May 19th 1979
Riverside Church Address
Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Speaker 1:
John Kingley from the News World, Brother Ahmed Rashad from the Muslim Journal, Imam Seifuddin Muhammad from Connecticut, Imam Jihad Salim from the Masjid in Springfield, Massachusetts, Imam Wali Muhammad from the Masjid in Asbury Park New Jersey, Imam Omar Shah from Masjid Muhammad in Jersey City. Imam Armiya Nu'man from the Masjid in Newark, New Jersey. We have Imam Muhammad Sharif who is the President of the Black Alumni Association at City College. We have, excuse me if I pronounce your name wrong. Imam Salahuddin Muhammad from CUNY University. Imam Abdul Haqq Muhammad from the Bronx Masjid. We have visitors from Manhattan Community College Joshua Smith and William Coleman. They're all from Manhattan Community College. And from the Brooklyn Masjid we have Imam Siraj Wahaj.
Speaker 2:
Asalaam Alaikum. We don't want miss out on mentioning the Pastor from Riverside Church. He has been very instrumental in helping us obtain these facilities. And from the Community College we do have President Joshua Smith who's president of Open College. Brothers and sisters we are very happy to have you here this afternoon. And it's like a miracle to have us all here in this kind of weather. And we thank a Allah because if we come here through this kind of weather it means that we have a determined idea and we have a determined inspiration and aspiration to learn a better way of life and receive the kind of information that can help us become better human beings. And in thinking about how to introduce the Honorable Wallace Deen Mohammed, several thoughts came through my mind. And I like to share them with you. Human beings are placed in a world of emotional confusion. And from the inception of life, we seek order and movement around us. This basic quest for order forces us to search out that knowledge which beholds peace and harmony, first in ourselves and in the world around us.
It's a lifelong search. We never stop searching for order. We never stop moving, changing, growing. So when I ask who is Wallace D Mohammed, I can only answer, I do not know. The question suggests a state of being. It even implies a static being, one who is not moving and growing. But ask me about his work, ask me about his process of becoming. And maybe I can help you. For he like all of us is a man evolving, growing, changing. Let me tell you something of his quest, of his search for order, of his mission. You'll decide who he is, who he is becoming. He was born to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Sister Clara Muhammad on October 30, 1933 in Detroit. He was raised in a simple but spiritually inspired home. As a youth in the University of Islam, he showed a keen interest in the general sciences, psychology and religion. First studies were pursued at Rosen Junior College and Clew Junior College, where he studied English, biology, history and social sciences. His cultural and musical taste ranged from Dizzy Gillespie to Duke Ellington to Nat King Cole. From Marcus Garvey to Martin Luther King.
The death of his father, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad on February 25th, 1975 thrust him into the leadership of the largest Islamic community in the Western hemisphere, the then Nation of Islam and presently the World Community Of Islam in the West. He made historically significant changes to the Muslim community. On April the 13th 1975, he set up committees to regulate the internal affairs of the Muslim community. On April 27th, 1975 he made his widely received Remake the World address in Philadelphia in which he emphasized the role of education in its intellectual and spiritual development of the human being as well as society. In subsequent speeches he emphasized the importance of the consciousness and control of our whole community. He called for the study of the effects of slavery on the Bilalian community in particular and American society in general. He has stressed the need of providing housing and education for the community. He made an appeal for interfaith cooperation in solving societal problems. He provided major solutions to problems affecting both our youth and our senior citizens. He proclaimed his commitment to the eradication of sexism, racism and dualism. His awards and honors are numerous. He received a Rutherford Humanitarian award, the distinguished Four Freedoms award, numerous proclamations and certificates from Governors across this land. He has been the personal guest of Heads of state such as the President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat and KIng Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia. His travels include the tour of the People's Republic of China, extensive travel in the Middle East and South America and the Caribbean. You ask who is the Honorable Wallace D. Mohammed? Well I present to you a man who is evolved, a man who is growing, a man who is always in motion. Brothers and sisters Mujeddid Wallace D. Mohammed.
