July 4th 1980, Atlanta, GA
Patriotism Day Parade Address: Part 2

Imam W. Deen Muhammad

May Allah bless you. As Salaam Alaikum. Thank you very much brother Inan Ibrahin Pasha, the staff community of Muslins, friends peace be unto you all and the blessings of God, As Salaan Alaikun.

Well I'm certainly feeling very good right now. You know I feel so good until I night act besides myself if I stay around here. I don't think I can stay here too much longer. I might embarrass myself. I'll spring right up off this ground and stay up in the air.

All praises due to Allah. We've had a great day today here in Atlanta, Georgia. We've participated in the parade that has been a traditional parade here in Atlanta on Independence Day for some time and it really warmed my heart and made me feel very proud of brother Iman Pasha and his staff and the good Muslins who support the Mission here seeing us participate in that traditional parade. That's a wonderful thing.

Dear people here in this area now I want you to know that the community that I represent wasn't only participating here in Atlanta but almost every Major city in the United States witnessed our participation in a parade today. If not today it was yesterday or tomorrow.
Now, I'm going tomorrow to New York. They're having a big parade there in New York tomorrow and they expect the biggest parade ever in New York. And in Chicago 1 was told before 1 left, "Brother Iman, we regret you won't be with us" I said, "I regret it too but after all I have to keep noving." This community is all nine and what I wean by that is there's nothing but one Warithu Deen Muhammad and there's a whole lot of you scattered all over the United States and it's not right for me to be in one city every year for the sane occasion. So I told then, "Look, you have to wait your turn, I want to keep moving." So I just got an invitation to Dallas and another one to Miami, Florida. That's next year and I got one from Mississippi too they cane in too you know. I got a lot of invitations cane in and we're going to make the rounds.

My wife and children and all of us have been very blessed to be here with you in Atlanta today and when I cone to your city, I belong to your city. Now those who know «e personally they will bear witness that I'm telling you the truth when I cone to a city, I belong to that city and I tell the Iman, "That's your program?" I don't tell hi«, "Well, look, I want this, I want that, I want that" I don't tell him nothing. I'm your guests, you tell me what you want. I cone here to be with you and I'm happy being with you.
In a few minutes—I think I can give you a sermon in 14 minutes. You know when I first realized that I was going to be responsible for the hundreds and thousands of people
called Muslins in America of the Nation of Islam as it was called in those days gone by, I was wondering I said, "Boy, oh boy. How am I going to approach the people?" I said to myself, "How an 1 going to address then? .1 know what knowledge needs to be given but how an I going to give it, and it was though a revelation cane to me, I'm not a prophet but it was like a revelation cane to me and it said, "Speak from the things that's all around then. Speak from the things that they understand, from the common things they understand. The symbolic things such as these big trees that are out here you know.

Before going back to the symbolism now I want to speak to another concern that I have and that is a concern for people who give up hope in life. Give up hope in the future or for a future. They think that the world has nothing to offer then. They think that no good can cone to then. You know, I don't want to tell you to count your blessings cause that's a long story. You got too Many woes in your history but I do want to tell you this cause all of us can bear witness this.

We night grow up in a family and we night be the black sheep of that family. We might feel unwanted in that family. That happens sometimes and we night grow up in a neighborhood and we night feel unwanted in a neighborhood. We night travel abroad and meet so many people and we feel unwanted but let me tell you something, there's not a one around here who has passed his teens or I will say who has reached his teens that haven't received the hand of friendship of somebody in his life.

Somebody in your life has extended a sincere hand of friendship to you. Some one has done that and that's testimony to the fact that Allah loves us all and maybe we don't find the attention that we want in the place or in the situation but somewhere down the road of life we find someone extending that genuine hand of friendship. That's because Allah is our friend. Allah loves us all.

Allah created everything and He created every one of us an each one of us is as dear to Him as the other and He punishes us, He's a just God. He tests us, He's a just God. He Knows what's best for us. For some people a lot of money is best. Other people if they had a lot of money they'd become the worst dog on earth. Yes and then some people, they can be tested differently. Some people can be tested with money. You can give then money and bring out their weaknesses. Then there are people that you can't trust with money. You give then money, they still good and that bring out their weaknesses but if they can't be tested with money maybe they can be tested with poverty. So God in the language of the Qur'an, He says He tests us with riches and with poverty. So some of us are poor and that's a whole big some isn't it.

