08/31/2008
IWDM Study Library
Muslim Convention Public Address

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
IWDM:
No doubt and a much, much better world. Now, our dear friends, in humanity and in faith, we believe in the same G-d, Reverend Jay Rock and also Reverend Rabbina Windbush. We would like for them to come and greet us as they choose to. Either one can come first. It is a new time, a better time. And I have strong belief that that healing of this broken world has already started and it's really getting to be really visible everywhere, now. We're in the Motor City of Detroit, Michigan, where poor African-Americans or blacks were living in the black bottom. You, from Detroit, raise your hand. How many here from Detroit, Michigan or the area? Oh good, very good. Good to see you here. Really, you should have been here so early and you should have filled the place off. And we should be asking you that, "will some of you all get up and let some of these others sit down, the elders and whatever?" Because what was started in this city, it attracted within three years, it attracted 25,000 to join the Nation of Islam, 25,000. Within about three years, poor African-Americans, most of them deprived of culture and deprived of formal education, they joined Professor Fard.
And for two years or more, he worked here in this city and he took his work and his new convert, that he kept by his side, my father, the late leader, the honorable Elijah Muhammad, honorable Elijah Pool Muhammad. He took him with him, (applause) to what I was pronouncing it, she, like she wolf or something, Chicago. Our mayor is the son of his father, a mayor, who brought a great transformation to Chicago, Richard j Daley. Once I was listening to him on television talking about the great city, our great city of Chicago. And he said, you don't pronounce, it's "she- cago", it's chi, like chick or like chicken, Chicago. And ever since then, I try to remember to pronounce the name correctly, Chicago. So, Mr. Fard, the mystical teacher who was very practical, although he was a mystical, took the honorable Elijah Muhammad, his new minister who he kept right by his side to Chicago and they began building up the second temple. This was temple number one and still temple number one because we still have following from that time. They're not with me. They chose to stay with that and that's their business. I don't impose anything on anybody. So, he went from this city and built the second temple that was named Temple # 2, Temple # 2. Somewhat after that, it wasn't too much time after that, they went to Milwaukee and they built the third temple, Temple # 3, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And we have a very excellent scholar. He works with college students. He actually was over a program for college students at the university. It was Lacross University of Wisconsin. Will you please stand? (applause)
This is Imam Ronald Shaheed, Imam Ronald Shaheed, who’s director of the Clare Muhammad School. And he's also Imam in Milwaukee. And he's also working directly with the Presbyterian church representatives or officers that we have just introduced to you. He's working directly with them for my office but also for the community, the general community. So, Milwaukee was established and in a little time didn't take long time, they had established three temples before Professor Fard left the responsibility to the honorable Elijah Muhammad. The language of this teacher was really like a puzzle. And on the surface, educated persons, who has formal education, when they look at his language on the surface, oh, that's ridiculous. They would say that's ridiculous, unbelievable where (did) this come from, who had the nerve to even say these things? But if they have scriptural knowledge, Bible, knowledge of the Bible, scriptural knowledge, knowledge of the Qur'an, because he was speaking from both.
He came from both and mostly from ideas and concepts and concerns that we have in common, Christians and Muslims have in common. And he was leaving us with the language that would help us down the road, help us get out of his created myth of the origin of the world, the origin of white people and black people, et cetera. So he had a myth that he created himself, mythology or a myth that he created himself and he designed it so that as we become more educated, we were especially educated in scripture, we would see his direction in this puzzle, the direction that we need to take for our own lives and come to be a Muslim community, part on excellence, on a standard of excellence. The man was a wonderful man. He did a wonderful job, a masterful job of getting us to come where we are today. Professor Fard. My father called him Allah in person or Allah in the body or in the flesh. And he put me out because I grew to not accept that, okay? And I was still the minister, one of the ministers of the honorable Elijah Muhammad. And people reported me for having different ideas about that. And he called me into question and he excommunicated me. Now, we didn't use big fancy language like that, we say he got put out of the Nation of Islam.
