Sometimes, I know just enough Black history to play in trivia, but lacking key details. That was the case with my basic knowledge about Dr. Betty Shabazz, so I added her to my list of Black history-makers to study. She was widely known as a wife and partner to Malcolm X. The Dr. Betty Shabazz Delta Academy is one of many academic and leadership programs that honor her name. Diving in!
10 Facts about Dr. Betty Shabazz
Betty was born in 1934, the same year as my grandmother. She would be 90, today.
She studied elementary education at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Alabama, then switched her major to nursing.
The Malloys were her protective foster parents, who sheltered her in childhood. Betty understood racism and her blackness better in adulthood through personal experiences and travel around the U.S.
The same day she received her nursing license, she got married to Malcolm in Lansing, Michigan.
She pledged Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was active in the North Manhattan Alumnae chapter until her death.
She was pregnant with twins and had to protect her 4 daughters, as they watched her husband's assassination.
She was a trained nurse and earned a master's degree in health administration.
She earned her doctoral degree in education administration while raising her 6 children.
Her personal civil rights activism had womanist tones- focusing on human rights, education, women and children.
She advanced from a professor of health sciences and nursing to Director of Institutional Advancement and Public Affairs at Medgar Evers College in New York City in the 70s.
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