11/15/1992
IWDM Study Library
Whitney Young H.S. Chicago IL

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
For Muslims, the name in our Holy book is Allah. In the Quran, the name is Allah. Highly Glorified is He. And we pray the prayers and the peace be on the Messenger of Allah. That is the messenger of G-d, and what follows of that traditional salute to the last prophet. Muhammad ibn Abdullah who was born better than 1400 years ago in what is known today as Saudi Arabia. In that city, the venerated city of Mecca where we perform pilgrimage or visit Hajj yearly.
I also would like to say that we always thank Allah for the opportunity to serve the good cause, to be here today at this special and highly, I should say perhaps the highest rated High school in Chicago, Whitney Young. We are thankful for the opportunity to be here and to address you here. And we appreciate you who are non-Muslim for being concerned or interested in what we are about or in the topic that we have chosen to come and be with us here today.
We welcome and appreciate the Imams presence here. We have outstanding Imams in our leadership who are with us today on the stage and outstanding workers for the good of humanity. Some of them are not wearing the title Imam but they’re outstanding workers for the good of humanity who are with us on this stage today. I was telling brother Murtada Ali who is representing the Muslim Student Association. I was telling him that I was once a card-carrying member myself. I didn’t say card carrying but I was. I was a card-carrying member of the MSA myself, Muslim Student Association.
I've met some very fine people there and they influenced me for the better. My association with them was good for my health, not that I was in bad health but it was good for my health. Doctor Ahmed Sakr that many of us know and a brother who has passed and we pray G-d for his soul. A wonderful brother, brother to Atujani who was from Sudan. They were in the leadership of the MSA when I met them. I have a very precious memory of the Muslim Student Association of the United States and Canada. We are associated with the organization now that itself really got its start because of the MSA. And that is ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America. It is a very big organization, a very prestigious organization now with some wonderful leaders and with a very, very impressive headquarters facilities for producing books, printing and producing books in Indianapolis, Indiana. I’m associated with them and I know that their past too is tied to the Muslim Student Association. We have chosen to speak on our priorities for sharing life and responsibility in the city or in the community that we live in. Not just the city of Chicago but the neighborhood, the precinct that you live in. The neighborhood you live in, the part of town we live in. Because actually, we don't all live in the whole of the city.
In fact, most of us we not situated where we can say we really live in Chicago without saying we live in Chicago's Southside or we live in Chicago's Westside. We have to give more explanation because these sections are separated and we still are living in Chicago as a people and mainly in two areas, that's the Southside and the Westside.
But wherever we are, we want to understand that we have an obligation to be responsible for our life and for our membership in that block, neighborhood, or block, block club or whatever. In the precinct, in the ward, in the whole city of Chicago and even the State. It goes out beyond the State. It also includes being conscious of our citizenship as U.S citizens and carrying that responsibility in the best way we possibly can, in the most dignified way.
It goes beyond the borders of the United States. Muslims are a people who believe in G-d that is one G-d for all. And society that is human society and that G-d is the G-d and cherisher of that whole society. And all members of that society are G-d’s creation and responsible to G-d, whether they recognize it or not. And G-d has an obligation to them according to the Word of G-d. And that is to give them mercy, to show them mercy and to offer them guidance, to care for them all equally.
So, we have to also extend that awareness. When I say awareness, I mean awareness of our obligation to be responsible to the whole of mankind, the International World of Nations. But we are focusing on the community that we are immediately in. The community that we are immediately in, and for Muslims, we are immediately in the community of Muslims. The mosque, the Masjid community and the Ummah of Al-Islam or Islam as it is commonly called, Islam.
But since we are a minority in this country, and the minority in these cities, it's no more than good sense. We don't even need the Quran or the Sunnah of the prophet, the guidance of his sunnah tradition or anything, common sense. Just common human sense should tell us that we should also be conscious as members of our community. Because as a minority we are in many ways dependent on the decisions and the attitude or disposition of the majority. I choose to not ignore that reality and if I can work, if I have a strategy. I don't say I'm all that romantic about being sweet and loving with everybody, I'm not. I don't like many of my own people but they are my people but we have to accept the reality that we are here to do G-d's will and here to be intelligent and sensible.
To recognize that means to embrace everybody and then not only embrace everybody but work hard at improving your relations between yourself and others. Between Muslim and Muslim, between Muslim and non-Muslim. I got a lot of opposition when I started calling myself the spokesman for human salvation. They don't even recognize, a lot of them don't recognize it. They write me, they invite me to come speak and they write me back, they won't put that. They say, "This Muslim spokesman." They won't say for human salvation, I guess they think that we are so far from being saved as black people we can't be no spokesman.

We can’t be the spokesman for human salvation. I want to reference to myself that non-Muslims can identify with. Because we are not interested in only seeing the life of Muslims improve, we are interested in seeing the life of human beings improved. And that's really being a Muslim.
I was at the business meeting of the newly formed Muslim Business People Association. I was very impressed to see our new Congressman, a man who comes from outside of America. And now inside America as a congressman, sent to Washington by the voters of Chicago and Illinois, Chicago, Illinois. Bobby Rush, very happy to see him there.
Bobby Rush, Senator Carol Moseley Braun, Attorney General Roland Burris, superintendent Ted Kimbrell and the many others in the establishment in Chicago and Illinois and these United States. Their success owes a lot to an oppressed people's courage. Courage to look White America in the face and identify what was unacceptable.