Yes, he put me out and I accepted it. And he asked me a question before he gave his final judgment on me. He said, how can you not accept our savior? And you know that he found your father a poor man, a lost man in the streets in the time of depression, too ashamed to come home to your mother because I couldn't bring any money to help the family out. And he put me where I am now. (He'd) say, how can you knowing that reject our savior? I said daddy. I don't reject your savior and boy oh boy, I thought I was pretty smart, but man did that fire him up, did that anger him! "My savior, he's YOUR savior!" So he told me to go. I had to get out of there. And I was told as a child that my father would be in the city of Detroit with Professor Fard,
and they, I keep saying professor because that's what he said. And we have on several documents him referring to himself as professor. But I have to acknowledge also that there is plenty in his language that would cause any person who came from church background to believe also that he was a second coming of Jesus Christ or at least a Christ type, a Christ type leader. Because he said he referred to himself plainly as the son of man. And I'll give you his exact words he said, and no help came to them until the coming, pardon me, "no help came to them until the coming of the son of man in the person of W. D. Fard." That's his language. That's not my father's language, that's not my language, that's his language. That's what Mr. Fard said. So he did leave the idea with my father and those of the church who would understand that language. He left the idea that he came in the role of Christ Jesus. But if you look at that language, you would never come to that conclusion. I don't know, maybe some of you would, but I'm going to give you now an expression that he himself made. He said, referring to the new community that he was building or the new nation that he was building, he pictured it as a
car, an automobile. And he called it, " an old touring car, an old touring car". And he said that it could hardly make it up the hill. It could hardly make it up the hill. Now I'm going to just elaborate a bit on the car. If you look at the word car, C.A.R., and you think about the word carnal, which means flesh the body, the flesh body. You see car is in carnal, the first part of the word carnal. It's C-A-R,-C-A-R. Car. Teachers, mystical teachers, they know how to put together language like that. And they don't expect the average person to really know what they're talking about. Please, no talking in the audience. We put people out for talking in the audience. You come here to hear me or hear this program, you have to listen to it. Or I'm going to tell security next time they catch you talking, they'll have you go out and have your fun. Have a beautiful day. Yes. So the average person cannot understand this language, but how come the average person, in fact the following, the following, in the early thirties, they were all not average. They were actually below average, below average because most of them didn't have formal education above about five or sixth grade elementary school.
But they were attracted to him. He called his language Magnetism. Magnetism. Powerful magnetic force, magnetism. And why did he call it that? Because it appealed to those who had become very dissatisfied with their life as Americans. They didn't believe that they would ever be full citizens. Now this is not different than what we find in the Bible. It's not anything different from what we find in the Bible. Jesus Christ, who do he go after? Peace be upon him. He said, this is the Bible, he said, "give me your tired and weary people." Not those who are satisfied with the world that they're living in, those that the world had beat up and put down, those are the ones he appealed to. And he appealed to them and he attracted them. And they were happy to have him as their leader because he lift(ed) up their spirit. And more than that, he lift(ed) up their souls.
The white world had put them down, had crushed their spirit. And he said, you are the righteous, speaking to his following. "You are the righteous, the best and the most powerful. You are the original man. That's what he said. And he said that the black man is superior to the white man. He said the black man created the white race by grafting them out of the black people. Well, you know, tell people that, in fact, some of you right now, I want to caution you don't drink strong drinks like I'm giving you right now. Please don't. You can't handle it. You're head will go tipsy, tipsy, tipsy and may fall off. So anyway, he had what attracted them, but he was only attracting us to something that would stand up temporarily. It wouldn't last forever. The more we became educated and informed of the realities of the world, the more we would question his language and those who believed in his sincerity and appreciated what he was doing to lift us up. And he certainly lift us up. He took us off of alcohol. He took us away from indecency. He took people who were in the Christian church and had been made good, had been made G-d-fearing in the Christian church and had grown in decency as Christians. He took 'em and made 'em more decent, even more decent, even more committed to decency and more committed to being sober. He was successful in doing that.
