shabazz was born lonnie cross in bessemer, alabama. in 1949, he earned a bachelor of arts in chemistry and mathematics from lincoln university. two years later he earned a master of science in mathematics at the massachusetts institute of technology in mathematics and a doctor of philosophy in 1955 in mathematical analysis from cornell university. his subject of his doctoral dissertation was "the distribution of eigenvalues of the equation: integral of a(s-t) phi (t) with respect to t between lower limit -a and upper limit a=rho (integral of b(s-t))".