Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz is an Award-winning author, educator, producer, and the daughter of Malcolm X. She has authored five historical novels, served as project advisor for the PBS award-winning film Prince Among Slaves documentary, and is currently producing a television series based on her latest publication, The Awakening of Malcolm X, with Sony Pictures Television, Tri-Star alongside a new 2026 publication release with Legacy Lit Hatchette Book Group. She is the Board of Directors Chairwoman of the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center. In her work to preserve the legacy of her parents, she has dedicated herself to institution-building and intergenerational leadership development with the tenants of accessibility, fairness and belonging. Grounded in the commitments of her parents, Dr. Shabazz emphasizes empowerment and inclusion in her teaching and scholarship.
Selena Sanderfer Doss, a professor of History at Western Kentucky University, will be moderating the Q+A. She teaches survey courses in World and U.S. history in addition to upper division courses in the African Diaspora and Southern history. Dr. Doss has received fellowships from the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, Just Transformations Mellon Program at Pennsylvania State University’s Center for Black Digital Research, and the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery in support of her work on Black Nationalism in the southern United States.
200 copies of Shabazz’ Growing Up X will be given away at the event!