2,000 Pay Tribute To Betty Shabazz

With echoing drums and strong voices, with tears, cheers and prayer, more than 2,000 of Betty Shabazz’s friends, relatives and admirers paid a buoyant and affectionate tribute to her Sunday.

A parade of public officials and figures in the civil rights movement took the lectern at Harlem’s Riverside Church to remember the warmth, love and quiet strength of Malcolm X’s widow.

Shabazz died on June 23, three weeks after suffering severe burns in a fire allegedly set by her grandson, Malcolm X’s 12-year-old namesake. She was buried next to her husband north of New York City on Friday.

“Yesterday was Harlem’s day of lamentation. Great was our grief and great our cause for grieving,” said actor Ossie Davis, who also eulogized Malcolm X after his assassination 32 years ago. “Today Betty has passed over, and so have we, from lamentation into celebration. Our hearts sing, ‘Hallelujah.”’

But amid all the high-powered speechmaking, the most powerful tribute was deeply personal. Attallah Shabazz, the eldest of Malcolm X and Shabazz’s six daughters, alternated between laughter and tears as she recalled the flirtatious, loving woman her father called “Apple Brown Betty.”

“Where does one struggle to find language or vocabulary to be poetic or eloquent when it’s something as pure and simple as ‘Mommy?”’ she asked in a voice raw with emotion.