Say Brother; Nation of Islam: A Portrait; 2318

We are. You. Are gay or are you. If you sat down and had conversations with black political leaders and national and local level you would probably find that self-determination are the ability to

control the destiny of our lives is a recurring theme across the nation. Before too long our sucess or failure and our ability to secure work and other necessities of life has been beyond our control. But how many organizations have been able to achieve any degree of self-determination for their followers. One organization that is well on its way is a nation of business and just a little over four years. The Nation of Islam led by supreme minister Wallace has established a spiritual community and a variety of businesses geared toward meeting the necessities of the black community. Starting with his first Temple in Detroit in one thousand thirty one The Nation of Islam has grown to 80 temples nationwide. Their farms raise fruit vegetables and livestock that are so supermarkets all across the country. In addition Wallace's followers have clothing stores bakeries restaurants banks and other business ventures all developed within the last 40 years. Muslims state

that the black man must be educated to do for self and to that end that establish 40 schools across the country to educate their people. From its inception the Nation of Islam has been plagued with outside interpretations of their own goals and policy. Our feature this week will be a speech given by the supreme minister WALLACE Did Muhammad will give an excerpt from that speech this was done at the 1975 Saviour's Day. Then we'll have a conversation with his sister. Five or six scientists will discuss the role women play in the affairs of the nation in dealing. This week spotlight will feature a montage of black art in the name of Allah. Became a person of masterful rock Muhammad and in the name of this is the greatest messenger the most honorable Elijah Muhammad Salaam aleikum.

I would like to form the word. There is no leadership crisis. In the nation. A law in the person of M. herad Muhammad. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad. The royal family of Mohammed. And the Nation of Islam. Have chosen minister was coming. Sure how do you. Think you. Want to. Be you know if you're going to. Carry in their early middle and late thirties and.

Early middle and late 40s and even the early 50s. Few of our people. Gave him their attention. Most of them laughed at him. And they referred to his small following. As those on Muslims. Those old Mohammed. Those old food. Those strange people. But they didn't know. That the solution to this problem. Was not to bring something. That was. Like. That. That had caused the problem. The solution to the problem was to bring something very strange. So online himself. Had to come across the white man's my. Head feel the atmosphere around the

dome. And it was impossible for the subjects of my mentality to come up with something new. The Mohamed speaks editorial by Askia Mohammad of June 13th 1975 reads as follows The first 100 days. If contemporary historians will simply write the truth about the honorable Wallace D Mohammed's first 100 days the rest of us will indeed have something to read about in June of 1975 minister Abdul Alim Farah Khan addressed the crowd in Madison Square Garden in New York. What he said was that it was necessary for members of the Nation of Islam to withdraw from society for a certain period of time in order to establish their own priorities. To set their own goals and the work of the spadework done during that period was was handled out of the leadership

of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He went on to add that this is a period when. It is time for members of the Nation of Islam to rejoin the larger society but to rejoin it now as an established alternative society. And the work carried on out of this period will be handled under the leadership of. WALLACE Do you Mohammad Lastly I would like to. Say a few words on the Corson's of change in the Nation of Islam. We have been asked about al-Sadr than even by some insiders a few of them. Why are we changing. After so many years of guarding one in one direction. Why now we are suddenly changing making abrupt changes in the teachings of Islam. While For myself I have to agree with those who are observing and watching the Nation of Islam that these are are brought changes but actually these changes are not really new in the

Nation of Islam. The Nation of Islam as I said in the beginning the Nation of Islam is a nation that was born to grow. And from the very beginning it was designed to. Accept change and to constantly change. The Nation of Islam is all a lie and not a lie and the words master Elijah Muhammad he says and of Islam is a baby nation meaning that is a growing nation and a baby nation will have to grow mentally morally and spiritually. So we have grown spirit today. We have grown physically and now we are just moving into great a moral and mental and moral world. The Nation of Islam. Is now accepting in his membership. Anyone who agrees with the teachings of Islam and anyone who accepts this body of Christ we call the Temple of Islam. Anyone who is accepted and can say that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger and I

accept the principle the fundamental teachings of Islam and he can live up to it. He's welcome he's welcome in the Nation of Islam but there is no room in this Nation of Islam for all white races. There is no room in this Nation of Islam for blacks who want to exploit blacks are oppressed blacks. There's no room in the Nation of Islam for corrupted people or narrow minded people. But there is room in this Nation of Islam in this Nation of Islam for any and all sinners who want to correct their ways and reform the Nation of Islam has also grown in an international stature by opening a temple in the Caribbean on the island of Jamaica. Another was established in Ghana West Africa. The Nation of Islam was also honored with an invitation to the Organization of African Unity Summit Conference. And. Sister as a Muslim I've always wondered about the

mystique of the Nation of Islam. I have respect for the nation but I don't know if I want to join it because of the restrictions about clothing the restrictions about. My relating on a social level to the opposite sex. Well it depends on what you really are talking about when you talk about restrictions or whether you talk about user restrictions relating. You have heard about the that you can date in the Nation of Islam. You have to wear certain clothes. You have to keep certain hours and I'm not used to that I keep my own hours I'm my own person. I want to know how you know what it is all about. But I don't really always know what it means when someone says I'm my own person. You know I think that's a very interesting statement one makes because we're never our own person. You know we tend to think we are because we say no one has any restrictions over us. But people do have restrictions over us many people do in a sense make us what we are. For instance the clothing

