04/13/1986
IWDM Study Library
Jacob Javits Center
Pt.2
By Imam W. Deen Mohammed

0:00:01 Imam W. Deen Mohammed: Thank G'd. Thank Allah, that there's always a number of us saved, saved by the grace of G'd to keep struggling in the path, to keep fighting for precious life of our people. Yes, so G'd tells us our own self obligate us. When G'd tell us that if we believe in G'd, the trendy atmosphere of America in terms of what it puts out here in cultural; in the form of cultural sensitizers and cultural signals, not blaming any particular person or any particular quarter in American society for it at this particular time, but it happens; no matter what is said out here, to go against my best spirit, no matter what it puts out here in the air to suppress my best motives, if I believe truly in my religion, and I believe truly that Allah has all the power, that He is the supreme, and He says to me, "Wallace, don't forget your obligations to yourself."

0:01:33 IWDM: No matter what this atmosphere says, no matter what the environment is saying, G'd is bigger than the environment, He made the environment. So when G'd says it to me, I hear Him. You see how important it is... You see how important it is to believe in a G'd, because when you believe in G'd you have the power to meet any oppressor, you have the power to meet any opposition when you have G'd. And that's why Satan, the worst of the oppressors, never wants us to have G'd. It blocks Him out, it cuts Him out of the business. The Qur'an again, our community's responsibility is, G'd says " [WaiAAtasimoo bihabli Allahi jameeAAan wala tafarraqoo ]" Hold firmly to the cable that G'd extends out to you for your salvation, for your unity. Hold on to the help that G'd extends out to you and do not be divided among yourselves. We have a community obligation to hold on to the Qur'an, the word of G'd, to hold on to Muhammad the Prophet, the last and universal liberator from G'd; to hold on to Him and His pattern of life, His Sunnah. We have an obligation to hold on to that and we have an obligation to hold on to each other, for G'd has extended His help that we may be united. United against the forces of Satan and Satan's evil devices, he can break the unity of everybody except those who are united under G'd.

0:03:31 S?: Allahu Akbar.

0:03:36 IWDM: And again G'd says " [yadAAoona ila alkhayri ]" The believers... The real believers, they are the ones who call to all that is good and excellent. They call so that that have good utility for man and society. They call only to that, that Allah, their Lord has approved. [wayamuroona bialmaAAroofi ] also [wayamuroona bialmaAAroofi] and they command, they order, they insist upon that that is of the most excellent standards. [wayanhawna AAani almunkari ] and they prohibit that, they disallow that, that is defective, degrading, corruptible. And then G'd says on the community responsibility because those are our responsibilities. Muslims are responsible to be not passivists, we are responsible to be active; not activists in the fanatical sense, in the radical sense, but activists in the sober positive sense. We're not supposed to be sitting at home, levitating or vegetating while the great things, and opportunities and wealth of the world pass us by and leave us under. No, we should never be a underclass. Once the Muslim know the class of his religion he cannot accept to be an underclass.

0:05:20 S?: Allahu Akbar.

0:05:25 IWDM: And G'd says " [Kuntum khayra ommatin okhrijat lilnnasi 3:110]" G'd says to the Muslim, after He revealed and made His favor complete on us, perfected His religion, made His favor complete on us He says, after He has guided Muhammad into the full vision of the Islamic society, the society for all people if they understand, after he has done that, He says to us, "You are the best of the communities brought out for the good of all people. "

0:06:02 IWDM: That the Muslim community then has also a community obligation to serve the best purposes of other communities. Christian community, Jewish community, socialist community. Yes, even a socialist community. The Muslim is obligated to recognize his responsibility to all the communities of man; and while he is promoting his own cause, he cannot forget that in promoting his own cause, he has to have a health regard for the destiny of other people. And contribute also to their worthwhile, noble endeavors; to support them, to compliment, to congratulate them, to feel happy about the progress of people who are not in your religion. This is healthy for anybody, and it's an obligation for us.


