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Nor was she likely to forget it. Betty Shabazz has said, "My children were reared on a picture of Daddy. A lot of people have Daddy at home. When they prayed that God bless them and everybody, Daddy was part of everything." The mother hid her copies of the posthumously published Autobiography of Malcolm X because they showed his corpse, but Attallah says she and Qubilah found them. Fareed Nu'man, a researcher with the American Muslim Council in Washington, says Qubilah "had the roughest time" of all the Shabazz daughters coping with their father's loss. Mary Ryan, a Shabazz neighbor, agrees, adding "She was kind of a lonesome child, but friendly."
She attended the U.N. International School in Manhattan, an academically rigorous haven for the children of diplomats, wealthy Manhattanites and scholarship students. There she met a white boy named Michael Fitzpatrick, whom a contemporary recalls as "a wild, wild kid" and who would pop up in her life later. Although some of her sisters attained a measure of celebrity, Qubilah lived out of the public eye. She had a child, now a teenager, whom she named Malcolm. She lived several years in France, reportedly working as a journalist.
And then, last October, she moved to an inner-city neighborhood in Minneapolis. The name next to her buzzer gave no hint of her paternity -- it read simply Qubilah. ("Really a fabulous person," says her building's owner, Mansoor Alyeshmerni. "Quiet and intelligent, very respectful.") But according to U.S. Attorney Lillehaug, she came to Minnesota with a purpose. FBI audio- and videotapes, he claims, indicate that she made eight phone calls in July and August to a Minnesota resident contracting the murder of Farrakhan and, upon arrival, she made a down payment on the job. If convicted, she could receive 90 years in jail and a $2.5 million fine.
Why Farrakhan? Two months before Malcolm's assassination, Farrakhan, now NOI's head and the most influential extremist voice in black politics, wrote in the Nation's newspaper that "the die is set and Malcolm shall not escape. Such a man is worthy of death." (Three men were jailed after the murder, but no coherent explanation of their culpability ever emerged, and most scholars now think two of them were innocent.) Farrakhan has always maintained his + innocence of the deed and in fact has been apologetic for creating what he calls an atmosphere of hatred. Still, he has been recorded condoning it: the documentary Brother Minister captures a 1993 speech in which, referring to Malcolm, he roars: "And if we dealt with him like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell business is it of yours?"
Betty Shabazz thought it was her business. A family friend explains that she has always believed the Nation killed Malcolm, while the FBI declined to interfere. Asked on a WNBC television program whether Farrakhan was involved, she answered, "Yes. Nobody kept it a secret. It was a badge of honor. Everybody talked about it." In June, Farrakhan and Shabazz appeared on the same stage at a leadership summit in Baltimore; but they did not exchange words, and Shabazz's remarks were noticeably cold. Asked recently whether she stood by her WNBC statement, she replied that she had not changed her position ((on it)) in 30 years.