Some of us we are poor, so Allah is testing us with poverty. He's testing us with poverty and many of us who are poor, we're richer than Rockefeller. Rockefeller laying up somewhere with all his money grieving. He can't even enjoy a good romance with his wife. And I got a kinky head pigmy and enjoy her better than he enjoy his wife. His movie star, Hollywood star can't raise him like my pigmy.

Now, don't look for my wife to look like no pigmy now I'm just trying to make a point, trying to draw a picture. My wife ain't no pigmy. But if she was a pigmy with my heart being what it is inside this chest baby, she would be as sweet as she is now. Oh, yes because love is wore than physical thing, love is a spiritual, mental, Moral all kinds of relationships all in one. Is that right? Yes.

So don't think you're unwanted, don't think you're--"0h, I'm hopeless, I'M hopeless. I give up." Look back in your past, haven't someone showed you kindness? Haven't you net someone down the road that showed you son kindness? Well, know that that's a sign that Allah loves you just like He loves everybody else.

Don't harden yourself. Don't harden up. Find some room in your heart for other people. Find some room in your heart for those who are trying to like you. Don't you know that the person who feels he ain't got nobody is usually that doesn't want to receive anybody. You got to open up, get some room in your heart for someone. If not in your house, go out and look for then. If I didn't have nobody to love baby, I'd be out in the street all day long until I found somebody.

Life is loving. You can't live hating all the time or crying the blues all the time. I don't think we're to hate people, I think those hillbillies in—those crackers in whatcha call then now, pinkies or whities or something or another I think they're the haters because they were introduced in the cradle of civilization, they were introduced hate. We weren't, tie were grown up and thought the world was all peaceful and everything. We even followed John Hopkins over here thinking that he was alright. He was a slave trader. We got on his boat and cane all the way over here to America and didn't know we were in chains until he put then on. Say, "Hell, what's this man? Thought you were a brother."

But look at us now. We've insisted upon renaming human. We've insisted upon regaining God-fearing and in spite of the many who just Made waste of themselves and forgotten about life, look how many are here right now, ready to carry the banner of Al-Islam. Ready to carry a symbol that represents all the American people. Though we carry that symbol as a Minority, we carry the weight of a majority on us as a Minority. We have become the true American trying to awaken the other Americans. Don't you know that's a sign of God! Thank God Almighty!

There's a sign right here. And I don't have to tell those that felt that song as those songs were moving through your soul or upon your soul I'm sure that you realized somewhere if only in your sub-conscious, you realized that you are being touched by a power bigger than the ground that you're standing on. Oh, yes!

Allah has touched us and we know it. Allah is in our history and we know it. Allah is moving us on and we know it. Allah is going to make us victorious for truth, and humanity and we know it. Allah is going to make America turn to us and say, "Hey, you people that we enslaved, you people that caught centuries of hell, that had no opportunity, didn't have a equal chance in education, didn't have a equal chance in politics, didn't have a equal chance in economics, didn't have an equal chance in anything, and you're our
saviour!"

Not the Eric C. Lincoln, a wise wan, a scholar, a theologian, an educator. Dr. Eric C. Lincoln. He recently wrote in a paper that he prepared for some of the top winds in his field and in that paper he told then that in studyin9 what has happened since the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, knowing the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's history and now seeing what his son has been able to do he said, "That I believe that there's an Islam memory working in the American Mission." He said, "That there is a genetic, a genetic Islam memory working in the American Muslin Mission" and do you know what that theologian is laying? He's saying that this is not only spirit power, this is gene power!

Yes! The genetic creature, don't you know he's not just today. Genetically speaking, I was yesterday. Genetically speaking I was before America was. Genetically speaking I was before the West was. Is that science or not. That's science man. Genetically speaking, I was before the nations were. Now, if you can understand that much baby.

Listen, listen! My genetic structure, my genetic being needs it's native habitat. They put me in a church and 1 didn't represent a nation. All I represented in the church was soul power but I cane in contact with my native habitat. I came in contact with my Islam memory and I broke free, oh yes I did. I broke free of Noble Drew Ali. I broke free of the Moorish Americans. I broke free of Fard Muhammad and black Islamism. I broke free of separatism. I broke free and I came into humanism because I came in contact again with my human self, my Islam memory.

Some of you will remember this old saying because some of you out here today-say, "A certain one was brought from the east to the west and hit in the head there and was left for dead." They think that a hammer hit him in the head. It was a hammer but it had no physical form. What hit him in the head was that that was contrary to his genetic habitat so he died. He died socially. He died politically. He died economically and the hardest thing in the world to do is to take someone who's black or Bilalian in America and liven him up to economics, liven him up to business, liven him up to invest in something material in their children, their posterity. That's the hardest job to do unless you get your Islam memory back.