But that is only one part of the explanation. Their success also owes a lot to courage to look self in the face and identify what's unacceptable in ourselves. Not all African Americans have shown the courage to do both of those things. Some shied away from looking 'White America' in the face, some were held back from looking self in the face. There were also those who neither mustered the courage to face the objectionable without themselves on the outside of themselves nor the objectionable within themselves. They neither have the courage to see what is to be condemned outside of themselves or to look at what should be condemned within themselves.
Dear people, I see that inability in us as a poverty of courage and it is our people's biggest holdback today. Both developments in courage are required. Neither one works by itself. Our humanity is not just held back by conditions outside of ourselves or conditions outside of us. Our humanity is also held back by conditions inside us, within us. For Muslims who are familiar with the Quran or with this reading from Quran, G-d most high and Highly glorified says, I give you in English now the rendering of that, “There does not occur a change in the condition of a people until there occur a change in the condition of their souls."
The excellence of the inherent aim in our creation, in the human creation in the soul, in the human soul. Pressures a people to reject what is offensive to it whether the problem stems from others or from themselves. The inherent power in our souls, the wellspring behind all our good courageous advances takes form in the living and undefeatable spirit. I call this the healthy spirit of our people. The spirit of the Freedom Movement, going back to the most earliest days. The spirit that shows all of us together. Whether we were called black Muslims or Christians, Civil Rights Advocates, or Nation of Islam advocates, separatists or integrationists, Black nationalist or other.
That is the spirit that shows all of us together. That freedom spirit, that freedom to live to see one day the best in us established. That spirit bearing us up, vital, vitalizing, invigorating, showing two movements. The movement which has the courage to challenge, to disavow what offends and what burdens the soul, our soul. The other movement against what offends and what burdens community life. We see these two movements when we see those leaders addressing the internal condition and the external condition.
The internal condition of our people, our level of conscience, our aspirations, our fears of getting involved and trying to progress, the fear to be involved and accept the challenge and the opposition and to progress. The tendency to be vulgar, the tendency to be lazy, the tendency to be ignorant, the tendency to live with ignorance. The tendency to neglect our hygiene, the tendency to neglect our presence, our clothing. The tendency to go with our heads hung and not have a sense of respect for ourselves or sense of respect for the value that is in ourselves as human creation equal to any and all human creation in its originality.
We find on one side those who address that, they represent one movement in the soul. And we find on the other side those who moved legislation, who asked that laws be changed, who were political. Dr. King was a minister. May G-d forgive him his sins and grant him the paradise. We don't ask that G-d to forgive the sins of just terrible people. We ask that G-d forgive the sins of all people that pass away and present too, living. Because we agree with that saying in Christianity and in the Bible. "Are there any without sin? No, not one." So, we don't know of any human beings that haven't had some sin. We pray for all people's sin.
I'm afraid that that might have to rub somebody little wrong. When I said I pray for the sins of doctor King, Dr. Martin Luther King. No, everybody has sinned. No human being can be an angel. We can only be a human being and we are motivated to be angelic, to be perfect. But we will err, we will make mistakes, we will have sin and G-d forgives all sin. Isn't that wonderful? And that's not Christian, that's Muslim. What I meant by that, that's not only Christian or Christians can't claim that, Muslims have that claim too. We claim that G-d's mercy is too big to not include all sinners. He says His anger is limited, but His mercy opens up to all. That's Allah in the Quran.
When we muster the courage to collect our senses and unite upon that which served us well in the past, we can locate the focus for our unity ethnically speaking, that is for our unity as a distinct ethnic group or this group distinguished by our ethnic life in America. Also, we can locate the focus for our unity when identifying in the life of America. Don't we need both unity? Don't we need to be able to focus both unities? Our unity as an ethnic group, African American people with our own history, the history of our tastes, our spiritual tastes, our moral tastes, our cultural behavior, whatever. That's what I mean by ethnic.
Our history as a people moved by out spirit and all joined together in that one spirit, we need a focus for our unity. Because all of us are not Muslims. I know some would like for me to say, but that's what we're going to be. All of us are going to be Muslim. Allah doesn't say that in the Quran. Highly praise is He, glorified is He. He didn't say all of you are going to be Muslim. He accommodates even those that still follow the prophets that we're on this earth sent by Him, missioned by Him before the last prophet Muhammad. He accommodates them not only on this earth, He accommodates them in paradise in the hereafter.
How do I know that? I know that by many things said by G-d in the Quran. But also, I'll give you something very clear. There is an authentic saying of the prophet. The prayers in the peace be on him. He said that he saw the paradise the life after, he saw the people, the souls going to the paradise. And he saw his followers and he saw Moses' followers and he saw that the followers of Jesus. And he said his followers were in the biggest numbers. It was a surprise to Moses. Moses thought his followers were going to be bigger.
Well, I think that blessing or that vision that G-d blessed Muhammad with to see the hereafter to see the world after judgment. The people, the souls that would go to the agenda, the paradise. It helps us understand what is meant in the Quran, when Allah says that, “He has revealed this religion, that it should prevail over all religion, all other religions. Though the idolaters they opposed to that. They opposed that or hate that”. That's how we have to understand that, but many who come over here from overseas to do Islamic work, they try to convince us that that means, “that no other religion is accepted. No other religious community will be accepted.
That if the people don't become Muslims believe in the Quran and believing in Muhammad, Christian, Jews and all of them that they have no hope for hereafter. No hope for paradise.