0:07:15 IWDM: Our Holy Book on race value: first of all, all of the precepts, formulas, prescription, whatever we want to call it, in our Holy Book for our life, moves most of all on the principle, in the line of peace. The nature and aim in our religion for all of our activities is peace, therefore, we have no radical preachings in our Qur'an on race. There are no radical teachings in our Holy Book on race. It just comes to us with a sober truth, the sober and sobering truth: "You all descended from one ancestor and he was made from 
dust." So our religion first humbled us. It then preached to our arrogance. It then preached to our exaggerated pride, flattering us with compliments, with racial compliments or ethnic compliments. No, it first sobered us. It first humbles us. It says "you may be big now, but you weren't big when G'd had you in His hand for the first time. You were something too small to be mentioned."

0:09:10 IWDM: According to the word of G'd, "You all descended from your first ancestor, and he was made from dust." And again it says, "It is Allah that has created your forms and has made your forms beautiful." It's not saying this in any demagogic way... Demagogic way. The demagogue, he wants to flatter you. The demagogue he wants to flatter you, he wants to make you feel good. The demagogue wants to first make you like him, but Allah is too big for that. Allah is too big to come at you in that inferior way.

0:09:53 IWDM: G'd comes at us to strengthen us. G'd says, "It is Allah that has created your forms, and has made your forms beautiful." Now when I hear that from my Lord, when I read that in the Holy Book coming from my Lord, you know we have to speak of Him sometime in these allegorical pictures; when I see that, hear that coming from His mouth, there is nothing you can tell me to disparage me, to make me feel inferior or to make me think, nappy hair is ugly, or a wide nose is ugly; or black skin is ugly; or thick lips are ugly.

0:10:40 IWDM: You can't tell me that, after I heard, read from my Lord. I believe in my Lord, and I heard Him say, "I made your forms, and I made your forms beautiful." Now, what can anybody else tell me behind G'd? Not if I believe in Him, they're through; they're through manipulating my ego, they're through, they're out of business.

0:11:05 S?: Allahu Akbar.

0:11:12 IWDM: You know why Muslims don't clap like... It sound like bird wings taking off. See, do you ever see a bunch of pigeons, ever hear a bunch of pigeons take off? It sounded like [he claps his hands] It sounded like leaves too in the breeze; it sounded like tree leaves, the leaves on a tree flapping in the breeze. See, that's why we don't clap. We're more stable than that. Now, hey now don't take that too far, because you can become so rigid that you'll be dead.

0:11:48 IWDM: And again, G'd says, "Certainly, the human mold." The human mold, what is G'd talking about the human mold? G'd is bringing to our awareness that He has patterned us. We are his fine product and He has patterned us. And nobody else has any claim to that pattern, they can't even produce another one. He has exclusive pattern on our nature and form. And G'd says that He has, certainly, the human being was given to the best of mold or has been made in the most excellent mold. He has been molded for excellence, that's the purpose of the mold. He has been molded for excellence. And G'd says, " [khairakum atahum]." Surely, G'd has made you tribes and families. He made you into tribes and into nations, families and nations that you may regard one another. Isn't that wonderful? Now, I'm a Muslim. If another Muslim is dis-satisfied with me, because I say, "No matter what, some white people or most white people have done to us that had made us see them as devils, my Holy Book says that all people are the same. So, I must believe that there is a possibility in me for becoming a devil. And thank G'd, it wasn't me. But I have to recognize, I have to regard those people of that race that are not in any kind of behavioral form that would justify us calling us them devils.

0:14:00 IWDM: I have to recognize them. I have to have proper regard for all people. Not only proper regard for all people, but we have that proper regard for them in the sense that G'd gives it to us, obligates us to seek an acquaintance with them. Because this Earth was not made to separate man, this Earth was made to unite man. And in time, his aspirations, his investments, his venturous spirit is going to carry him all over the world, he's going to have to meet his fellow men over seas in the far lands in Asia, in Europe, in Africa, wherever they are, he's going to have to meet them. And in time, he will find that he cannot progress further without their assistance, without their permitting it, without their allowing it, without peace treaties, without faithful cooperation. So G'd has showed us these things and He's given us this healthy respect that we must have for each other. The purpose of this regard is not only that we respect each other's rights, and that, etcetera, etcetera, but that we respect that we have to co-exist.

