WCW: Betty Shabazz

WCW: Betty Shabazz

This week’s World Changing Woman is Betty Dean Sanders, also known as Betty X, and was Betty Shabazz until her death. Of the three women (herself, Kasturba Gandhi and Coretta Scott King) Betty’s life was the most different, and sadly the most tragic. Her early beginnings were nothing like her predecessors.

Betty Dean Sanders was born 28, May 1934 to Ollie Mae Sanders and Shelman Sandlin. Sandlin was 21 years old and Ollie Mae Sanders was a teenager; the couple were unmarried. Betty Shabazz has always contended that she was born in Detroit Michigan, despite her high-school and college transcripts stating she was born in Pinehurst, Georgia. The mystery will never be cleared up as authorities in Georgia and Michigan have not been able to locate her birth certificate. Ollie Mae Sanders often beat Betty, for sport, for no reason, and the beatings were always excessive. Not…