Without the Islam memory you can get a spurt here. You can get some sporadic responses to a call to social and economic and political dignity but it's just a isolated case of somebody making it home. But with the Islam memory you can take a bunch of people who have been totally emptied of their cultural sense or cultural awareness, totally emptied of all of their natural humanity, made nothing but empty vessels with inferior education. Not high school students. Host of them don't even have a high school diploma but give me a million of those people that you think are ignorant and I will bring their genetic structure in touch with their Islam memory and I in a little time you will see an appetite for business growth, for political power. You will see people ready to shoulder America on their shoulders!

Don't tell me what we can't do. We can do anything we want to do because we were lost, dead now alive for every more. Living people can do something. I never seen rows built in the graveyard unless people was coning from the outside doing it. living people can do something and we're alive.

"What do you have to show for it brother Imam?" You all used to once have a fish program. There used to be a spotlight on fish program activity. Mow we have that activity in the community. Come to Chicago's south side and I want you to see the brothers who operate the place on 87th street just a little west of Stony Island. I want you to cone to Dock's Fast Fish Food and I want to show you one man doing more business in fish than the whole machinery did in Chicago under the old regime. These are the facts!

That ain't all to it. We got a man in California, he is a competition for the man in Chicago. We got a whole lot of big fish business going but wt don't convert people now to physical fish business we tell then that fish are suckers. Fish take bait. We don't want no fish program in this religion. Fish belong in the river. Fish belong in the lake. Fish belong in the sea and men with bait and lines and other minerals catch fish. Any man call me a fish with my Islam memory back, I'm going to put him in his place. I ain't no fish.

Some say, "Oh, look what he's done. He's taken away the Muslim girls training" Well, hell they were calling my Mother a Muslin girl. That's the same thing whitey did. No matter how old ye got, our women were girls. We ain't no girls. We reach a patterned age when we become women. Our mothers ain't no girls! Our Mothers are Muslim women not no Muslim girl! What are you talking about!

"Well, he took away the fruit of Islam. Took away our fruit." Well, hell I don't want nobody calling me fruit! I ain't fruity! Now Maybe Fard Muhammad thought we all were fruity. It was by his racist philosophy and would accept him as a Caucasian claiming blackness but looking white as our god in our house but goddog it, once My Islam memory came back I got Mr. Fard out of this community where he should never have been.

I'm in a park and when I'M in a park I think of My African memory. If I act a little savage--if you see Me run up that tree...

All praise is due to Allah. All praises due to Allah. Look, we haven't suffered like this for centuries, in fact, for thousands of years, we haven't been mistreated and carrying the burden of the world on our backs to get nothing. I don't want nobody to give me an island off to myself. No! I want to compete with humanity. That's what my genetic life has been telling me. Get into the race! Get into the struggle! Get into the world and compete with humanity. Now, whitey if you can keep up with me cone on you can join us. We got a big job whitey.

Now, in my conclusion. In my conclusion let me tell you quickly what this is that you see called the American Muslin Mission now. They say, "Oh, he doesn't know what he want. He keep changing his mind."

Did God bring you here like you look today? Well, did God know what He wanted? Why did He make you a little baby crawling around saying, "Ga, ga ga ga goo goo goo." And then brought you up on your knees, you're crawling around, "Roo, roo,  raa." And then He stood you up on two right? And then after awhile, the men grew beard, made you look wild. Yeah, He made you look ferocious cause He knew you were going to have to put something in its place. It takes a ferocious looking man to keep some things in their place. I'm out here looking coming out here looking too feminine that sucker won't get in its place, it night get in your place.

Now ain't this that old time religion? Can't you feel it in your Islam memory? Isn't it good for your genes? Oh, yeah. Oh, yes.

Now, dear beloved people what we see developing here is a new people. We see developing here, Allah is creating on the rock bed of our human endurance and we have endured as no other people in history have endured and survived with their humanity. He is building on the rock, bed of our human dignity, human genetic strength and endurance. You call it soul I call it Islam memory in the genes. More powerful than just spirit. Spirit with a rock bed. Oh, yes baby.

Let me tell you something. What you see happening here is the creation of a new people. The people that listen to fie, they can't help but receive Me. I told you that five years ago. Five years ago I said, "You can't shut Me out of your Hind. I don't care how Much you hate me. I don't care what kind of image that you have of me that has been given to you by the other people. Once you hear my voice, you can't shut me out of your mind.

