1997

No African American was awarded a Medal of Honor either during World War II or immediately afterwards with respect to their actions during that conflict. This changed in 1992 when a study conducted by Shaw University and commissioned by the United States Department of Defense and the United States Army asserted that systematic racial discrimination had been present in the criteria for awarding medals during the war. After an exhaustive review of files the study recommended that several of the Distinguished Service Crosses awarded to African Americans be upgraded to the Medal of Honor. On January 13, 1997, more than fifty years after the end of the war, President Bill Clinton awarded the Medal to seven African American World War II veterans. Vernon Baker was the only living recipient—the other six men had been killed in action or died in the intervening years.

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Shabazz, Betty 

Betty Shabazz (b. Betty Dean Sanders, May 28, 1934, Pinehurst, Georgia – d. June 23, 1997, New York City, New York), also known as Betty X, was an American educator and civil rights advocate. She was married to Malcolm X. 

Shabazz was born in Pinehurst, Georgia, and grew up in Detroit, Michigan, where her foster parents largely sheltered her from racism.  She attended the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama,  where she had her first encounters with racism. Unhappy with the situation in Alabama, she moved to New York City, where she became a nurse. It was there that she met Malcolm X and, in 1956, joined the Nation of Islam. The couple married in 1958.

Along with her husband, Shabazz left the Nation of Islam in 1964. She witnessed his assassination the following year. Left with the responsibility of raising six daughters as a widow, Shabazz pursued higher education, and went to work at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, New York.

Following the 1995 arrest of her daughter Qubilah for allegedly conspiring to murder Louis Farrakhan, Shabazz took in her ten-year-old grandson Malcolm. In 1997, her grandson, Malcolm, set fire to her apartment. Shabazz suffered severe burns and died three weeks later as a result of her injuries.