Shabazz announced on an October 14, 2013, online radio broadcast that he was stepping down from his leadership position in the New Black Panther Party and that Hashim Nzinga, then national chief of staff, would replace him.

[4] The Anti-Defamation League describes Shabazz as "anti-Semitic and racist"[5] and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)'s Intelligence Project's Intelligence Report, which monitors what the SPLC considers radical right (United States) hate groups and extremists in the United States, has included Shabazz in its files[6] since a 2002 Washington, D.C., protest at B'nai B'rith International at which Shabazz shouted: "Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel!

[6] Shabazz first came to widespread public attention in 1994, when Unity Nation, a student group he founded at Howard University, invited Khalid Abdul Muhammad, chairman of the New Black Panther Party, to speak.

[11][12] Introducing the speaker, Shabazz engaged in a call and response with the audience:[10] Who is it that caught and killed Nat Turner?

A year later, Shabazz told an interviewer that everything he said was true, with the possible exception of the assertion concerning Nat Turner.

[9] In 2002, as a spokesman for the Black Panthers, Shabazz played a crucial role in the capture of the D.C. Snipers, by encouraging people to get outside and not to live in fear.

When Muhammad, who greatly expanded the organization and rose to its chairmanship, died in early 2001, Shabazz took over as National Chairman.

Alvin S. Gwynn Jr., who leads the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Baltimore, described Shabazz as an "outside agitator" and another local pastor, Rev.