Audubon Ballroom (New York)

Now: The Audubon Ballroom has become part community center, part shrine. “They have play readings and concerts, conferences, workshops, a youth reading club, and they have the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center,” says Rita Kardeman, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce of Washington Heights and Inwood, Inc.

The Malcolm X Center “honors the lives and legacies” of the couple … “through the advancement of human rights and social justice,” according to its Web site. Events hosted by the center in 2011 included a jazz night and a play based on three autobiographical narratives by Frederick Douglass.

New York City remains a leading hub of African American culture with 2.2 million residents identifying themselves as black – leading all cities with populations of 100,000 or more, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Photo: The Audubon Ballroom on Broadway and 165th Street in upper Manhattan is the site of Malcolm X’s assassination on Feb. 21, 1965.