Imam WD Mohammed:
Thank you very much. All praise is due to the Almighty who we call in the Qur'anic language, in Arabic language, Allah, the one creator and sustainer of all the worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the universal Messenger Prophet Muhammad, upon the righteous servants, all of them, upon the believing people up here and all over the world. I would like to first express my appreciation for the honor that is being given to us, the World Community of Al Islam in the West by this Manhattan College and students, the Students Association and the leaders who've come together with our Imam here in New York, Imam Ali Rashid and all of the other members of our community and the other communities who have worked to make this meeting here possible for us. And to the Reverend Coffin for making this very classy, peaceful place here a possibility for this meeting. May Allah reward all of us generously for our good work. Dear people, this is the most classy atmosphere I've preached in yet. I hope I don't get intoxicated here or mummified, but it's very tempting. And this is a very special day for us as many of you will remember. A day that brings mixed emotions, but a day that give rise to profound sentiments, dear sentiments, for a great man, great Muslim, Minister Malcolm Shabazz. And before we leave here, we hope to go to the Shabazz, Malcolm Shabazz Mosque and do a prayer there together with our Imam Rashid before returning to Chicago.
I understand that one of the greatest community leaders, orators and fiery leaders of the freedom movement made an address here and it's quite a pledge and honor to come behind him, Dr. Martin Luther King. Well, I'll have a lot to say to our community when I return and I'm sure they'll be very, very happy in Chicago to hear that we met here in this historic place, the Graham Struck Building to deliver this talk this afternoon that I hope will help us to better see the way back home. And back home for the human being is back to the original nature and spirit of the human being. I've for now, for about four years as the leader of the World Community of Al Islam in the West, addressed a number of social issues that I think are moral problems that threaten the healthy development of society, wellbeing and healthy development of the society. Among these is sex, the way we treat sex, racism, and alienation. But the alienation that has concerned me has not been so much the alienation of people from people, of family members from family members or institutions from institutions. But it has been the alienation within the human being, internal, internal alienation. I hope before concluding this address here that you'll understand what I'm referring to. I recall some years ago, perhaps now or 20 years going to the newsstand and my eyes were attracted to the cover words of a magazine, that read "G-d is dead." It bothered me so much that ever since that day I can hardly resist mentioning the damage that that statement, that careless statement did to many people who read it but did not go into the covers to really read what that title was all about.
As you know, most of the people in our society don't take the time, the patience and may don't even have the ability to read and digest an article of that kind of significance. So we just read the headlines of the captions and we go on. So that idea was given to many millions of vulnerable, uneducated people in religion. And they were left with it. And gradually in this America, I've seen respect for Almighty G-d die in the general society. Perhaps there was movement away from respect for G-d, recognized by the Bishop I believe who wrote this article in Life magazine, I believe it was. But he didn't help it any when he allowed them to put such article in the magazine with the cover statement saying G-d is dead. Many ignorant people were just waiting to hear that statement so they could ignore their responsibility to be civilized and respectable human beings. And a religious society wherein G-d has been established as a supreme authority, Almighty G-d is the cement holding that society together. And once you attack the concept of G-d, respect for G-d, you attack all the cement that holds the vital seams of society together. The result of that careless attack upon the reverence of G-d, respect for parents also died in this society. The family became weak, deteriorated, respect for government deteriorated. Respect for everything that was holding the society together began to diminish and the greatness of the society began to diminish with it. And now today we are trying to recover from damage that was done, but we have to go back to respect for G-d if we expect to recover.
There is nothing but one choice for us. We can't become Communists. Democracy, the freedom of religion, Christianity, Judaism and the religion of Al Islam along with the concept of democracy that we have as Americans won't permit the society to become Communists. So there's only one way out. And Brother Reuben Katib said it so beautifully with his tongue. He said Muhammad, but Muhammad is the way to G-d just as Jesus is the way to G-d.
Sometime ago I felt that the woman was being used to get men and societies to do any and everything. But now the commercial world, in my opinion, they're not using the woman as much as they were using the woman maybe two or three years ago. So this sex problem, sex is not so much of a problem now, but we have another problem. And this problem goes way back for us and I'm speaking now of the underprivileged, deprived, historically deprived minority communities, specifically the Afro-American or Bilalian community as we call it. With the family structure destroyed, and it is destroyed for most of us, we are threatened now with the loss of what little male dignity, slavery, and injustice has left with us. Slavery was designed to take away the authority from the parents, especially from the male, the masculine figure of the household. So the female was exploited, the female was manipulated, deceived into being really an enemy of her male. The society respected the female over the family and disrespected or completely ignored the rights of the male in his role as father. I've heard many report the ugly words that were said, ugly treatment, sometimes dual treatment meted out to an African-American man because he stood up for his rights as a father said, no, we don't want this, we'll not have that. "Boy, what does Missy say about this?"
