[1][2][3] In February 1965, her sister Qubilah woke the family in the middle of the night with her screams; the house was on fire.

[6] In 2005, she told journalist Gabe Pressman that she remembered the events of that day "vividly":[7] It was a Sunday morning and we were at the Wallaces, this is Aunt Ruby's [Ruby Dee's] brother's house, and my father called and said to my mother, "Why don't you come down?," and that was out of sorts, and I knew it, but at the same time excited.

[14] Instead, they found that they liked one another and had many things in common besides being in their early 20s: they both lived in New York City, they were aspiring actresses, their birthdays were one day apart, and they shared an optimism and interest in activism that one might expect from the eldest children of civil rights martyrs.

[13][14] Within a few months, King and Shabazz went on a joint lecture tour and co-wrote a play for teenage audiences, Stepping into Tomorrow.

The play explored difficult themes about growing up through the story of six friends seeing one another again at a ten-year high school reunion.

[1][14] Responding to critics who found the play too soft, Shabazz said that it was not meant to be a "cerebral piece of writing", but to be "socially uplifting" and "give direction".

[14] Stepping into Tomorrow quickly grew into a collaboration called Nucleus, an eight-member theatre troupe based in New York and Los Angeles that performed in about 50 cities a year.

[2][17] In December 1990, shortly after celebrating the tenth anniversary of Stepping into Tomorrow,[18] King and Shabazz found themselves at the center of a controversy concerning a long-scheduled performance of the play in Arizona.

[20][21] Days after the two women announced they would proceed with their performance, King cancelled her appearance, saying an understudy would take her place.

[29] A 1997 review of the book, From Mine Eyes, called it the "powerful and uplifting story of a young girl who came of age during the height of the civil rights movement and is now able to share, in vivid detail, the most tragic events of her life".

[31] Standing in the small pulpit of New York's Riverside Church with her five sisters,[32] she recalled the loving relationship her parents had shared and imagined her father stretching his arm to her mother, inviting her to join him.

She recalled the first sentence of the eulogy Davis had delivered at her father's funeral forty years earlier, "Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its finest hopes", and added, "Ditto".

[44] She also thanked her "Auntie Ruby" and "Uncle Ossie" for their love and support, especially at times when her family had been shunned by others.

In interviews, she generally declines to answer questions about her age, where she lives, and her marital or family status.

Shabazz became an honorary member with five others of Delta Sigma Theta sorority on November 20, 2021, at the 55th National Convention in Atlanta, Georgia.