0:15:30 IWDM: And we should get acquainted with each other because if we don't know each other, it's going to add to the problem when we have to deal with each other. The Qur'an on human potential, and again, let me remind you that these concerns that I'm addressing now in our religion are the precious concerns also of Jews and Christians. G'd says, " [wasakhkhara alshshamsa waalqamara ]." He has made the Sun and the Moon to give up its utility to man. Isn't that wonderful? See this kind of talk that I'm giving here today, it shouldn't only be listened to one time; it should be taken home and reflected upon many, many times. For what I'm giving you is not something of myself; it was too big for me to even approach, G'd had to volunteer and invite me. And not only me, anybody else that has received the benefit.

0:17:00 IWDM: The benefit of understanding; the benefit of enlightenment. The benefit of faith. G'd says, " [sakhkhara lakum ma fee alssamawati wama fee alardi ]." And He has made whatever you see in the Heavens and whatever you see in the Earth. He has made it to yield its utility, to yield its benefits to man. If G'd has made me for such great, great significance, such great, great performance on this Earth then that tells me that the Creator has put into the human being a potential, a potential equal to the task, from not only Gary, Indiana, South side of Chicago, West side of Chicago, Watts, Los Angeles, South Philadelphia, Harlem, New York, that G'd has given me a potential, bigger than the challenges of these environments. He has given me a potential equal to the task of the universal environment. That's what makes superman, but in our religion, that degree of a goal is not superman, it's true man.


0:18:57 IWDM: Moving right along now, let us look at how our Holy Book, the Qur'an, treats the significance of devil himself, the Satan. The chief one, the chief one, the Satan himself. Our Holy Book, our Lord says in our Holy Book to us that Satan's power is not as big as you think it is. G'd says his power is only the power to seduce. Man can resist Satan, you don't have to be seduced. And G'd says again, "Fight the army of Satan, for surely his plot is weak." For in our religion, Satan is not made some supernatural power figure that I can't go to battle against. In my religion, Satan is made inferior to me, Satan is weaker than me; Satan can only reach me because I drop my G'd-given weaponry. As long as I keep in my arms my G'd-given weaponry, Satan is no match for me. And the best help, not only against Satan, the subtleties of Satan, but the best help even from the subtleties of my own good nature; because sometimes the good nature can deceive us, the good nature can fascinate us, for some men look at their handsome faces and actually die right there in the mirror. So whether it's the subtleties of Satan or unsubleties the best help is to remember G'd, to remember G'd. And G'd says, "And remembrance of G'd is the greatest power."

0:21:40 IWDM: I hope you will be patient with me today. I know many came to the Big Apple to get a bite. But have patience today please. Our Holy Book on sovereignty, "Allah is the owner of sovereignty, Earth is Allah's property, power and glory, all of it is a possession resting entirely in Allah's control. He created all and has power over all. Again, Allah denies dominance to all that seek it."

0:22:36 IWDM: The British Empire sought dominance over all the nations of the world. Did it gain dominance over all the nations in the world? It always had resistance. They were not successful, and pretty soon they had to pull back their great fleets, their great forces from the lands of other people. G'd denies, Allah that is denies dominance to all that seek it. Again, it is not accepted that associates or partners share with Allah the rule over creation. No, there is no other being, no other G'd sharing with Allah, sharing with the G'd in the rule of the creation or the rule of the universe.

0:23:32 IWDM: [foreign language] Again, the Qur'an on strife, on strife on confrontations between the people, between the nations, between communities, et cetera. G'd says to let the Muslim know to hold to the purpose of your position, hold to the spirit and purpose of your position. G'd has not called us to be nationalists, G'd has not called us to be racists, G'd has called us for a more noble and bigger aim than that. For He reminds us, He says, "Say that your contention is not aimed at anybody but the unjust, the oppressor." What does that tell us? I have to accept what G'd is saying here. If G'd tells a Muslim, that for us to say that our contention, our protest, our campaign is not against and not aimed at anybody but the oppressor, the unjust, the oppressor, I have to accept that and I cannot say that Muslims are put on this Earth to have some kind of holy war with Christians, or to have some kind of holy wars with Jews, that's not our purpose.

0:25:00 IWDM: We are not here to fight Christianity until there is no more Christianity. We are not here to fight Judaism, to drive it off the Earth, no, G'd has said, if He wanted to you one community, He would have made you one community. And G'd obligated our Prophet and obligated his followers to protect the sacred places of the Christians and the Jews, to cooperate with them for the great destiny of man intended by our Lord.

0:25:28 S?: Allahu Akbar.