And if Missy didn't agree, "Well boy you better listen to Missy" and that was it. Many of them had to tolerate that. In my own community, my own neighborhood that I grew up in on the south side of Chicago, 61st Michigan Avenue, I saw the woman having the almost complete authority over the family, over the house and the family. A man he was like a hired goat that they would call out when they didn't want to maim a child, Hey sweetie brute, come here and beat this boy for me. But dignity he had none. When he was accused and brought before the court, the court would ignore, treat him as though he didn't have the sense to speak in the court and would listen to what the Mrs. had to say.
Many times he was sent back home like a boy, like a little child with no dignity, no respect. I've heard judges myself say, "I'm giving you 30 days to do such and such, now you bring this woman your check. If you don't, I'm going to put you in jail." What respect could that man have coming from his wife after such a decision by a judge in a court wherein she witnessed and everybody witnessed that disrespect for the husband, for the male. I was reading a report on social problems, community problems, economic problems in an Indian Muslim community.
And this report says that this particular Indian Muslim community is experiencing a problem they had never experienced before. Says that now that they have the quality of education for males and females, the rise of the females and academic growth and achievement is faster than and that of the males. So they have a problem of preserving the image, the strength of the male in their society because women are more educated in this particular Muslim Indian community. For the girl, she doesn't like to marry a boy that's less educated than she is and it's hard to find one with equal education. So most of the time she takes one with inferior education.
I believe we have similar problems in the ghettos of these big cities. We have a similar problem. There is more pressure on the male still in the society because the male is still expected to take care of a woman if he marries her. And though there have been some decisions which placed equal responsibility on the female, that she is the breadwinner of the family, but still we have the male in the society as being the one responsible for the maintenance of the household. And this burden is on every male. If he has any conscience whatsoever, the burden is on him to provide for his wife and his children if they have children.
But his opportunities have been less than that of the females. The females have been free to spend much time at home reading, studying. A male if he wanted to achieve he had to get out and work. Most of our males, especially in the south, they didn't have money. They had to work. There wasn't enough money in the house, they had to work while others would go to school. Many of them couldn't even go to school. Well in this country now they're talking about female rights, the rights of the women, when actually we should be talking about the male rights.
The male is more deprived than the female. The female haven't been driving these Mack trucks. We haven't either until just here recently. Female haven't had the opportunity to get in technology and we haven't either. So when we are talking about the ghetto, the male and the female on the same plane, only the female is more deprived because the responsibility so far has been on him and he's been carrying burden of living up to his role as a man. So any of us that had to go out and do unlawful things to keep that image. "Well I'd rather be called a thief than to have my wife say to me, I'm not a man." And these sisters, believe me, they're Americans. They will tell you in a minute, "You are not a man. How come I don't have a car? How come my rent's not paid man?" So I think if we want to overcome these problems we are having in our community, we are going to have to do some study and reflect on history and see that our men need attention. Our men need their male dignity. We have never had it since they brought our ancestors here as slaves and we need the women to help us get it. And if the women can help us get dignity, we'll help the women get equal rights.
But let's first get a man in the house. If there's no man in the Caucasian house, it's not our fault, not society's fault, it's his fault. Cause his money will give him dignity. He's had all the money. And still has all the money. Believe me, money is what we need in our homes to give the male dignity. Women will never respect us if we have to go out and shoplift, hit somebody in the head, knock and old woman down and take her purse, sell some little pitiful child in our own pitiful community, reefers of something worst, the women will never respect us until we are able to earn a decent living. And you'll never have that opportunity sisters, before you stand up and say, "I demand dignity for my own man in my house."
That's what the sisters have to do. They have to stand up and say, "I demand dignity for my own man in my house. I don't want him on welfare. I don't want to be on welfare myself. Whatever opportunities there are existing for other people in the United States, I want him to have the same opportunities." How can those opportunities come to your man if you are satisfied with the way you are living? And so many of our women, they're satisfied with the way they're living. They put all of their own miseries on their man. When he leaves the house they happy, but when he is there he catches hell. If he isn’t smart to know the psychology of this problem, he would think that his wife is constantly brooding. No, she only broods when he is there. "We don't have this, this is wrong, that's wrong. Nigger, what are you doing?"
