One of the daughters of Malcolm X and his wife Betty Shabazz, Malikah Shabazz, has been found dead at her apartment in Brooklyn, New York.
Police said Shabazz, aged 56, was found at around 4.30pm unresponsive and later declared dead.
Two officials told the NBC News that the city’s medical examiner responded to the scene, and that the death did not appear to be suspicious.
Bernice King, daughter of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr, offered her condolences for the death of Shabazz, saying she was “deeply saddened”.
“My heart goes out to her family, the descendants of Dr Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X,” she wrote on Twitter.
She noted that Shabazz’s mother was pregnant with Malikah and her twin sister, Malaak, when Malcom X was assassinated.
She added: “Be at peace, Malikah.”
Malikah’s death comes around 57 years after Malcolm X’s killing and at a time when two of those convicted over the civil rights leader’s death are expected to be exonerated.
Malcolm X was assassinated at a New York City ballroom in front of his family at the age of 39 in 1965.
His wife died in 1997 at the age of 63 after suffering severe burns in a fire that was started by her 12-year-old grandson.
Shabazz herself had run-ins with law enforcement for years on charges including larceny, forgery and identity theft.
In 2017, Shabazz and her daughter were arrested in southern Maryland on animal cruelty charges for stealing a rental truck that had injured pit bulls.
In 2011, she pleaded guilty to stealing the identity of an elderly woman, who was a family friend in North Carolina. She used her credit card with bills running to more than $55,000.