So let's talk about the word car a little bit. We are in the Motor City. Do you all know why they call this city the Motor City? Because of the great history of automobile manufacturing in this city. Still here, but it's a long history of automobile manufacturing for this city, Detroit. General Motorists, Ford Motors, and a lot of our people came from the south and our men got much better paying jobs because they joined Ford Motors. There were men in our family who came from the South, Georgia who got good jobs here, good paying jobs, especially in that time, working for Ford Motors. The Motor City. This word motor, it has several meanings. You get a good dictionary and you'll see it's got several meanings. One of the meanings is the meaning that we find in psychology, the study of psychology. And that meaning refers to habit, habit, behavior, habit supported behavior inside of us. When you say motor reflex, you're not talking about what's happening consciously in the person. You are talking about what's happening without their conscious awareness of it. Motor reflex, motor reflexes. And these motor reflexes operate in our life like fish perform in water. So Mr. Fard, he identified African-Americans as fish
And he said, go out and gather the fish and bring them in so they can be taught the religion of the Nation of Islam. That's what he said. Okay, fish. Now he was again copying the role of Christ, peace be upon Christ in the Bible, in the New Testament, Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus. He went and called fishermen from the water and he told them, “Follow me and I will make you fishermen of men." So he called them away from the water, fishing and he told them to come in land and I will make you fishermen of men. So Mr. Fard was obviously using the same strategy, same strategy. And he was having the same perception of people whose life is nothing but a life in faith. In the waters of faith. Their life is a life in the waters of faith. They have no education in their religion. They're not educated to know the logic in their religion. As it is written, they know the religion only by faith, only by faith, not by logic. So he calls them into the land, meaning that he's bringing them to a situation where they will not be fish in the water. They will not be depending only on motor reflexes, but they will be able to start using them rational curiosities. And he would be their leader to lead their rational curiosities into the light of understanding where they will see the logic supporting their faith.
For a car to be in a condition to perform its purpose, it needs a workable motor, after which it needs all the necessary attachments, battery, fuel, line system, cooling system, crank shaft, exhaust system, carburetor, axles, attachments for steering it. And most important, it needs a starter or ignition. A car is a machine. It is designed to get a qualified operator where the operator wants to go. (A) Car kept in good condition, can take the operator where the operator wants to go and take the operator with less difficulty and less time. Less time. So what am I saying? I'm saying that the spiritual science or special psychology and mythical language of Professor Fard, was designed to reach us in the depths of our souls, reach us in the depths of our spirituality and began turning light on inside of us that would eventually reach the brain and register on the conscience or in the conscience. A car is a transport, ideas are transports. Ideas limited to self-concerns only are small transports. Small ideas leave one's mind to go it, alone. And many of us, too many of us African-Americans, have stopped following our religion. We have stopped following the church. We have stopped following our religious teachers. We have even stopped following the direction given to us by the best of our leaders and the only remaining person that was leading all of us. And that was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We have stopped following him too. He left us great ideas too. And we have stopped following those great ideas.
Concern for neighborhoods and community is a transport large enough to transport a people and their lives to whatever distance they must go to reach the whole nine yards. Ideas as transports by Professor Fards estimation, ideas were left to develop us and advance us in nature and in mind and ability so that we come from small ideas to big ideas that are big enough to transport community life, to where our community life has to go. Big ideas. When he said this car was too weak to make it uphill, he was talking about Capitol Hill and he was talking about our knowledge, our minds were too small, too weak to make it up Capitol Hill. It was planned that so that our ambitions, we had great ambitions, those plans his strategy and ideas and strategy was planned so that our ideas would even grow to be much bigger, grow to be much bigger. We'd grow to be more knowledgeable and one day come to where we would begin to translate, interpret, or translate his language. He influenced my parents to move from where they were in Detroit and move to a house on Yemen Street.