As soon as he leaves, she gets just aa happy. She get on the phone. "Hey girl, why don't you come on over? I'm going to order some chicken, some fried chicken, some Kentucky fried chicken. There's a good program coming on, coming on tv, why don't you come on over girl?" And they're just happy and relaxed. Everything is fine at home until the man comes back. Then ain't nothing right. The attitude toward each other has to change. You have to have sympathy, concern for each other. The women have to get into this freedom struggle. Not for civil rights legislation. I think enough of that has been done already.
Not for marches out here, enough of that has been done. We are beyond that. The women should stand up and be prepared to make sacrifices. What kind of sacrifices? The sacrifices that are required to put your man where he belongs in a position of respect at home. That kind of sacrifice means you're going to have to do without a lot of what you've been demanding. The women have to stop demanding of a man who is not able to make no more than $200 or a hundred dollars a week. demanding of him material comfort that should be asked of a man who's earning a thousand dollars a week. "How come I can't have a new television set?" "Well baby, I said you could have a new one. But not color." Nigga, how come I can't have colored tv? Everybody else got it."
Yes. "Hey baby, don't you think we are wasting money on food? Don't you think we're spending too much on food?" "Nigga, that's all I have is food. I ain't going to cut back on no food. You cut back, you don't eat." Poor folk. And she goes to the garbage after she eats and she rakes out 50% of what she bought in the trash, in the garbage. She just rake out 50% of what is bought in the garbage. Order grocery and got what she's ordering in the refrigerator. No consciousness. We are not conscious of the spending. No management at home from the mother who supposed to be the boss of the household.
The man's supposed to be her protector, the one who’s to go outside and do the rough work, take care of the family with his muscles, with his brute strength if he has to. Keep his peace in the public to get respect for his wife and his children if he have to. It's a man’s responsibility. The woman's responsibility is to make that house a home, to see their children are raised properly, to see that their income is managed sensibly, so that the family gets stronger and stronger morally and economically. So we all are falling down on our job. The males have almost given up.
So what can we hope for in this society? Everyone for himself. That's the attitude now, everyone for himself. Reading in some reports on the trends affecting family life, and I believe this report said over one third of the marriage couples are emotionally divorced. I believe it's much greater than that because I'm talking to a lot of married couples almost every day. You know I'm a minister and a counselor because a minister has to counsel. And I'm talking to them every day and I believe the percentage is much greater than that. In case you don't know what we're talking about when we say emotionally divorced, we mean the sentiments and respect has gone out of the marriage. Sentiments for each other, respect for each other in your role as wife and in the role as husband has gone. Just living together for convenience.
I believe this is most of the families, most of the married couples are living like that, emotionally divorced. So what happens to the children in such an environment, where they see no real care coming from the husband to the wife or from the wife to the husband? Each one is wrapped up in his own miseries and in his own concerns, not caring for the other. So the children come up with the same kind of attitude. Each one for himself. Child goes out and forget his mother. Many of 'em think they have no fathers. In fact, I tell my children, be careful children when you go among your friends, don't talk about me.
You liable to get beat up. Because so many of 'em don't know what a father is. And when they find out what a father is, they envy the boy because he got a father, they beat him up. Women are responsible for much of this because right away you tell your child you have no daddy just because you didn't make it with him. You tell the child you have no daddy. "Oh is this what you came here to talk about mister?" I don't have to tell you. You know where the problem is. It's in the way we live with each other at home and the way we think within our own selves. That's where the problem is. If we can correct this, we can make progress. We can change the look of these deserted neighborhoods, bring some life back.
Nature decides the solution. We have to return back to nature and see what nature requires. Does nature require when I walk down the street in long mink coats on welfare? Is that nature or is that the foolishness that these new cravings have given me In this society? We are craving things that really are not reasonable for us. Alcohol used to be a problem in my community. When I was a child we thought an alcoholic was a problem. We thought the drinkers, the drunken people were the problem. "Oh man, this neighborhood is going bad. Look at all them drunks.
