On Tuesday evening, Ilyasah Shabazz, an author, educator and activist, entered the Penn Pavilion stage to a standing ovation from around 400 Duke and Durham community members. As the 2026 Black History Month speaker, Shabazz gave her lecture four days before the 61st anniversary of the assassination of her father — Civil Rights Activist Malcolm X.
Shabazz introduced herself as one of the “six tall, opinionated daughters” of X. She began her lecture by recognizing the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture, which sponsored the event. She honored the ‘first lady of jazz’ Mary Lou Williams, who, in Shabazz’s words, “understood the transformative power of art, scholarship and community.”
“My father would have loved that mission,” Shabazz said. “He was a devoted lover of jazz, poetry and literature, and he believed that culture was inseparable from liberation.”…