Last night we were talking about we've gone to the restaurant we were talking about how people dress and people say I dress in a way I want to want to but we don't we dress primarily because certain people put out certain fashions and we see only that. And that is it. So many people looked at us from afar as all of those sisters in that long dress. I couldn't do it myself. But they certainly do look nice and you did have to respect a sister who respected herself if she didn't show herself so thoroughly. And then in a sense when brothers become around sisters in a nation their minds are on their work. That's what we're talking about you see you see visit and say there's a nation to be built or there's work to be done. And then there are all kinds of people who keep you from doing that you see. So therefore we're saying yes I will not bring a man to a different level. Put your man on a different plane at this time so therefore we can go about the work that must be done because you know that America was built by work. It was built by people partying it was not built but people get involved only with each other. It was built by hard work and how can we also go about building and or making an alternative

culture in America except via hard work. After all relations. With the constant coverage of the Arabs in the news many third world peoples of the world have openly asked about the Arab Afro-American relationship does one exist. What are the feelings of these two peoples toward each other and their vanity publications on this relationship and questioning several members of the Arab League. Many interesting and positive answers have surface. First it is important for us all to realize and remember that the Arabs are members of the Third World and naturally find themselves sympathetic to our cause and fight for freedom and equality. In addition to the Muslims an extended hand is offered to all. It was a natural time between colonized peoples and the Arabs. They are under a new kind of colonization. Request from our African brothers for food and assistance in the struggle for independence in different countries has always been answered. History tells us since the Algiers summit

meeting of November 28 1973 economic measures have been exercised to assist Africa's problem with the oil supply. Africa needed emergency relief because of the drought famine and inflation. The Arab League with officials of Africa then looked for a solution of having oil sent to Africa to be sold. However neither peoples owning tanker fleets and most African countries not having refineries created a problem in exercising those ideas. Therefore in January 1974 a delegation of seven from the Organization of African Unity and the Arab oil ministers met to set up the Arab loan fund for Africa which proved to be the most effective help our African brothers had received during the crisis. A Loan Fund had a capital of two hundred million dollars. They be paid back at a nominal rate of interest to 1 percent and with 25. This was to be similar to a grant in order to really help the African country. Once it was determined as to how the funds would be allocated and to whom. Point two given the countries that were drought stricken

or had a low growth of on domestic products of less than $150 per head. This system eliminated countries like Zambia. So I here in Nigeria because of the wealth still exist in there with other funds the Arab League assisted their own countries as well as Morocco Tawnya Somalia and Sudan because our struggle is third world peoples is the same throughout the world. The Arab League secretary general is quoted saying this in July 1975 in a London publication the African people must recognize the goals of the Arabs and seeking justice for their cause. It's a brother. Revolution is waking up and big and that responsibility and revolution go hand in hand. So therefore it would be revolutionary for black people to just be responsible. But

today there's a good deal of questioning being done about the role women play in our society. But how is life for women in the Nation of Islam for dealing. This week we talked with Sonja scientist poet and member of the Nation of Islam specifically. Co-director of the nation. And that's a very important department as a main No says my way around the area that I am working in at this time is a specifically I'm involved with writing the textbooks and the nation is long because when you talk about a nation or when you talk about a specific school system you've got to deal with books you've got to do with books that combine ideology. But second that come on a consciousness books that let children see themselves in a positive way are books that also take information and make that information viable information information that children can

understand within the round that they are dealing in. So this is a very large job that I'm about and hopefully it's within a couple of months we will begin to move. Towards production and you know for a couple of books are already done for the nation. The children need books where they can see themselves and I've done a book so therefore the children can actually begin to read some of the books that they need at this time. Some books where they can see themselves from books with ideology books with ideas about themselves positive kinds of things. The book that I. Did Last year was a book called The mentors of fat head small head and squarehead which talks about three good friends who go travelling to the city of Mecca and the ventures that they have. And the problem with fathead was that he was very slow. And he was slow at everything that he did so therefore of all Smallhead and squarehead that they were better. And there's a motto at the end of the story that