They say, “that was okay up to a point in the life of Muhammad the prophet. But now that the Quran has come and all the revelation is here, that's no more true for them”. Well, if they insist upon believing that way, I feel sorry for them and I love them still. But that will explain the state of the Islamic world. That will be a big factor in explaining the present state and the past state of this Islamic world.
Attitudes like that will not be blessed by G-d. Allah will not bless anyone with the attitude that says, just because “I'm Muslim”, just because I say, “La ilaha illallah, Muhammadar rasulullah and except the Quran, I'm going to heaven. I'm going to paradise. And the person who says no, Jesus is the savior and the Gospel is G-d's word. The Jews who says the Torah is G-d's word and Moses is the messenger. And we only going”. No. That attitude is bad, that's the wrong attitude. That's bad. And some of those people you're talking about are better than you in character, better than you in behavior. They have a better record at home and abroad than you have. So, how can you say that?
We follow Muhammad the prophet, not people that have been so hurt by their having to be dominated by the West. And made so bitter because they have been so long dominated by the West that they can't see straight in their senses, can't think straight in their senses. No, we don't follow them. We follow the Quran and the sunnah of the Prophet. If they think we don't have the intelligence as long as we've been free in this country, Booker T Washington, Frederick Douglass, they were born slaves. And even while slavery was still in effect in the United States, those men proved to be intellectually superior to most people.
Now, if they think in this late date, we are so stupid mentally or so out of it intellectually that we have to have them come over here and tell us everything and to decide how we ought to perceive everything that G-d says and apply it, they got to be out of time with human history. I'm not attacking them. I'm extending them the hand of love and they need it badly. Those who think that way and have that attitude. Returning to us and our situation. Today the solution for "the black man" is a solution for his troubled soul. We're not to go to politics anymore for a solution. The solution is not there.
Carol Moseley Braun was sent to Washington DC without any fuss or problem except from her contender and he lost and now he's quiet. Roland Burris is our state attorney general. I'm talking for just here in Chicago. What do we look like saying we're politically oppressed? So, what is the oppression now? I'll tell what it is. It's the same oppression that's on all Americans. And America will always have problems. And people will always have problems. But I repeat, the solution for the black man is no longer political solution, the solution for the black man is the solution for his soul. S-O-U-L soul.
In the Quran the book of all Muslims, it was even the book for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. It was the book for his teacher, Wallace Fard. Maybe you don't know him by that name, W. D Fard. Maybe you don't know him by that name. W.F. Muhammad. Maybe you don't know about that name.
Well, you're talking about the same person I hope. Or we're thinking of the same person, I hope. The one who gave me my name before I was born. My name is Wallace D. Mohammed. He would send cards to my father and mother, and he would sign it just Wallace D. Why because he didn't want the people who headed the mail department to see a Muslim name on it. He would just sign it Wallace D.
I've seen the cards with my own eyes, in fact, I have one. My daughter, I gave one to my daughter to keep as a keepsake. I won't tell you which one, you'd go right to her and start bothering her.
Not only that, I have a picture of him, facial picture, front profile of Fard. Not just that side one that everybody has when he is turned to his side, when he just, you know, given you a side glimpse. I have the full picture. So, he is much less a mystery to me than he is to most. In the Quran, the soul is the seed and the throne of both spirituality and intellect. Hence, a people make a handicap of themselves by their favoring invitations that invite them to look attractive but do not favor them being attracted to that which is intelligent.
Our brother African-American, our brother African-American soldier. Because we were soldiers, weren't we? In the Nation of Islam. And when we talk about militancy, we're talking about soldiers in the freedom struggle. To our brother African-American, brother soldiers, I want to say what we have as a champion and as a victor, with victories in common, is our dynamic soul, its spirit and its intelligence. That is the champion that we have in common. Now if I point to the individual person you may not say that's your hero. And if you point to an individual person, I and those with me, we might not say that's our hero, but we can point to that spirit, that energy, that have been moving forward and insisting that we go forward. We can point to that and we can say, "That is our hero."
The spirit of our people that rose upon our original life that G-d created. Rose out of that life, rose up out of that life. The spirit that went forward for the good of that life, that is our life, our real life. That is our hero, and that is an awareness that we need so that we can have a sense of unity again. That spirit kept getting brighter while we were opening our soul to its appetite for what is intelligent. I would like to stop here and let you in on something that many of these know about us, but maybe some of you don't, who weren't in the inner circle.
W. D. Mohammed, Malcolm X, later came to be called Malcolm Shabazz, we loved the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. We loved the Nation of Islam. We loved our brothers and sisters in the Nation of Islam. We loved the aspirations of the Nation of Islam. We loved the achievements of the Nation of Islam. We loved the manners and the discipline of the Nation of Islam. We loved the morals and the decency and the disciplines that were hard sometimes on us, that cause us to be thrown out of the Nation of Islam for violating something that you would just ignore.
We loved that. We weren't boys, we were men. We weren't average men; we were extraordinary men when it came to wanting to assert our manhood. Not only that, we loved the food of the Nation of Islam. We loved our bean soup. We loved our fried rice or brown rice, more than we love the Chinese. We loved our carrot pies, our cheese pies. 100% cheese pie, delicious. We loved our bean pies. We loved them so much until we had to tell all the African-American people about our bean pies. We didn't want to break with that. We didn't want to separate from that.
Twice or three times I was separated. The first time because it was told that I was saying things about the concept of G-d that was not approved in the Nation of Islam. Because we were told that Fard was Allah in the person. The man who taught my father, we were told that he was Allah in the person. I was rejected after it was forced on my father. I said 'forced on my father' because my father knew that my mind was developing differently. He never bothered me until somebody made a charge against me, and he was a lawgiver and a law-executor. I'm telling you one thing that he was more serious about than you are serious about AIDS.