0:25:30 IWDM: I know I'm going to get some flack, I don't mind it, I was born in flack. Yes, it's time. The Earth is too small for this petty thing that some of us trying to keep up. So as for the people of the book, G'd has made it known to us that among them are some that busy themselves in wickedness. I'm referring now by the term, the expression 'People of the Book' is meant Jews and Christians and perhaps even some other religious groups that were known at that time and were accepted as legitimate religious groups who had received revelation from G'd. Our religion again, our religion brings our attention to the fact, that among these great and respected groups of people, Christians and Jews, and perhaps we can name others, are people that give themselves or busy themselves in advancing wickedness.

0:27:07 IWDM: However, we cannot overlook and must give the greater attention to those that share with us the same G'd-given spirit and the same G'd-given aspirations for the fulfillment of human potential and excellence. Those that among Christians and those that among Jews, and those that among the Asian people and others. We must accept their fine merits and their honorable commitment to advance the excellence of man on Earth and to fight corruption. And in Qur'an, the word of G'd to us, it tells us that, "You'll find among them a part of their stand for justice, they call to that, that is good. They are quick to rush in promoting the things that are good." And it says again, "And they invite to the best of standards and they prohibit that that is unjust and cruel or corrupt." This is the teachings of our Holy Book.

0:28:21 IWDM: Moving again in the direction of this address on Qur'an, the role of work. Remember what I said, that these are the concerns that we share with Christians and the citizens of this country. The role of work: G'd says to us in our Holy Book, "Man is created for a productive life." G'd says, "You have been created to grow." That's one of the purpose for your creation, is to grow. Now we know the most crucial role for man is that one that G'd gives us in these words, He says, "Neither will I create man or Jinn for any purpose except my worship." So that's the highest purpose, is to worship G'd. But when we say "worship G'd" we don't mean having a spiritual session, clapping our hands and getting the spirit. That's an expression... that's an expression of our own need for joy, fulfillment in our spiritual soul, in our spiritual fiber. We are talking about service to G'd that benefits man, that benefits plants, that benefits animals, that benefits the total environment that we must live in. And that's the kind of concern that separate the big nations from the small nations.

0:30:01 IWDM: The passing away nations from the sustained nations. Or it's that mixed concern. Now I am a preacher among you that address the whole of man's life because I realize that we must have a genesis for our people, if we are to ever get up. Oh yes. So G'd says, "Work fulfills the need for happiness." Work fulfills the need for happiness in our lives. How do I know that? From the word of G'd. G'd says, " [Faodkhulee fee AAibadee] Enter you among my workers. [Faodkhulee fee AAibadee] Enter you among my workers. [Waodkhulee jannatee] Enter you, my paradise." Can I make it clearer? No, I cannot make it clearer. I wouldn't touch it; I'll go on to the next thing.

0:31:23 IWDM: However, it is important that we also understand what the Prophet has said to us. The Prophet has said to us, peace and the blessing be upon Him. " [sallallahu alaihi wa salaam]" The special prayer for the blessings and the peace of our Prophet and his community. He says "No descendant of Adam gets enjoyment from having his needs supplied equal to what is gained from his own lawful efforts and endeavor." So, we have an Arabic poem. [foreign language].

0:32:17 IWDM: So, we have in Arabic, there's a poem written by one of the Arabic poets many, many, many generations ago. It says, "A cage is not my living quarters. It is not my habitat. The open environment was made for me. And I will never accept an existence in a cage, though my master makes my cage of solid gold." That's what we need. All right. Moving on, let us look at quickly the role of woman. And remember what I've said, to really do justice to any of these topics will require at least a good book of about 200 pages, and volumes could be written. The role of woman. G'd gives us in our religion that the woman's role with us, that the woman, her role, hers is a partnership. A partnership with us. Theirs is a partnership with their males. Again, G'd says, "They are your mothers." Now these concepts and the concern for them are fundamental. If we don't leave the essentials, that that is dear, precious and to not be separated from our life without us suffering catastrophe kinds of problems. If we don't leave those essentials, then we can make some progress in dealing with the others.