Now it's not that anymore. Although we still have a lot of drunks, a lot of drug addicts and drunks, but that's not the real problem. The problem is the drunken attitude, the drunken mind that we have at home, the poor management of our home affairs. That's where the problem is. And if we don't come together and do something about the way we think regarding the management of home life, we can forget about everything else. Look like a fool coming to you, telling you let's come up with a good economic program. A good economic program will strengthen our community. A good economic program will do nothing for our community but give the fruits of our labor to somebody out of this community. Nothing will help this community until our family structure is strong again. And it'll become strong when there's respect again for man in his role as man and woman in her role as woman. I never could accept no unisex. It don't look like it's one to me
Look like two distinctly different things, not one. Greatly different. Society needs women leadership, but we need woman leadership. We don't need a woman assuming man leadership. We need woman leadership. You may say what's the difference? Nature tells us the difference. A man by nature wants to protect his woman from the brute. A man by nature want to feel that he can give his woman physical support, physical support. He doesn't feel all the time he can give her intellectual support, not even moral support, but at all times he feel that he should and can give her physical support. So why should we ask that these jobs be given to everybody equally. We got too many women and too many men without jobs now. We need men with jobs and especially for the minorities who have never had men earning enough to dignify the community. We need men with jobs, and we need women doing their job at home. "Oh, this man, see he's backwards." And I'm going to keep going backwards until you get some sense in your head. In our religion, the equality of women is seen in terms of intellectual ability, moral ability, spiritual ability, everything else but physical ability. The superiority of man is in his physical ability. They open up boxing to women. They ain't doing nothing. Throw one of them women in there with some of these men and we'll kill all our women. Thank G-d our men don't want to beat 'em up.
Now I know there's exception to the rule. You can find a female gorilla once in a while, but ain't many. Some of us almost married an orangutan. I thank G-d I found Shirley. Good G-d almighty.
So sexism is still a problem. We are not seeing the proper role or concept of sex in the structure and growth of society. It plays a great role. The female role is to feed the young, feed them mother tenderness, mother qualities, protect them with the mother's protection, to inspire them to have confidence in themselves that they can go out from mother's world and enter a man's world. She has a great job to do. In fact, she's the first teacher of life, the first teacher of life. G-d didn't give the woman us life before he gave life to the woman. The babies are given to the women. We don't even see the baby. The woman is manufacturing with the help of G-d.
The baby is being manufactured in her abdomen. It comes and we don't even know what the product is until they say, yeah, good, that's all right. Comes to the woman. And any sensible man will leave that child with the woman under her supervision until the woman say, "Honey, take this boy out. He needs your care now." Yes, this is what G-d has designed and when we start messing with these things, we go farther and farther to extremes that are destructive, destructive of everything that we hope for in this good life. People who come up with the idea that they're going to make babies without even a woman. "Male, give me some specimen."
"Female, can I use you for a little while? Not for nine months, just for a little while. May I inject this male specimen in you so I can use you just for a little while. If you can just get it started. I want to put it in a test tube and complete it." Got women thinking they're going to have babies without labor, without growing. Yes, science. So called science. A lot of the women that have been completely dehumanized, they'll accept that. That's not your problem yet. You don't have a million dollars in the bank that's untouched.
But some of the other misses got a million in the bank, untouched. They don't have to touch it. Plenty coming in. They don't even have to touch the million that's laying up in certificates and other things, drawing money. They say "Oh, I don't want to go through that again. Oh, I saw my mother go through that. Call up that doctor that discovered. Didn't he discover something? Call him up, give me an injection. How long am I going to have to be worried with this stuff in me?" "Oh, just a few weeks." "Oh okay." Go to the lab and pick up her baby after nine months.
Now if we aren’t careful with this money minded madness that we got in these poor neighborhoods, when we get some money, we'll be just that crazy. I think the poor, the Bible say blessed are the poor. I believe that's true in this day and time because the rich done gone so crazy. They have left humanness so far behind them that I think it is blessed to be poor if you're not a Superfly or some other freak of modern influences. It is blessed to be poor because we are still in touch with human needs and human nature. You see? So it is a blessing. But it isn’t a blessing if you're satisfied to be that way.
Sometime ago as a young man I frowned on the idea of teaching sex to young children. I heard they were doing it in Japan. And as a Muslim, the strongly moral conscious Muslim under the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, I didn't. In fact, I thought it was terrible that they were teaching all about sex to young children. Since then, my mind has completely changed. I believe we should teach sex from kindergarten until you finish college. But it should be taught according to the level of the intelligence, up the scale, up the grade levels. Child with less intelligence, you have to present it to a child on its own level. But I think sex should be introduced with everything else. After all, it's the beginning of life. Sex is the beginning of life. There's no life without sex and sex is a beautiful thing. Sex is a sacred thing. And in the study of the sex, the function of the role, the sex role of the male and female is great knowledge, a great wealth of knowledge for social development, education, social education, great wealth of knowledge. Tells us many things about society, gives us direction for society if we understand it.