And that is having his position weaken or having the Nation of Islam weaken. If anybody threatened that, wife, mama, son, anybody, daughter, you were in trouble. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad I tell you; this will give you an idea of what situation he was in when he put me out. He said, "Well, you know son, you know what I have to do." I said, "Yes daddy," and he did it.
And I stopped eating good, stopped sleeping good. But I didn't stop being happy because I wasn't thinking about those things, I was thinking about being right. And look here, you who love what were all about, I know this, I know some of you all have the same history of obedience that I have. But I want you to know I never start smoking, never drank. I've been told recently, someone said I drink, saw me drunk, recently.
He must've been drunk and hallucinating.
Never eat pork. Never became profane, cursing and carrying on. Never got vulgar. Never lost my good standard, my good character that my mother and father, my mother bred in me and my father encouraged. Never. Alhamdulillah, you're right. Praise be to G-d. And I have to recall what the prophet said.
Our prophet, the prophet of all Muslims on this earth. He said, "Those who are of good character in the days of ignorance," that is before He became the prophet, "are of good character now," he was speaking of, they were still with him, they were still there, "and those who are of bad character then, are of bad character now”. “But never will the condition of a people change for them until they accept to change what is bothering their souls."
You don't have to come to one path, by one way, to G-d, you could come by anyway to G-d as long as you have that fear in you, that Taqwa in you, that consciousness in you to at least acknowledge that you are not your own boss that you have to answer to some authority one day, whether in this life or the next. As long as you have that in you, then you're going to try to be of good character. I would like to repeat that. In the Quran, the soul is the seed and the throne of both spirituality and intellect hence a people make a handicap of themselves by their favoring invitations that invite them to look attractive, outer show. But do not favor them being attracted to that which is intelligent.
It wasn't a moral urge so much. At least I wasn't seeing a moral urge that caused me to differ with the theology of the Nation of Islam. What is put out now as a theology of time, and time you know is infinity and that's just where they will be trying to figure out that theology.

I couldn't see a moral urge moving me to differ with that theology. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad conditioned me to differ with that theology. “This is ridiculous that that man saying his own father condition him to undo what his father was so diligently trying to do”. But that's the fact. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad condition me to question that theology. You who have been here for a long time, you know the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us, "Hey, brother, sister, don't just look at the surface, look under the surface." He said, "Study it. There are answers that Allah wants us to get”. That's what he said, study it.
He told me to study and to look under the surface. If the surface doesn't look good to me, it didn't bother me. I just tried to look under it. And when I got up under it, I discovered all kind of strange creatures. And it helped me deal with the surface. Again, I say, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, my father, conditioned me to be that way to have those curiosities. Malcolm also came under the influence of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's teachings. He was so close to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad would call him son, my son, just like he calls myself my brother, my son.
My mother would call him, "My son." She would call him, "Son". Not only him now. A few other ministers that she would call son. When you show that you were 100% faithful to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and to our cause, as a people of the Nation of Islam. When my mother saw that you became close to her just like a sister, a son, a daughter, depending on your age. So, I say the same thing for Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, I say the same thing for him. I say that he also wasn't moved by any awareness of any moral problem. But by a natural need and natural urge that was supported by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's treatment of our curiosity to follow his in intelligence.
I think I'm speaking for most of you, who have come and have experienced a transition from what was then to what is now and what is real and true. I think I speak for most of you.
We didn't dislike the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. We had no jealousy, no bitterness, no. We loved it. The reason why it took me so long, to break completely with that idea, was because I was trying hard to make that idea agree with what's in the Quran, and trying hard to make the Quran support that idea. Some still wrestling with that.

I thank G-d, that my father's and mother's influence in me, made me more interested in being right, than holding on to something that's proven to be wrong. That spirit that I pointed to, that we all have in common. The spirit of our excellence, its potential, moving us forward, moving us to try to separate ourselves from the things that are holding us back. Those things that are wrong for us, moving us to prove and establish and defend those things that we felt G-d intended to be in us and those aspirations that G-d sanctioned, according to the stirrings in our own souls.
That spirit kept getting brighter and brighter, while we were opening our soul to its appetite for what is intelligent. It has been dimming. It has been dimming because black consciousness has slipped and fell from itself, from its inherent aim, while experiencing a very disturbing, perplexing time we call the '60s, the 1960s. I put Black in quote, "Black” fell from its excellence-based spirituality. Our spirituality, our motivation, our aspirations were based in our G-d-given excellence, human excellence. We fell from that to something I'm calling blackism, in this particular address. Blackism.
Now, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad put us on the path of blackism. But he conditioned us to stay on the path of Al-Islam where all attempts to establish blackism failed. Blackism is also blind desperation in the spirit. Blackism is that contender for the heavyweight crown untrained for rules of decency. To hyped up to experience, that is now not then, but now. It is too hyped up to experience reflection, soul searching and too desperate to address moral demands on us. Hence, the internal war we're suffering, self-destruction we are suffering, the violence we are suffering in our own hands. Crimes we are suffering in our own Black community. Suicide we are suffering and social regression that is manifest now in our community.
When I say social regression, I mean we once cared about mama, more than we care about mama now. We once cared about daddy and grandfather and grandmother more than we care about them now. We once cared about wife and children and sisters and brothers and cousins and nephews and uncles and nieces. We once cared about those people more than we care about them now. We once cared about the African American neighbor more than we care about that African American neighbor now. We once cared about our brother a distance away more than we care about them now.