Yemen Street does not bring to mind people who are whites or people who are Americans. It brings to mind people who came from the Middle East where the country Yemen is. And those people, the people of Yemen, their history goes back into ancient time. They are people of African origin and they managed to build great structures, great houses, great buildings, even to have showers in ancient time, they had showers, plumbing and showers. The people of Yemen, the ancient kingdom of Yemen. if you've heard about Queen Sheba, Queen Sheba was the queen of that land at one period of time. Queen Sheba. And it's called Saba, the land called Saba and they called Sheba in English or in Bible, her name is Saba. Saba. So Mr. Fard chose to have my parents find them a home on Yemen Street. A street is needed
to find a location. If you want to find our house that we were in on Yemen Street, you would have to first find Yemen Street. And after you find Yemen Street, then you proceed to the number, our address. And I believe it was 39 46 Yemen Street, Yemen Street. I'm not sure of the 46, but I know it was 39 something Yemen Street. We have persons here right now who lived, in this audience, who lived near only maybe five blocks or less from my birthplace on Yemen Street. And they all lived together. And I'm told that there was a family of five, there were five families who lived close by one another. And my father and mother was one. Our family was one of those five, and we lived on Yemen Street. So what is the message in that? The son of Elijah Pool Muhammad is going to be born on Yemen Street. My hope is that he will help me and his father connect you all back up to your past history and to your past great achievements in your life, in your past, to your great achievements in your past, and help us inspire you to work for such honor, dignity, pride, and success in the world, again. That was his hope.
A man's mind can be discovered. I don't care how complicated his language was or is. I don't care how symbolic or how esoteric or how mythical his language is. If you are sincere and you don't give up searching, you can study a man's language and discover his mind. His mind. His mind is in his language. His mind is in his expressions. Especially if he has focused his mind on a particular work or task. It's easy to study his language and discover his mind. Now I mentioned Milwaukee. Most of you won't understand it, this language. But if you follow me, if you really had faith and you wouldn't close your ears and your mind, I can give you, in a matter of minutes, what you would have to go to school and study for maybe 10 years. And I mean a particular school that would help you find such language. Milwaukee. Why did you say mill mill, Milwaukee. And you listen to the word Milwaukee, you hear mill, you hear walk, and you hear key. I know how to spell Milwaukee, but you hear at the end K-E-Y, K-E-Y. So what are you going to the mill for? You're going to the mill to grind
the ideas that appear to be dead like little seeds, but they're not dead. Life is sealed in those seeds. And not only (is) life sealed in those seeds, but a pattern for establishing the life is sealed in those seeds, from a seed. The expression, the logic for establishing that particular form of life comes out and grows and shows itself eventually, roots in the earth. And it shows itself eventually as a whole picture or a whole concept or a whole idea, a complete idea developed out of darkness, out of the earth, that its roots went into to anchor it so it could grow up. Do you know plants are also compared to faith life, life of faith. In the Bible it is said if you only had the faith of a grain of mustard seed, you could do wonderful things, you could do things that you didn't imagine that you could do if you only had faith as a grain of mustard seed. So these plants also represent faith that G-d has caused these things to develop naturally. Their life and direction for their life is all clocked into their beginning, into their life as a seed that appears to be dead. But if you give it the right environment, the right situation,
it will open up and free its life. And free life logic, it'll free is life's logic and free its life pattern of growth, and it comes up and it becomes a beautiful thing visible for all to see. So on the third stretch in our road, in the Muslim road to freedom, real freedom, true freedom for the community, we had to go to the grinding mill and grind and grind and grind and grind. And when we grind enough, we break the seed down into flour and then we take the flour, if it's wheat grass, the seed of wheat grass, we take the flour and we make bread. And look (at) how you make bread. You add water to it. And if you want the kind of bread that we ate, you add yeast to give it gas or spirit, to give it gas, puff it up, puff it up. And I had my mother, you know, all the members of the Nation of Islam had to make their own bread. A lot of us didn't obey, but my mother did. And many others from Detroit, they obeyed the teachings of the nation of Islam and they would make their own bread at home. They wouldn't buy bread. I never ate store bought bread as a boy. I never ate any store-bought bread as a boy. And we were told not to eat white bread. And here many, many decades later,
the cancer research department tells us, it's best to stay away from white bread. It can cause cancer. But we were told it's bleached. We were told that a long time ago, and most of us didn't eat store bought bread. But getting back to the language of Mr. Fard so that we can follow him to where we can establish our community in the light, and as a free Muslim community. He taught my mother and he taught my Aunt Bernstein, who have passed away several years ago, of this city of Detroit. Both of them knew him personally and he visited their home of my aunt and my mother. And he taught both of them how to cook the new food, called the Nation of Islam food. No bean pies were back then. That all came much later. Mr. Fard didn't introduce bean pies. And I guess because bean soup was enough and we had plenty of that every day. Every meal had to be with bean soup. And it couldn't be just any kind of bean. What kind of bean It was? Navy. Back on the water, back on the water. Navy beans.
