their colors that had changed. For me the continuity and the image and the energy in my house was very much the same; and those ill energies had been replaced by more positive people; so in terms of the losing of the house, once it was bombed, we knew it wasn't our house anymore.]]8233

Q: Talk to me about that bombing. I mean, can you give me - give me your - your memory of that night and...

not in the scurry of your siblings, in the awareness that, you know you panned the room hoping that everybody is out. Ah, and we were fortunate enough to have exits out the back door, ah, because a Molotov cocktail had not gone off. It was freezing in terms of the textures that I recalled and very uncomfortable in that respect, but my parents DC 8325 did not seem to show a panic. A concern, a focus, but again, because they were handling things, and they were both there very present, I didn't feel the fear that, in another circumstance, a child might. I had felt since when, ah, people talk about circumstances in a household that could cause a fire, but at the time there was great safety, ahm, and we moved on.]]8374

Q: ... did it register for you as a - as a - - you were about six years old?

Q: You were older? How old are you?

Q: Okay. Ahm, as a ahm, ahm, as a young girl, something like this happened -- did it register for you that - that - that - the level of seriousness about what was going on in your house? Did it change for you? Did it change...

Q: You've gotta' tell me -- when you say change, what do you mean by that? What - are you talking about your own change and revolution? Are you talking about evolution for your family or...?