[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 90 (Tuesday, June 24, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S6285]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             BETTY SHABAZZ

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, tragedy has beset the family of 
Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz with such abundance that I doubt few of us 
can comprehend their grief.
  Yesterday, Betty Shabazz the proud educator and activist wife of the 
late Malcolm X, died of complications that ensued after she suffered 
burns over 80 percent of her body in a fire at her Yonkers apartment on 
the first day of this month. Dr. Shabazz had battled her way through 
five extensive operations since the fire, but the injuries proved too 
extensive for her to overcome this final tribulation. Having witnessed 
the assassination of her husband, defended one of her children against 
charges of an alleged murder plot, and sought to ease the troubles of 
her grandchildren, Dr. Shabazz rose above it all to defy critics and 
symbolize an ability to overcome all means of adversity.
  In trying to reconcile this tragedy, I recall the words of Oscar 
Wilde who wrote: ``It often happens that the real tragedies of life 
occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude 
violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, 
their entire lack of style.'' My deepest sympathy goes out to this 
family that has too often been forced to grapple with the ``absolute 
incoherence of tragedy.''

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