0:34:19 IWDM: But first we want to deal with the basics, primary needs in the life of human being and the society. And G'd wants us to remember that they are our mothers. Do you know why the African-American community has such great burden on it? It's because mother was taken from her greatest occupation. Slavery separated her from her greatest occupation. And since slavery, we haven't been in a situation to establish mother back in that great role or position. But we had some grandmothers, great-grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers who were doing an excellent job in the spirit of that excellence, to carry out the mother responsibility to their children and to their society. We underestimate it. And G'd again says to us, "That they have been made your mates, that you may find in them rest." R-E-S-T. Rest. Now isn’t nobody on Earth, a 100 years ago or today, more in need of rest in his head than a black... than an African-American male.

0:36:09 IWDM: And especially if he has a family, or a girlfriend. Yeah. He had a family... If he got a girlfriend, isn’t nobody needing some place to rest his head more so than that African-American male. And G'd said that he made them for us as a means or condition for our rest. R-E-S-T. Again G'd says, "By virtue of natural development, they are dependent on the males." [Alrrijalu qawwamoona AAala alnnisai] They are dependent on their males. Now, we can't change these nature-based things that have served to establish and usher man and civilization forward. We can't get a happy notion about freedom and a kind of liberal wine drinkers, society of equals; and forget about these things that have accounted for man's establishment, for woman's establishment. For the health of society, the advancement of civilization. And again, G'd says, addressing our inherent equality for males and females.

0:37:48 IWDM: He says that we have been created [min nafisin wahidah], from one and the same entity. That man and woman are created from one and the same entity. And it didn't say that he was created from a rib... She, pardon me. It doesn't say that the woman was created from a rib of man to go under his arm along the street, down the street as his sweetheart, like I heard one woman preacher say. That "G'd made woman from the rib of man, that's on his side. So, he can put his arm around her and walk down the street with her". Hell, she got a much bigger, a much nobler job to do at home. Sometimes, she isn’t got time to walk with me down the street up under my arms; she got something more important to do at home. This world has made, frightened a woman out of her home domain. And her home domain is the fortress of protection for the life of society. And what's bringing the race down now, deterioration of home life for the African-American male. Why I turn around and look at them? Because these are my buddies; they're going to help me push this forward up. Are you going to do it? 

0:39:03 S?: Yes, Sir.

0:39:06 IWDM: All right. You going to do it.


0:39:22 IWDM: And they know what I mean when I say...


0:39:22 IWDM: In the head. I can't fight these guys physically. They look like King-Kongs some of them. I can't fight them physically. I'd give up right away.

0:39:48 S?: I'll fight with you all the way.

0:39:51 IWDM: Now, I hope that I have given you at least an appreciable look at our religion. And if anyone has really been listening while I was speaking, you cannot walk out of here as an American citizen, as a Christian, I don't know what... I don't care what the denomination is, or as a Jew, thinking that people who really obey this religion, this Holy Book and this religion is a threat to civilization or a threat to the peace of society. No, we're no threat to the peace of society. We're no threat to civilization. We are the torchbearers of civilization. We are the genesis of civilization. We are the genesis of the best in man! 

0:40:36 S?: Allahu Akbar.

0:40:46 IWDM: Now let us shift gears here a bit. Several of our great men in America and outside America who have dedicated themselves to watch over the life and precious possessions of man, as soldiers who stand by the side or near the gate of the precious, precious human potential to see that it has a good situation for his future on this Earth. I could name many of such men; not necessarily the men that I'm going to name now here briefly are such men, but they are men that I have great respect for. Alvin Toffler. he wrote a book maybe 20 years ago or more maybe now, "Future Shock." In that book, he was really addressing the condition that will come upon the people at that time because of the great advances that were already on their way in science, they would bring about such drastic alteration in the environment, the physical environment, the cultural environment, that it would be a situation for culture shock. And he in his book, he warns of the fast growth of industry and industry's influence on the growth of the environment, that it was going to produce a situation that would have the effect of culture shock on the citizens of this country and all who came under these influences. He was not mocking progress. he was not questioning progress. he was not resisting. He was doing no more than helping progress by alerting the people to things that were developing at a situation that would represent a situation for cultural shock.