So, we have suffered a great alarming degree of social regression, not progress. Blackism is now punch drunk because it's advocates, I'm not naming any of them. I love every one of them just like the Prophet Jesus Christ in the Gospel, peace be on the Prophet, loved all sinners. Now I haven't reached that stage yet.
And tell you the truth I ain't trying to get to that stage.
Black is now punch drunk because its advocates came in on some great counter punching by the Nation of Islam leaders in the fight with the white world or the devil world. Those that came in and looked in on the battle they were electrified. And they rushed out to do it their way, but they waited until the honorable Elijah Muhammad had passed. They waited till Malcolm had passed and then they went out to do it their way. Now they've gotten caught up in a fixation to just counter push the white man. And they've been in a fixation so long, they're seeing punches that the white man ain't even throwing. Punch dunked.
A punch-drunk person will go out and throw punches in the air and think he's in the ring. He thinks the bell rung, he's thinks the fight is on and he sees an opponent, and he thinks he's countering a blow. Dear people, counter punching the heavyweights and the resistance facing us in America is making us punch drunk and weaker. Weaker in spirit, weaker in truth and weaker in the ability to benefit from practical common sense. Now I've just given us a prescription. A prescription not just for black Muslim, or African-American Muslim. Not just for those who associate in the community or the membership of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed associates, no.
No matter what leader or what mosque or what Madhhab or school of Islamic thought you identify with or come under. If you are African-American, I've just given you a prescription. You don't even have to be Muslim, if you're Christian. If you are an African American, I've just given you a prescription. Now if you take it and go out there and use it, as I just described to you. I've given you also how to take that medicine. You just review everything that I've said. I've also indicated how that medicine is to be taken. If you do it, you're going to be healed and we are going to begin to enjoy a better sense of well-being as a people.
Aren't we tired of going around here in the gloom, complaining, downhearted, being given all these statistics? The statistics, on our failures, but no statistics on our successes. Being told every ailment that we've gotten since we came on the shores of America but not being told of all the good things that happened in our health since we've been in America. That'll make a man sick. You want to get sick quick. You can be healthy. Somebody tell you, "You know what happened yesterday?" Say, "No." Say, "Well, you know your own son said something about your character." They just keep on bringing you negative stuff like that. That's why you start to feel weak and sick.
Something in your nature will tell you right away, "I don't want to hear no more of that stuff. Look, man, I'm just going to live my life, if that's the way they want to feel about me and then that's the way they are but man, please don't take up my time telling me what they're saying about me. I don't want to hear any more of that." We know in our nature to pull away from a lot of negativity because negativity will make you sick, weak, take away your ability. But we let these advocates of blackism, just do nothing but talk to us about negative things. How much bad has happened to us in our history in America. How much we've been held back. How much have been done wrong to us by whites?
Give us the statistics. How many was killed 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago? Give us the statistics and just ask us to just keep coming back for more. We used to have one main meeting. They meet now every day some of them. And just do nothing but just pouring that stuff in ears and into the soul, the sensitivities of the people who'll listen to it. No wonder we can’t sense or see opportunity that’s here in America for us now and take advantage of it as Roland Burris, Ted Kimbrell, and Caroline Moseley Brown and the many who are doing the same in business and the many who are doing the same in the other professions. We can't take advantage of opportunity because these prophets of blackism, they're too busy killing our initiative.
We're not going to excuse that problem. We're not going to pretend that problem doesn't exist in the name of some kind of unity of all of us. Should we keep quiet while we're seeing something destroying our unity? Seeing something setting us back 100 years just because there is an African-American or a black man advocating that? No. I had to differ with my own father because something in me bigger than me, bigger than my father was urging me to do that. The good health, the good well-being the good future of our people. The health and well-being and future of our children now and to come, that's bigger than us just showing an artificial unity based in some kind of blackism that's sick.
We need courage. I began this talk by pointing to courage. Courage that was in us. It was inherent in us. The courage to go forward with the best of our lives. The courage to go forward with the best of our motivations. The courage to go forward behind the best of our aspirations. The courage to stand up to the white world and look it in the eye and face white America, and stand upon solid moral ground and tell white America, "You are not the man you claim to be. You claim to be a Christian following Jesus Christ, but your behavior says differently.
Your most precious document of your government and your governmental way of life, says things about humanity and about human vision and human perception and human aspirations and human nature that we don't see reflected in your treatment of us." We were forced to rise and stand upon solid moral grounds, and challenge the whole America that was saying we were slaves or inferior by nature. Challenge them, and we ain't go up in the sky and get some invented idea of our origin. We didn't go in Africa and regress, go backwards, go behind the history of Christianity, go behind the history of Al-Islam.
We didn't go backwards into paganism, into ancestor worship, into animism. We didn't go backwards into all of that, to get an argument to face the white America. We went to what was present and what was evident. We went to his behavior and went to his claim and asked him to make your behavior compatible with your claim. We were on solid ground. We were supported by our inherent excellence. G-d created inherent excellence in us just like He did in all people. We put in a bad condition, in a terrible position as slaves, real physical chattel slaves in this country, dehumanized and treated as we were treated. We didn't have nobody to turn to. We knew of no nation that would rescue us. No nation that would come here and argue with White America for us, on our behalf. We had nothing to turn to, but an urge inside coming from what G-d created that said, "This is wrong and I can't tolerate it."