She would take that bread and let it rise. The yeast would give it air, spirit and it would rise, puff it up. And she would wait until it got puffed up really good. And I remember her telling us, don't go walking in the kitchen. I got my bread in there. I got it rising. Cause (if) you shake it, it may go down and she would take her hands and she'd beat and sometime her fist and she'd beat that bread down until it's flat again. See some black people, they're so dead, they have to be resurrected at least two or three times. So she beat that bread, she beat that bread down, and then she'd wait for it to rise again. And after she'd done that about two or three times, about two times I think she would put it in the oven and bake it. I'm telling you; I still prefer that bread over all the bread you can give me. I don't want any store-bought bread if I can get one of those whole wheat rolls, cooked by one of the MGT sisters. So they had to go to the mill. Ii is said of Jesus Christ,
He said, if your child asks(s) you for bread, would you give it a stone? That would be very cruel, wouldn't it? Very cruel, inhuman. Your child wants bread, you give it a stone to chew on.. What is this referring to? It's referring to the complicated language that some religious leaders give to their following. language that's so difficult to understand, its like chewing on rocks. You don't only chew with your teeth; you chew with your mind. You don't only swallow with your mouth and your throat, you swallow with your mind. And expression, he swallowed it whole hook line and single. That was a big mouth bass or something, I'm telling you. So this man shows us that he did not want us staying where he put us. You start in Detroit, like a fish with motor reflexes, not conscious intelligence working for you. And then you go to Chi - cago, you become a temple of chickens. (sound like rooster crowing) That's the minister. That's all he's saying. (sound like rooster crowing) And we like to see that male look proud. He put out of his chest, first he'll flap his arm, (sound like rooster crowing) "Teach that Yacub history brother". (sound like rooster crowing) And we got no more out of it than we got out of a rooster crowing across the yard.
Then he'd take you to the mill, Milwaukee, take you to the mill, and the mill going to get you to walk and the walking going take you to the K.E.Y. The walking is going to take you to the key. Well, I don't know about you all, but I started in Detroit, the original lessons of Mr. Fard. And my wife used to see me at the table, sitting there with books. I knew that his language was tied to myth. I could see that. In time I could see that his language was tied to myth. Now I'm a young man, but no more than a good strong high school education. But I'm studying. You'd be surprised what you can find if you just strain the intelligence, it can do wonders. So I'm straining. And my wife, she left me at the table and had to go to bed because I was sitting there and I guess she said, well, I've been waiting on him and it looked like he's never going to go to bed tonight. She'd wake up in the morning, she woke up in the morning, she came back down, it’s morning now, she found me just where she left me. She said, Wallace, you've been up all night.