Human beings, if they expect to reproduce themselves, they have to come together. I think that's a powerful social message. In order to reproduce yourself, you have to come together. I don't care how much you dislike me, you're going to have to come to me or to somebody else like me. If you expect to keep your species around here. Yes. G-d puts it so beautifully in the Qur'an, in our religion. We are told by Almighty G-d say "Marry not, do not take mates out of lust, desiring them for physical excitement only, but take them desiring them for their role." The female has a role to perform, a function to perform, a social function to perform. So does the male. And we should be aware of this, that awareness will not come unless it comes in the school. It has to be given as a part of education. And if children are taught like that, we will have different systems.
The system will change. If you bring human love back into family life and into the life of the people, the system will have to change. This system depends on people hating each other, depends on people being jealous of each other. Depends on hostility surviving between members of families and members of the society. That's what the system depends on. Somebody have to kill each other because there are judges to be paid, lawyers to be paid. There are a lot of people that will be put out of work if you don't stop hating each other and killing each other. Yes, I'm speaking reality. The system is such that it thrives on us being inhuman. And it will have to be completely overhauled, reordered, if we become human.
But is the system more precious than human beings that the system is supposed to be made for? No. So let us fight the system but don't fight it by going out there, picking up a brick and throwing it in some window or shooting the police, vandalizing the neighborhood, burning up a piece of property. That's stupidity, that's drunkenness of the mind. A lot of us become frustrated and so pressured that we do those things and I'm telling you the truth. Many people that have done those things, I wouldn't give 'em a day in jail because I understand the pressures that have been put on innocent people, but that won't achieve the great victory that we're after.
But victory can be won by us standing up for human dignity,, returning to the original nature of the human being. Science tell us the original nature of the human being is something inferior, that we evolved from some primitive life form. Well, I'm not trying to go back that far in the history of the human development. I just want to go back to that point wherein a conscious, intelligent, free thinking being was on this earth. That's what G-d made. G-d made a being intelligent with the freedom of thought, a moral being. And G-d put into that being's heart, love and care for his mate and put the same in his mate for him. And the same for their offspring comes naturally in the human being. Many primitive cultures are studied now and have been studied and they don't find the hatred between the family members in those primitive societies that you find in our so-called advanced society. They find people living together as a unit, warding off the enemy, whether it be disease or any other thing as a unit. Caring for each other, responding to each other's needs as a unit. And that's what we need again in our family structure. That's what will save us.
Sexism is not too much of a problem if we just return to the proper normal roles of the sex. Racism. I don't see that as a problem either anymore. Racism is not a problem. Race consciousness is the problem. And there's a difference, especially in my own mind. Racism to me is on the law, the books of the law. That's where racism is. Racism is when I can't go and stay at a hotel and another man can walk in there and get him a room. To me that's the problem. That's the problem of racism. I don't choose to marry out of my race, but if one is denied the right to marry out of his race, that's racism too in my book. "How can you say that? I thought you were a black Muslim."
Well, whenever it's acceptable for us to have white Muslims then I'll become a black Muslim. And so far it's not acceptable for us to have white Muslims. So I'm not going to become a black Muslim. When those ugly Jim Crow signs were up that said this counter here, window here is for the coloreds. This one for the white. This drinking fountain here in the public park is for the colored. That one over there for the white. To me that was the problem of racism. When a man could be arrested and carried to a kangaroo court and his piece not heard, his rights not defended. He go and swing on a limb or serve years in jail, having never received a fair day in court just because he was the wrong color. To me that's racism. That's the problem. That's the problem of racism. Today we don't have that anymore. That doesn't exist anymore. What we're identifying as racism is no more than the after effects of racism.
It's people that won't give up race consciousness. A lot of 'em don't like the new World Community of Al Islam in the West. They rather us go back to 1974. "We liked you when you were saying that the races should be separated. We liked you when you were saying that the whites are genetically inferior to blacks. How come you all ain't calling whitey devils no more? How come you ain't on whitey no more? Well I don't think I want to be a member. I don't think I want to join you all." The people that say that they didn't join the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. They wouldn't even support Minister Malcolm X.
