After addressing a standing-room only crowd at Michigan State University Thursday evening, the daughter of civil rights icon Malcolm X made a personal journey in Lansing Friday morning.
Ilyasah Shabazz is the author of “X: A Novel,” the subject of this year’s Great Michigan Read. She spoke Thursday night in the same room at MSU her father did in 1963.
On Friday, Shabazz laid a wreath at a simple wooden X at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Detroit Street...the site where her grandfather, the Reverend Earl Little, was murdered in 1931.
(Shabazz): “You know, it’s just a surreal moment to be here where our grandfather had his last breath.”
(Lavery): “Have you been here before?”
(Shabazz): “I’ve never been here. I didn’t even know this was the location. So, it makes my trip even more meaningful.”
Malcolm X suffered several other tragedies while growing up in Lansing.
A white mob burned his family out of their first home when he was four years old. His mother was later institutionalized, which divided her children among various foster homes.