There she is, Shirley, stand up. Oh, you ain't shy. Stand up girl. And that happened for many days and many nights. So it wasn't easy. You think you got a leader that just jumped into a position? No, I worked myself into the position and worked hard, hard, hard. And I got the invitation from Mr. Fard himself. He said, the harvest is ripe and the laborers are few. He said, get busy. Isn't that what he said? Well, his invitation finally reached me as a young man, (in) fact just out of my teens, in my early twenties, and I began to work hard. So now, If my translation is correct, why would he want us to think about going up Capitol Hill? Well, I want to tell you right quick, I want to tell you right now and get it over quick. He wasn't directing us to Capitol Hill, for us to beg the federal government for anything. He was directing us to Capitol Hill so we can see how to argue with those in the government who are not ready to give us what was taken away from us. And that was the
freedom to be responsible for our families and the freedom, that was taken away by plantation slavery, the freedom to be responsible for our families. But once we are free and every time we make an effort, a strong effort behind an African-American or black leader to really begin establishing community life, there's some scheme and some trick and powerful rich people that come in and just shatter everything we do, beat us down to the ground again. And we have to go and try it all over again. Go and invest in our communities all over again. And every time they see us growing strong, again, strong, they find some kind of scheme, some strategy, urban renewal, something to wreck everything that we have done. So we have to go beat us down to the ground and we have to start all over again. And they know that if they do that enough,
they kill the faith in our people to follow such leaders. And that's what they have done. Over the generations, they have killed our faith to follow such leaders who will help us or lead us to economic freedom and economic independence, relatively speaking. We know nobody's independent in any full measure. No. independence has to be relative; it can't be poor. The United States doesn't have any independence, that it doesn't have to compromise when it comes to other nations, when it comes to the interests of other nations and how the world should shape up. No, right now we are coming to a one world order, a global community of all these nations and people and we have to respect one another. We are not free and not independent to do our own thing without respect for what others want for their lives. This is a great time. I thank G-d that we have survived to live in this time. So going to Capitol Hill as a Muslim or a follower of Mr. Fard or follower of the Nation of Islam, we are going there to tell the government, we are going there to tell the government that "how did you come to your independence and why did you have to have independence for the original 13 colonies? How come you even went to war
to establish that independence? And eventually you won that independence. You became an independent nation, independent of your parent nation across the Atlantic Ocean." British, the English people, the British. The colonies had to be freed from them. And what was the argument they gave? A people should be able to live their own will, to live their own will. We are supposed to respect the will of other nations. And they advanced that argument. And they also said that they were entitled to be responsible for their new life in the new world. That's what they wanted as independence. The right to be responsible for their own life in society, in the new land, in the new world, without it being dictated to them or without them being bossed over by the once parent government across the Atlantic Ocean. Now if the United States of America is proud of that independence won and proud of the argument used to establish their right to have the independence, it should look at the children of plantation slavery who had their family life taken away from them and who was separated from their African past, their African culture, their sense of history of their own or history of their own.
And they were raised as an uprooted people, uprooted people, suspended in the air and don't know where the roots were or if we ever had any roots at all. Well, we know there are a few
who are intelligent enough to find their way back to a sense of beginning in Africa, to a sense of culture. And in fact, there was some small traits of past life in Africa, or culture in Africa that remained. But they remained because of habits of the people that were ingrained in them. It was not in their knowledge, it was not in their learning. It was only in their spirit. It survived because it was in their spirit, it was in their genes, it was in their spirit. And some small measure of connection or traits that go back to Africa were manifest in our lives on these shores. But it wasn't enough to support our people getting charge over their lives as community people and forming community life again. Even now, with all of this education that we have, even now, we do not have a spirit for getting community life off the ground. And we don't have a sense even anymore of what community life is. If we did, we would know that community life is more important than us dissipating our energies in fun life, corrupting our culture, diminishing our culture that was already a baby, trying to find its adulthood or its maturity. Then we further diminished that life that was in us as a sense of culture, by giving ourselves to
entertainment culture, to fun life. Now we need a spirit of community again in us. When we had faith in our leaders, especially Dr. Martin Luther King, when we had faith in him, we had a sense of being together. We had a sense of being a community. We believed in a plan for our life that was really much different. In fact, it was opposite. It was the opposite, or opposed to the one that Dr. King led. But I bet you if all of us would speak truthfully, the followers of the Nation of Islam would admit, yes, Dr. King touched our hearts, touched our spirit. And yes, inwardly we were his followers. If they would tell the truth, they would have to admit that. I was listening to Dr. King once and Nation of Islam teaching is not designed to give you the Holy Ghost. Now I've never had the Holy Ghost in the Nation of Islam. So I'm listening to Dr. King once and I felt electricity and trembling and stuff. I said, what the heck is happening to me? But since the passing of Dr. King and since seeing how our African-American leaders have went to black Africa and gone crazy over some idea, myth of their great glorious past and everything, become Afrocentric.
Forgot the road they were on as a people, up from slavery. Forgot it. Forgot that Dr. King said that he had faith that a time would come in these United States of America when a man would not be judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. Now, that kind of belief, (applause) that kind of belief has a reception in a bigger life than just a life identified by skin color. That kind of belief has a reception bigger than a nationalist brain, bigger than a color brain.