But now that they they're gone and they can't say well come follow us. "We ain't going. Oh man, I'm not going down there. Wallace ain't talking the right talk man. He done open the doors to the whitey, got honky in the temple Jim." If you had came in, if you had answered the call with the sense, with the good intelligence that you should have, there wouldn't have been no room in our Masjids once we opened the doors for the other races. We would've had to say we don't have no room for any other races. We have to build some Mosques, some places for other races.
A nigga didn't take his seat and don't want us to give it to a white man. Well, I want you to know we are not black anymore. We have a Syrian heading an Islamic department in Detroit, also responsible for Masjid operations. We have an Indian who's head of the Oakland region. We have Hispanics, and we have what we used to call rednecks, honkys. Yes, we have given them positions of responsibility because they qualify, they have faith in what we are doing. They have some qualification, they have faith in what we are doing. They have as much qualification as you. And they have faith in what we are doing. Why shouldn't we give them the position? And this to me is the answer for not only us, it's the answer for the African-Americans. The answer is to come away from the effects of slavery, rise above the effects of slavery, free so that you'll be able to examine the effects of slavery and not be sentimentally involved so much that you have to deal with it as a racist yourself. G-d has produced an evolution in our community. A metamorphism that have brought about a complete transformation of a people in their mind. Brought us into a conceptual understanding of how society is structured and is making us geniuses, social geniuses, philosophical geniuses in our community. You don't see us now.
You don't see the sun at four o'clock either, but the birds know the sun is rising, they start chirping real early. In time, we are going to produce schools, academic institutions that will not only offer an alternative but will challenge and embarrass the so-called leadership of the system of education that we know today. This is the courage that we have now because we have seen a new light. We don't have to examine our problems no more in the light of American society and their system of education. We have seen a new light. We are our own specialists. We are making our own judgments. We are writing our own solutions, diagnosing our own problems and writing our own solutions. And if you don't come into the fold of the World Community of Al Islam in the West, you don't deserve to be called an Afro American or a BilaIian or a black man.
Everything behind the World Community of Al Islam in the West represents a struggle in darkness to find the way out. The World Community of Islam in the West is that way out. I defy anyone to challenge what I say. The World community of Al Islam in the West is the destiny. Spiritual destiny. Social destiny, cultural destiny, economic destiny, political destiny. The World Community of Islam in the West is the destiny. And I say come on home. Come home where men are working with their own light, seeing their problems with their own vision, diagnosing them with their own intelligence, referring to their own facts that they have gathered. This is what you need. You need academic leadership and you'll never get academic leadership from the system of education in this society. It it's not designed to bring you into academic leadership. You can go and merge into the general society, in with the general society. And you can be a hell of a philosopher, a hell of a psychologist. You can be a hell of a social scientist. Oh yeah, a hell of a chemist, but you won't be worth a G-d damn in our community. And the proof is that we have hell of a scientist, hell of a psychologist. We have people batting a thousand. But when they come in the ghetto, they can't bat one, can't hit a ball to the pitcher.
So I don't believe in taking the sperm out of the man and putting it in a woman and then putting it in a test tube. That's the kind of growth we've had in this society. We have never seen a black man and a black woman come up naturally. They take the essence and they produce it artificially and then give us a whole population of a bunch of artificial niggers and tell us those are black folk. I don't believe it. So in my conclusion, let us forget. Let us forget that we haven't had opportunities. Let us wake up to the fact that we have opportunities today.
While America is not thriving like she used to economically, she doesn't have the power and dignity abroad overseas that she wants had, but opportunities is greater for us in America and in the world than ever has been. And don't let no false prophet tell you anything different. I will meet him any day at any time. And I'll prove to you he's nothing but a weakling, a weakling. A weakling that can't stand up to the opportunity and take advantage of them. I'm not going backwards into nationalism, black nationalism and racism. That's behind us. I'm going forward to human dignity, something that'll give me dignity everywhere I go.
I just returned from a conference of over 41 Islamic independent states. People that don't only have Holy Qur'ans, they also have oil power. And I sat with them as a respected member, a respected member of the delegation. I was given a dignified place in their conference. I walked in with foreign ministers, high brass. I had my badge of recognition on my chest just like they did. And I sat down and I listened to men talk about family problems. And I looked at and watched women sit down and take notes and every now and then whisper a word of advice to a man. Didn't say, "Oh you wrong!" I didn't see no niggas over there.
