Malikah Shabazz, a daughter of the civil rights leader Malcolm X, has died. She was 56.
Shabazz was found unconscious by her daughter inside their home in Brooklyn on Monday afternoon, New York police said.
“At this point in time, working with other authorities, the medical examiner, and speaking to the family, she had been ill for a period of time, and at this point, nothing appears suspicious,” the NYPD commissioner, Dermot Shea, told a local news outlet.
Malikah Shabazz and her twin sister, Malaak, were the youngest of Malcolm X’s six daughters with his wife, Dr Betty Shabazz. Betty Shabazz was pregnant with the twins when Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights, a New York neighborhood, on 21 February 1965.
Bernice King, a minister and daughter of the civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr, shared her condolences on Twitter.
“My heart goes out to her family, the descendants of Dr Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X,” King wrote. “Dr Shabazz was pregnant with Malikah and her twin sister, Malaak, when Brother Malcolm was assassinated. Be at peace, Malikah.”
Shabaz’s death came just days after two men convicted for assassinating Malcolm X were exonerated by a Manhattan judge, after two years of re-investigation.
The judge dismissed the convictions of Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam after prosecutors and the men’s lawyers said the renewed investigation found new evidence that undermined the case against them.
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