And we succeeded. We have gone a long way. We succeeded even in bringing the majority of white America to either be silent or to be true. We don't have any problem now with the majority of the people in White America. The problem is with a minority of people in White America, not the majority. The great majority have supported legislature that had brought equal opportunity to be written as a law.
Discrimination to be erased and abolished forever. I say forever, it will never come again. Now some of the advocates of blackism would tell you. "Yes. It's on its way." They will tell you is on its way and pretty soon all those laws, they're going to be changed. What's going to change them? Not only has America been awakened now and the best of her conscience has risen. And took the stand that "Yes, we were shaming ourselves with our behavior. Our claims were noble, but we shamed those claims. We discredit those claims and shamed ourselves and our behavior." They will never return to that behavior because people of conscience around the world is also looking at them. It's not much that America can stand upon now.
When it wants to establish its leadership in the world. I hope you don't think America is crazy enough, white America is crazy enough to lose the best she got going for her. And that is, her strength and courage to repent her ugly, sinful, diabolic, devilish ways. And say at least on the books, and in the media, in the open, in public. I don't know what they say in private, only G-d knows that and G-d doesn't give us the right to say what they say in their hearts. Only G-d knows that. Dear people, they have gotten the strength to repent their ways and the world has seen what has happened. If they start to go back to that, we won't be alone like we were before. There'd be nations on our side.
Don't even worry about that. It's not going to happen. I'll tell you right now, the Klan and all the other skin knuckles, whatever they call it, all of them together ain't no match for just me and my associates. I'm telling you, I'm a sober-minded man and I'm a man who don't make rash statements. I'm not going to rush to make a statement. I think it over very carefully before I make it.
Me and my associates, we don't need Christian help. We don't need white man's help. We can take care of all the Klan men that want to start that thing again and all the skinheads and Flint heads or whatever. See, there is something in an African American who has been liberated by the law, but he hasn't been liberated by Allah. There's something in him that makes him become unreal and behave unreal, artificial when he really meets a real challenge. They ain't in us. We've gotten past that. They ain't in us, no, no. When we meet a real challenge, the same thing that we did in Vietnam or in Korea, we going to do it in America if it's necessary.
Our priorities for sharing life and responsibility in the city or in the neighborhood and the community without pointing to the thing that's hindering us from even being sensitive or open to such an idea. They have many of us, we are not seeing that. We are not in a condition to even be open to such an idea and you know them. I don't want to name them.
They don't want to be responsible, citizens of Chicago.
They're not ready to be responsible citizens of Chicago. They're going to do things in the name of black supremacy. They're going to do things in the name of blackism. They're going to do things in the name of their own idea of humanity. That cuts out the biggest section of humanity and shows only them to be the real humanity. And we have, unfortunately, we have many innocent African Americans that are influenced by their idea of blackness, or their idea of what is blackism or black pride or the black idea.
Many are confused because of them advocating their idea of what is the original black man. What is his original nature? How did he come here? Their myths of origin, their myths of life, of real content. There myths of the real destiny of our people. Their blackism have touched many innocent African Americans who don't even know one iota of fact about the honorable Elijah Muhammad’s real life. They only know his life on the battlefield against evils in America.
They don't know his real life as a person, as a human person. And that goes also for Malcolm. They know he's X, but they don't know the person. They don't know the real person. I hope that Spike Lee's film in spite of it being a film put together to make money. It's not a documentary, but I hope that enough truth is told in that movie about Malcolm, about what he was, to influence our youth in the streets, our young men and young boys wearing X’s and others. Adults too. Influence them to see the whole or want to see the whole Malcolm and not just a little facet of him or a little small peephole on him. The real man was not the man that was addressing the evils.
When I say that, I mean the real consciousness was not the consciousness that was addressing the evils as much as it was the conscience that was trying to free itself from the evils. Why was he so angry with discrimination? Why was he so angry with white man dominance over us? Why was he so angry? He was he so angry with white man's dominance because something in him said, "I am created by G-d to enjoy the same freedom he enjoys. I'm created by G-d to have equality as a human being with him not to be dominated by him."
So, if he was angry and ready to do violence even with white America, we are to understand what was forcing him. What was demanding that courage of him? It was something he held precious. Now, if I hold my newborn baby to be precious and some evil come against that baby. Then I started fighting that baby, maybe it took me a week to deal with that evil, it might take me 10 years to deal with that evil, might take me 20 years to deal with that evil.
Then later on, they show just me dealing with that evil and got my baby out of sight. And then they say, "Oh, he just liked to fight this thing." And that's the way you look to me now. You look like people that just like to fight white people. Where the hell is the cause for you fighting white people? Muslims, we're in a good situation. We are in an excellent situation. We're in a situation as good as any African-American can have in this country. We are in a situation as good as any African-American Christian can claim in this country. Our situation is excellent.
I owe most of that to my past life and my past experience under the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, under the nourishing hands of my mother, Clara Muhammad. From them, I got a conditioning to want to be satisfied and comfortable with my own ability to think. And there was a great African-American intellectual, intellect, and intellectual. His name is Du Bois, WEB Du Bois, an educator, a great man. In fact, the NAACP came about because of his creation and his leadership.
That great man said and it is in the history of his works, his words. He said to his people, "The coming generations will progress in the measure that we have the courage to teach them to think." Recently, a friend, a supporter of what we all about, called in while a person claiming to be Minister Farrakhan's assistant was receiving calls. He was on the show and they were receiving calls, questions. Dr. Khalif, I think his name. Dr. Khalif, I think they called him or Khalid or Khalif, something like that. I forget their pronunciation. Anyway, he looked good in the beginning of the questioning. He looked good, he sounded good. I listened to it on tape.