slow is not always fast. And fast is not always smog. Slow is not always done brother and fast is not always smart. I smile then because I knew that my twins always managed to correct me when I get to that that are all the models. But that was the kind of story that our children really need to to be involved with. They need to be involved in stories that tell morals and such and they need to be involved with stories that teach him something and we just don't need stories with children with their faces covered. You see they do need stories with some kind of message. A very important message and what I meant to noun terms of poetry at this at this time is that I always write poetry I guess being a poet I write poetry. And I've always written plays I'm at work. With a play it should be a along to act on the black woman I was suppose is an extension of my place is the sound which I did in

nine hundred sixty eight or 69 when I was in San Francisco State. I think that it's about the black woman and I think that it will show the black woman how she has evolved in America. I hope to have a finish hopefully by the end of September. And I think since the nation is moving out in terms of cultural things now that we will try to have a performance of that place some time in January February the nation understands that culture is the root of all consciousness. As a consequence we are now trying to sustain the consciousness of a people that America being very wise has moved out very specifically into the area of culture and has given us all kinds of peculiar culture for our young to see. So for us to sustain ourselves and perpetuate outsells all to perpetuate the positive kinds of things we're trying to say here in America it is necessary to deal with culture at this time. And so we'll be doing a lot of cultural things in the nation. And I

will also be in control of that or in charge of that or helping with that at this time of year and a half ago I did four books. I'm not too sure what that meant. Her. It meant a lot of work a bit like working from 12:30 to about four o'clock in the morning. But it also meant that the the work had to be done. This is a dialogue poem between a brother and a system. Brother. Our Salaam aleikum sister while like I'm some brother. And how moved my queen today says to my happiness creases the ground as I walked like a brother. I have not seen you in days and I miss your phase sister I have carried your picture in my eyes my brother. Brother. In life. One searches for his twin and you a modern sister since birth. I have not moved waiting for you to sift these waves until they flake like diamonds over me. Brother. I have become the son sister. I feel your brother

it is hard for the son to keep all the light and not have a moon to give it. It is hard to do without her brother or the son. Black men shine upon me. I am for your life and your song will make night and the morning live. That's a love poem which I think is positive and is a love poem that I think that if you understand America we tend to fall in love with people you know. It's like a physical kind of thing. We fall in love with people because they look fine or they have good hair right or they light whatever and talk about you know people for other kinds of. Love the. Bridge.

To. Me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 8. The idea of black capitalism is hardly new. According to the gadgeteer and guide

one thousand know one by one number one free blacks in the United States from 16 20 to 1830 owned real and personal property valued at one hundred million dollars. The land on which Madison Square Garden in New York was built was once owned by a black woman and Virginia settlers in the early 1900s petition the government to take the land away from the regions by monkey Indians. The subtlest claim that the tribe had so many blacks living among them that they were no longer Indians but blacks in the mid 1860s the black 10th Cavalry was nicknamed Buffalo Soldiers by the Indians they fought against because the blacks are a soldier short curly here reminded the Indians of the hair of the animal which they considered most sacred. The buffalo Thomas downing a brother who owned a restaurant in New York from eight hundred twenty to eight hundred sixty six at the corner Broad and Wall Streets save James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald from folding by advancing Bennett a $10000 loan. The richest black woman in the

world in one thousand twenty one was a lowly Gene Taylor who inherited an estate in Louisiana worth 20 million dollars. Many black Americans look back on the 60s and wonder where the fervor and drive of those years has gone. It was a time of rapid change in our self-image and potential. There was an excitement in the air that comes with the discovery of a new awareness and sense of unity. But what we didn't comprehend fully at the time was how much a threat our development really was to certain parts of the federal government and of the economic establishment. We found out later that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had infiltrated the Black Panther Party to the extent that the night of Fred Hampton's death in Chicago an FBI agent was the Panther's chief of security and was with the police during the attack of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who could hardly be labeled a gun toting radical by any stretch of the imagination. Had his

hotel rooms bugged by the FBI in an attempt to silence his criticism of the bureau. A memo written by J Edgar Hoover obtained by NBC is called Stern under the Freedom of Information Act stated that the purpose of the FBI counter-intelligence was and I quote to expose disrupt misdirect discredit or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist hate type of organizations and groupings their leaders spokesman membership and supporters. The FBI considered that the development of black groups and their motivation to form coalitions had to be stopped at all costs. Now we all felt that these operations were going on against us but we had no way to prove what we felt. We must see our struggle in a larger perspective. At some points things move quickly and a lot of momentum is built up at other points gains must be consolidated.

Some aspects of the past might have to be rejected that no longer meet our needs in the future. But the 70s has brought a period of growth that is not as visible as the 60s but just as important the ideas and ideals of that era now would have to be hammered and molded so they can become the realities of the next 10 years. What. Is better. To the next time. Easy.