0:43:22 IWDM: Cultural shock in certain degrees can destroy our equilibrium. A man can come healthy, strong, well-balanced, equipped for the problems that he left; but if he's suddenly ejected from that situation into another situation that he cannot understand, that challenges his intellect, confounds his sense of balance, he can have shock from that to the extent that his balance is destroyed. He will be acting crazy and he won't be crazy. Both the Holy Qur'an and the Bible tells us of a time coming like that. And both the books, the Holy Books, says this in very much the same language. So you will see men walking and reeling, and reeling and walking, reeling and walking. And you will think they are drunk on intoxication; but they were not drunk or intoxication. It will be the environment itself that's warping their behavioral functional ability or creating that kind of dysfunction for them.

0:44:56 IWDM: So we are right when we don't do like our grandparents did or do like our mothers did. See, I'm 50 and a little bit over. And my mother, when it came to discipline her children, she was from the old tradition. And she would love you with a stick. She would love you with an apple pie. Love you with chickening and dressing on Sunday. Yeah. She would love you with your favorite biscuit or your favorite cake, or your favorite piece of meat. She would say, "Mama cook this for you, son." Yes, she used to tell me that. Not only me. My older brother say, "See, Mama cooked for you. I know you like this. Mama cooked this for you." But she would love you also with a stick. She would say, "Mama got this for you."


0:46:03 IWDM: And some of these social workers, you talk to them and they think my Mama crazy. They say, "You must have... " "I must have what, you crazy social worker, what do you know? I must have what? I'm healthier than you." "Oh, does she really whip you like that? Does she leave scars on you?" "Yes." "She brutalized you?" "No! What's the matter with you? Where were you trained, you crazy social worker?" Some of them are nuts. They cannot understand the changed circumstances. In their situation, the circumstance of today, we'd be nuts to take a stick and beat these kids up like that because they isn’t responsible for their behavior. It's the altered environment that's feeding most of this malfunction in our children.

0:47:03 S?: That's right.

0:47:05 IWDM: So, we can't take up a stick and beat them. But these social workers, they don't study the old situation before they start judging our mamas and trying to make us believe our mamas were cruel. "Oh, she was cruel." "No, she wasn't cruel. She had the right to do that to me. I knew better." And there was nothing influencing me to behave like that but my own free choices. But now, it's not my free choices; it's the overwhelming super-image of the environment itself saying, "Oh, you're wrong. to even behave like your mother. She's backwards and unpopular." A greatly changed situation. So that means, man needs the strength; he needs the strength; he needs the power that only G'd can give him. The strength, the challenge, the testaske size of China, meet the task! 

0:48:10 IWDM: We've had our learned leaders from the Muslim brothers over in Saudi Arabia come among us and assist us with Quranic studies, Arabic language, really as a charity, asking us for nothing, volunteering to pay the airfare of our children so they can go to the best universities, to the best colleges over there for education, and assisting us in many other ways of education, many other benefits of education. We have had them tell us that we need a program that would take into account the cultural differences. Now we have the same religion. We are Muslim, we have the same Holy Book. But they realize that when you take one of us out of the American environment and place him suddenly in the Muslim Arabian environment, that there's a risk of culture shock. So they say we have to have a program to prepare the students for culture shock.

0:49:36 IWDM: Now if you can buy that, can you imagine the culture shock that we got when they brought us from Ghana, when they brought us from Sierra Leone? It wasn't even named that in those days. When they brought us from Nigeria and many other places, and brought us suddenly from an environment that our system, our balanced system had known and adjusted to, and put us suddenly in plantation life under cruel slavemasters or under people that regarded us as field animals. Or maybe a little better, domestic pets. And at best, even now, foster home children. Can you imagine the degree of culture shock that our system had to survive? It's a miracle of G'd that the African-American man is still sane. It's a miracle of G'd that as African-American people numbering 30 or 40 million in this country, they still want to go forward in the line of civilization and human excellence, for such situation perhaps would have destroyed many other people who were not prepared by their past situation to meet and encounter the great culture shock that America had prepared or had waiting for those innocent, unprepared, uninformed slaves.

0:51:28 IWDM: Now let us go to another man, a writer of a book, Erich Fromm. Erich Fromm, he seems to have been fascinated with this potential in man and with his discoveries. Not new discoveries because after all when we're talking about insights into nature, insights into man, we make no new discoveries, we just find what G'd showed the prophets a long, long time ago, and what many learned men have talked about and discussed, perhaps not in the same language, but they did it, long before us. Perhaps we would get a better look at it, to see it from a new side, see a new aspect of it, and advance it a bit. But we cannot make any claim of discovering anything new in the way of nature, especially human nature and its potential and need for progress.