He was cautioning the brother to remember that we all brothers, we all Muslims. As the brother kept insisting upon the rule of intelligence, that their conversation and their belief to be intelligent. This person got so upset, he called him, "You used to be the white man's nigga. Now you’re the Arabs nigga. Your leader went to the Pentagon and prayed for those bombs that were dropped on the Muslims of Iraq." Now, how can you trust a man like that to be your leader? I'm not talking about Farrakhan. It wasn’t Farrakhan, it was his assistant. But if he tolerates that man, representing himself as his assistant, that also goes to him.
How can you tolerate a man like that who'll outright lie in order to look good on radio to his audience of blackism burdened people?
How can you accept people like that? It's an outright lie and he knew it was an outright lie. I never went to the Pentagon to pray for any blessings on bombs. I didn't go there to meet the staff. I didn't go to meet no big shots, the big high brass. I went there in the interest of Muslim brothers have an opportunity to be chaplains in the army, the same way we are now in the prison system. That is why I went there. Now how come he couldn't be truthful? How come some of you all can't be truthful?
You are artificially in love with American patriotism and I'm soberly and plainly in love with truth. That's the difference between me and you. Not all of you, just a couple up here.
How come you want to say my trip to the Pentagon is all about going there with the high brass? No, that visit was to support their interests in getting us to have the same opportunity that Christians and Jews and others have the opportunity also to be chaplains on the army bases. Now that is not the only interest I address, but that's the interest I went to. When I went there, I addressed also the need to clarify what is Al-Islam? What is not Al-Islam? What are our desires in America? We don't desire to oppress any American people. We don't desire to dominate Christians, to take your churches away from you. That's unIslamic. So, I had to clarify the matter. I did that also, but I told you what my interest was.
Now, if we want to be in a good situation, to shoulder our responsibility as citizens of Chicago, members in a community of Muslim, or mixed community, we have to get rid of those ideas that are making us artificial and anti-human in our thinking. What do we want as our priorities? We want, first of all, good relationship with all people. America is a country of many people, E Pluribus Unum, many in one.
Not only many in one people, the American people, many people from different nations in one people called the American people. We're also many ethnic groups in one big culture called America. We're also many, many ethnic aspirations in one big aspiration called America. Believe me, don't ever let anybody make you think. I say, believe me, I don't see my permanence in America. I see my permanence with Allah. No Christian should see their permanence with America. You should see your permanence with G-d. No Jew, no anybody should see their permanence in America, their permanence should be with G-d.
What am I saying? What am I getting at? I depend on my Islamic life more than I depend on my American life. You should depend on your Christian life more than you depend on your American life. A Jew should depend on his Jewish life more than he depends on his American life because our religious life is protected by G-d if we are sincere. America will not always be protected by G-d if we leave that that G-d loves, that that G-d cherishes. G-d loves our obedience to Him. G-d loves our recognition of Him. G-d loves our fear of Him. G-d loves that we want to follow the path he set for us. If we leave that, we won't exist around here very long, comfortable and secure as American citizens.
That's what makes this country so great. It invites the people from various backgrounds, from various religions to come here and live their religion without fearing persecution. We were persecuted before but just like the civil rights movement, our great African minds, our great African people, men and also some women that you know Sojourner Truth and many others. Just like they were able to press forth, press forward. A slave that is almost insignificant in our history, Julia the slave. She said a powerful thing. It was so powerful white man recorded it. She said. "You look like G-d in the face and act like the devil in your hearts."
Well, we awe a lot to people like that, courageous woman. While a slave, she told the white man that. So, it's not just us here now. It's us in the past too. It's just not us Muslim, it is us Muslim, Christians, all of us together. And if we want a better life for ourselves separately, Muslim, Christian, whatever we are in America, we better as a people be able to identify what is the basis, where are the grounds for our real unity? Where do we find the beginning of our real history. Where do we locate the real force that's been driving us to more and more excellence, to more and more courage to defend what is right and to condemn what is wrong, to go into the open door of opportunity even if someone says we going to be killed when you step in there. Something in us saying, "Die for your dignity. Die for your G-d-given humanity." We have to identify that again as our common base, as our common origin and go forward and then look at Chicago, look at America and tell Chicago, "You are no challenge to me."
When I was faced with thugs, some of you think I had it all easy. When I became the leader of Nation of Islam, I was faced with thugs, bullies, criminals. I told them, "I believe in Allah. Crime ain't never been stronger than righteousness. A criminal ain't never been braver than a G-d fearing man. If you want to get it on, let's get it on and let's see what happens." And those that were killers when they heard me, something just pulled the fangs out of them and they started looking like human beings again.
And right now, some of my strongest supporters are those that were beast, brute beast when I came into office. But now they're some of my strongest supporters and they will kill a brick for me. But I'm the same man now as I was then. I'm a man of peace. My nature was that and Al-Islam took me into its arms from the cradle. And though it was confused, the best of Islamic influences kept me until I could be put on the straight path of Al-Islam. The Path walked by all upright Muslims of this earth whether they be on one race or another one nation to another. Oh, yes.
We don't want anything small. I began by telling you that we love the Nation of Islam. We love all of its good points, all of its excellence. We loved it and still do. That's how I began with you. Because I am not in the theology that I was in before. Shouldn't make anybody come to the conclusion that I don't like doing for self or that I don't like seeing us work for business establishment, or work for business holdings, or work for economic strength, or for economic empowerment. What would make you think that I'm not for that?