Why? Because I'm not just me! When I'm talking, I'm you too. I'm not just speaking just from me, I'm speaking from the genetic memory and that's in you as well as in me. You can't shut me out. You can hate me and I'll walk right down there and rap right beside you without a guard and I'll tell you, "Gone take your hatred out." You won't be able to give me a mosquito hurt in fact you might break out into tears. Why, because you'll see the best of yourself.

Oh, yes! And how can you hate the best of yourself? I'm a deposit of the genes that represent the best of our ancestors and it's in you, and it's in me. I speak from the best of the genes. Therefore I speak from the best of you.

You don't believe I'm talking scientifically go and, ask those who are scientist and they will tell you, "Yes, the man is talking scientifically." If you don't believe I'm talking Qur'anically, go and ask those who know the Qur'an they say, "Yes, the man is talking Qur'anically." Alright.

God has poured so much into this empty vessel of your own genetic memory that actually, I don't have time to argue anymore. You don't know I used to argue. I don't have time to argue no more. I got too much to say that's positive and started moving. I ain't got time to be arguing with nobody.

The prayer of our ancestors have been answered in us and I don't have time to argue with nobody. I'm wasting your precious time and my precious time in leaving the great work of cultivating this humanity with the .... of the Islam memory, (inaudible)

Dear beloved people what you see coming over here is not just a spiritual movement. This is an Islamic movement. Islamic means, you take care of first things first. But you don't leave second off once you've done first. When you complete first, you go to second. You complete second you go to third. When you complete third, you go home. All bases. Three bases and you hit the first one and you're hone baby.

Well, if you study human life you'll find that human life it essentially composed of four forces, four essential forces. When you study national life, when you study government, when you study society as we knew it, you find that society is essentially four. Essentially four. You perhaps know then as; religion, is politics, as business right? Yes so you know then in that sense but man has a spiritual appetite. Nan has a Material appetite. Man has a need to grow. He has a need to grow and Man has a need to bring order in his life for society. For society sake.

Man needs to order his life for society's sake. So he's not satisfied when he orders his life he begins to propagate that because the goal is to have the whole society ordered as Sod intended.

Now, let tie go back to the symbol that I forgot. Do you see that big tree? Good God Almighty, one post standing up there and ain't falling and some of us don't have the courage to build a wooden house and there's one post standing up there that ain't falling and got branches up there and even shade to house birds. Start raining, birds go up there and get under the roof. Yeah. Go up there and perch in a house that's standing on one post. Yes. Some men now they build a house up there for their children. Build a house up in the limbs. Their children live up there in a tree house on one post and we don't have the courage to try to build us some cheap houses on four posts. Isn't that something?
Now let me tell you—this is just a hint of how Man learns to grow and reach his full potential as a social dynamic creature. If he loves his Creator he's going to love his Creator's creation. If he loves his Creator's creation, he's going to investigate, he's going to take an interest in it like a man that loves a woman. He wants to know that woman. He wants to experience life with that woman and know that woman right? Oh, yes so if you love your Creator you're going to love His creation and if you love His creation you're going to want to know His creation. So the love of Allah makes me love the tree. Allah created that tree and one poet he says, "Never have you seen a picture as beautiful as a tree." Now, I'm not saying I buy that. Never have I seen a picture as beautiful as you, I'll buy that.

Now, Allah didn't say of that tree, "I made it in the best of fields". He didn't say of that tree, "I made it in the most excellent of designs". He said that of you and me. Now, you got it baby.

That tree now, what's keeping it up there? How can all that tons of wood stay up there on one pole? Well, I have to fall in love with Allah's creation. Now, He says that He is (arabic) everything that He has made, everything in the earth, in the sky and all between to be of service to «e because He made me in the best of molds. Now, I believe that because I don't see that tree carrying on conversation and changing its environment but I do. And if you don't shape up baby, I'll change this one too.

Now, let fie get back to the tree. I begin to wonder, "What's under the earth?" I get a spade and I dig a little bit. Dig and dig, can't find it. I'm digging, digging, going down. Tired, hey what's that? This tree, where does it stop? In Haitis, where is the end of this root? My curiosity leads me to find it. Now, if I'm lazy—Allah is so merciful--one day He'll bring a bird tree. Break up the grass and a whole big tree like that fall over. The roots show. He just breaks—He says, "Now, you see. You see how I stood that tree up by one pole?" As Salaan Alaikun.