That kind of belief has a human brain ready to invite it and let it be rooted in that brain and grow in that brain so that human person would have more spirit as a human person to go upon the bigger reality for their identity and for their reality to go upon the bigger reality to the destiny. He was speaking to our human identity. Every baby born of a mother at any time is born firstly, not an African, not an Afro-American, not a Chinese, not a Japanese, not a European, not a member of France. Every child is born, what? Human. Human is the first identity. (applause) thank you. All other identities have to be supported by the first identity. When you are trying to raise your child to be an African-American and you just got the baby you can't speak to no African-American, ain't no African-American there. You've got to speak to the human content of that baby. And all babies cry in the same language. I never heard a Japanese baby cry in Japanese. Every baby cries in the same language. Every baby laughs in the same language. Every baby loves in the same language.
So G-d gave us the human identity and He gave us the human identity because it's strong enough to support all other high identities if you respect the drive in your human spirit for excellence. For excellence. So you want your racial identity to be excellent? Respect your human identity, first all the time. Lastly, respect, firstly your human identity and go all the way through life respecting your human identity above all other identities and all your other identities will grow more.........
I'm a nationalist. I'm proud of my nation. I was proud of it when it was the Nation of Islam. And I'm even proud of it even much more now that it's the nation, the United States of America that accommodates my nation, the Nation of Islam. It gives me the freedom to have my Nation of Islam inside of this great mother nation, the United States of North America, So I'm a nationalist, yes, I'm a nationalist, but I'm a human firstly. That's what I am. I'm human firstly. And G-d made me human. And I take more pride in being human than I take in being a member of the nation called the United States. And if we don't be that way, we cannot support the United States growing ever and ever more beautiful, more human, more productive, more comfortable for all of us. We can't support that if we leave the human identity aside and go after nationalism or go after the nation's goal. No, the nation's goal is to respect the human essence and the human spirit for excellence. And then we all can be beautiful together and we all can achieve the great task together of bringing better life to all of us on this planet Earth. Nations, working with nations, citizens, working with each other, different religions, working with each other. People having different political points of view, but never giving up the human destiny, working together for their future, all working together for the common good. (applause)
Dear audience, I've done a lot of thinking over the years, and I've thought about our plight as a people up from slavery. And I've thought about our situation, our condition as a people now spoiled, going for fun life. And I thought about the positions we take mentally. America cannot belong to those not claiming shares in her. People will not enjoy a real sense of ownership without their sharing or accepting to be responsible for their share in that ownership. This great nation, the United States of America, its the property of every citizen. If we don't identify as shareholders in it, we'll never have a real sense of ownership. You need a sense of ownership to appreciate things and having that old slave ghost in us, the slave ghosts that wouldn't follow the abolitionists, the slave ghosts that wouldn't follow Frederick Douglass, the slave ghost that says, I'm comfortable right here under my master. He manages everything for me. I don't have to worry about how to plan my life. He has planned my life for me. I don't have to worry about some business to get into. He planned my job for me. My job is in his business. So that old slave ghost is talking, right?
Let my boss, he's big enough. He proved that he's big enough. He made the world that I was born in. Let him worry about all those heavy things. I just want to keep living on him. That's that old slave ghost. So we come here now, oh, its present? That slave ghost is present. It didn't go nowhere. It stayed with us. It will only disappear when we change our disposition toward our responsibility as a member of our people and as a member of the United States, or citizen of the United States of America. When we change our disposition and start saying, this country belongs to me too. Stop saying, I have rights too. This country belongs to me too. I am one of the owners of the United States of America, and I don't care how small my share is. I'm going to recognize my share and I'm going to be responsible for my share. I'm going to join the other owners,
the little proud person like me, and the rich person, the shakers, the makers and the shakers. I'm going to join them and I'm a member in their club, whether they like it or not! And I'm going to be responsible for my share. And I'm going to work with our best African-American leaders, and we are going to pull our neighborhoods out of this dependency on everybody but ourselves. And if our country let big people come in and wreck what we are doing, I'm going up on Capitol Hill and I'm going to remind them of how the colonies got their independence. Thank you very much. Peace, As Salaamu Alaikum.