When as busy as I am with Salat, with Shahada, Salat, Zakat, Sawm, and Hajj. And the principles of faith, belief in G-d, belief in His angels, belief in His messengers and belief in His books, belief in the Judgment Day, belief in the life hereafter. Belief in the ordinance, the law of G-d that rewards and punishes.
I believe in all the essential principles of Al-Islam and I'm busy with those things. But what in my behavior makes some of you all think that I don't want money anymore and I don't want business anymore or that I'm not for our people coming out of the poor showing in business world into a better showing in business? What make you think that crazy stuff? I don't know.
For a long time. I said, "These people are infiltrators." I said, "They're among us, so just be up close to me so they can report on me and be taken as the authentic, true and credible reporters and give the wrong image of me to the outsiders and to the insider. Many of you Muslims have been given the wrong image of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. Many of you. By people that are talking to you about me that claim to be in the inner circle of my close associates. They make you think that I don't want money. What fool! I've never met one that didn't want some money. Even those that lie and say they don't want money, I'll catch them. I look back and there he is, working to get some money.
So, we want establishment in Chicago. We want establishments in America. Establishments that we don't have to be ashamed of and we are getting it. I feel proud. Yes, I do. I feel proud of African-Americans in the media, in business, in the corporate world who are making such big money now, not near enough of them. We can't compare ourselves with the big boys in white establishment. But we are traveling fast out of inferiority into excellence, into strength.
I feel very good when I hear that they're giving 20 million, 30 million to all black African-American institution. Negro College Fund or to a specific college African-American. I feel so good. This is what we wanted. We wanted to get in a situation where we could use our resources, improve our skills and become resourceful enough to produce for ourselves so that the white man wouldn't have to carry all the weight for us. We can carry some of the weight for ourselves.
Now we got African-American men and women who have risen up into the political life of America, government life of America, in the educational system of America. Also, in the business system of America. They have risen up in here and now they're able to do a lot for their people that was done before by only white folks. I feel good about that. I want to see us do more of that. I want to see us become more responsible for education in our own community and in our own city. I mean with an independent, separate effort.
You know I support us doing it with the system, working as teachers in the system, aspiring to be principals in the system, aspiring for the position of Ted Kimbrell, superintendent. The superintendent and he's African-American. I have to repeat that because some of you may not know that. I want to see that. But I would also want to see the separate independent effort. I'm a supporter of the Negro College. I hate to use that language but that's the language they use so I have use it.
I'm a supporter of the United Negro College Fund and what it's all about. I'm a supporter of that. I donate to that out of my money. Not your money. When you give me my money, it's my money, it ain't yours no more.
You can say the same thing to me when I give you some of my money. Once I give it to you it's your money, ain't money anymore. And I do give you some of my money. All my money hasn't come from you. Big, big part of it has come from friends overseas that like what I'm doing. I just did a courageous thing that sometimes make a tear come here. I told the Saudis to take their money back to Saudi Arabia. But I had to do it. I didn't break my relationship with Saudi Arabia or with the embassy in Washington. I broke my relationship with the person who was in charge there. So, if they want to approach me again in a different way, they can. And I'm waiting impatiently.
But I will not be disrespected. No, no. I will not have my humanity and my intelligence disrespected. And I will not have yours disrespected if I can do something about it.
Yes. We plan to have excellent schools. We have to do this independently and separate too. While we want to move up in the system, we also want to establish that we can be responsible for systems within the system. We want to be responsible for an educational system within the system of America. Within the educational system of America or within the law of American, more correctly. We want to have business establishment, business system, economic system, within the system of America. Respected by the system of America, respecting the law of this system, but nevertheless independently operating. And can give it form and character by our Islamic perception and sensitivity as well as by our inherent genius.
And don't think we ain't got it. Yes, that's what we want to see. We want to see us established in all quarters of life independently, as well as working all together with people. And to me, that's what makes America so special, so unique in terms of its democracy, of what its democracy is. It allows for that. It allows for that. Look how long that Americans tolerated the existence of the Klan. Now we're talking about noble aspirations. We ain't talking about the aspirations of Dracula, Wolfman or somebody.
We’re talking about the aspirations of a human being and a noble human being in his excellence. Yes. Now, if we identify with the whole beauty of America, in the beauty of America. If we identify in the excellence of America, if we identify with the best dreams and the best aspirations of the American people, beginning with the founding fathers. If we identify in that. If we believe our G-d who says to us in our Holy Book, "Seek with the means that G-d has made possible for you. The hereafter, the afterlife, the destiny, which is better than anything that we can have now, but it's out of our sight. G-d doesn't allow us to even see it.
So, you know if G-d doesn't allow us to see it, G-d won't tell us to get on the road, I-90, or I-30, or something and try to find it. You've got to find it with your heart, with your spirit, with your soul. And what He wants you to find on this earth is kosher. That's the Jewish term. I said that for our non-muslim audience. Now I'm going to give you our Muslim term, halal. He wants us to find halal establishment on this earth. I repeat. We want to be established in all of the good, vital constructs of society. Not just one, all of them. And we want to prove our qualification that we can be responsible for systems within the system.
We can be responsible for independent vision within the Vision. Responsible for independent destiny within the destiny. Our destiny is to have a thriving Islamic community that Christians and all will be proud of. Thank you very much. As salamu alaikum.