0:52:31 IWDM: This man, he points to us and shows us that birth for an individual is continuous. Birth for society is continuous, and many of you in the field of education, especially when they deal with humanities not politics, I'm sure you're well aware of what I'm talking about, and nothing I'm saying here is new to you. I know nothing is that new to you that I've said so far. But the point I want to make here is that it's important for your future and also for your present, your future and your present performance. How you perform now and how you will perform in the future. It's important that you understand something about your own self, your own nature, your own function as a specie, as a creature, et cetera, et cetera. And this learned man has brought to the attention of his readers and to the attention of the society in his day and perhaps many people reading even now his works, Erich Fromm, that man experience continuous births.

0:53:55 IWDM: If we haven't found home in a situation, every new situation is going to form us all over again. But once we find home in a situation, then we teach the concepts of that found life. It may be augmented or it maybe improved our attitude but we never take off that dress. Once we find home in a context of life, we never take off that dress. The African-American's life, the African-American's group spirit, the African-American's group form, the African-American's group identity has never been established. Right or wrong? Right. Has never been established and that's why you feel so lonesome. That's why you feel so lost. That's why you feel so depressed. That's why you feel you're not yet there. With all of this material affluence all around you, colored TV's, wealth pilling up over your head. You have to push through the wealth sometimes to get through to the washroom. With all of that in your life, with all of your degrees, Ph degree in this, master degrees in that, BS degrees in that, with all of that, you still feel lost. You still feel short of the mark from arriving at home, simply because we have not retreated, stepped back from the white man, and say, "Look, you've led us far as you can take us. Now, we're going to build a ideology. Now we're going to build a philosophy, a philosophy of life for the African-American man and you can't help us. Stand aside and watch us do it and if we want you, we will call on you."

0:56:02 IWDM: Don't you know in your soul, that that's the work that's yet to be done? DuBois started it. He made a hit at it, he struck at it. DuBois made a strike at it. Carter G. Woodson made a strike at it. Man wasn't even on this land, not even on this territory. Frantz was his name. His name is Frantz. No, no, not him. I can't think of his full name but his name was Frantz. He made a strike at it. Not only him, man just died, he was battling, he was striking at it, he was hitting a it and he was trying to do something about it, Benjamin E. Mays. His sensitivity's worth of that, his sensitivity's indicated that that's the direction he wanted to take his people in but we have not been able to accomplish it. Why? Because we think more of civil rights struggles, more of civil rights protests. We have been conditioned by past experience to think the only way home is through the politicians and the preacher. And that's wrong. I wish we had all day and all week and all month, we need to have a camp.

0:57:21 IWDM: Go to a warm climate and make a camp and sit up, six months, a year, two years, if it takes that long; stay together until we come out with what we need. That's what Moses had to do; Moses got his people and he had to go off into the wilderness and he had to stay out there until they got what they needed. And when they came back, wooh! Now, I'm not trying to pretend that I'm the only one that has this kind of concern, that I'm the only one that want to move us in that direction. I'm not trying to pretend that. For Eric Fromm, in his book, "Sane Society", he dwelled on this need in man. He was fascinated by what he saw in this dynamism of man and he recognized that that dynamism in man's potential, that dynamism in the spirit of his potential, from this potential arises or emerges a spirit. And many times, you don't even know it. You don't know your potential but as a spirit that keeps telling you, "That isn’t enough. No, you isn’t situated well enough yet. No, you haven't realized freedom enough yet." And you go, "Heh, well I'm free as a bird."

0:58:52 IWDM: Not enough yet. I want to be free as a shuttle plane, even freer. I want to be free enough not to putter out while I'm going the way I want to go. Right? Yeah. You see? So, man's spirit, it wants to go out and move. That's the spirit of your potential. That great potential in you. It's telling you, get up out of this mediocrity, out of this mediocrity. Get up out of this inferiority. You have a greater destiny. You're not home yet. Then we have another man, John H. Scanzoni; in his book, "The Black Family in Modern Society," he tells us something that's revealing and since we're addressing the need for us to co-exist and cooperate, and we're taking an opportunity here today to extend compliments or to convey compliments to our Christian, to our Jewish, to our socialist people.