Your calculation is wrong. Didn't let everybody in the delegation hear. Whispered to him. And men were taking notes from women, but men were making decisions. That's what we need. I had a mother that didn't want to be leader of the World Community of Islam In the West. My mother didn't want to be the leader of the Nation of Islam. I had a mother that saw her fulfillment in seeing me become the leader of the Nation of Islam. She groomed me when my father wasn't there to groom me. She fed me the motherly qualities that I needed to sustain me spiritually and morally. Guided me and gave me faith in a future as a leader. And she said, "Son, you can do it." In fact, one of the last words she told me before she passed, she said, "Son, go on. You can do it. So what are you waiting for? Your father will accept it. You know your father's weak and sickly. Why don't you just go on and take over the Nation of Islam?" My mother told me that. There's a woman that helped me from the cradle until I came into my glory as a leader. And I say glory because I took leadership over a great community, a community that won respect for being more moral, stable, more economically stable than any other people in the ghetto. I didn't inherit something that was inferiorly weak or something that nobody wanted. I inherit something that was the envy of the eyes of society. Who set me in the seat? I got a picture right now at home. I don't think I was nothing but maybe two years old. My mother had me dressed up looking very fine and we were poorer than church mice. I mean church mice in the thirties.
Picture is sitting right now in my chest. I am sitting on the arm of the chair. Chair looks like a king seat. Back there in those poor times. My mother, she's sitting in the seat. I'm sitting on the arm of the chair, the right arm of the chair. I ain't trying to spook nobody up, but I just love to look over my history sometimes. Yes Gee whiz, is it revealing. And she's sitting kind of to the, in the chair, but she's sitting to the left. She got her whole body turned to the left side of the chair. I look at that picture and I say, good G-d Almighty. There's mama's work on me. Clean young man, his hair cropped nice, face, clean body, dressed up nice, nice little clothes, very neat shoes shining, shining on the picture. Look like sparks coming out of the seat on the picture. That's what mama did for her son. And there he is sitting on the right hand side of power. Prophetic picture. That picture became a reality. Now the Nation of Islam is sitting there, but who's sitting on the right hand side of power? That little boy that the mother groomed. Yes. So sisters, go back to your job of putting Presidents in the seat and forget about sitting on the seat yourself.
We are becoming bankrupt in terms of our supply of leaders with qualifications to lead this nation. How many leaders are now ready to lead the nation? Very few. Hard now to sign a President with the qualifications. It's because we are not producing them at home anymore. Young boys are going out to become women. Or something far away from the nature then that. Yes. We have to come home. And to get back home we need light, light on what we are by our very nature. I don't want to carry it on, but believe me, Jesus Christ himself, peace and blessings be upon him. He came as a sign of human dignity and what the human being can accomplish if he's really in accord with that nature created by G-d. I'm not talking about only spiritual nature. That's the beginning.
I'm talking about the whole nature. Our nature has been created to rise to greater dimensions and to higher levels of excellence, achievements, social achievements, academic growth, economic achievements, political achievements. The nature dictates that. You don't get that out of a textbook. Nature dictates that. Nature in its natural ascendancy it says, okay, I have the spirit. Now give me some money. Nature says that. Nature says, I have the money now give me a greater community. Nature says now spend it for expansion. Nature tells us that. Education don't have to tell you that. It's already clocked into your very nature, but you have to understand your nature. The nature is also created to please the intellect, the free intellect. If the freed intellect tells nature, I'm not going to give you what you asking for. I want you to take that. Nature will put up an argument for a while.
But when nature see that you are determined, nature gives in to that particular company it has been given for its own evolution. The freed intellect comes into existence, into existence to help fulfill the demands of nature. And G-d has clocked it in nature that nature should respect the freed intellect. Even though the freed intellect asks for something that is against nature. Nature say, I want water. You say you ain't going to get no water, you going to get Kool Aid. At first nature will give you some problem. But if you keep pouring Kool Aid in every time nature say water, nature will shut up. Go on sucker have all the Kool Aid you want. And so does it go for everything else. You can ask for unreasonable things that are against your very health and wellbeing. Nature will accept it if you keep demanding of nature to accept it. Nature will say, go on fool.
But believe me, the answer, the key for bringing back society to its firm healthy base so it can evolve again into excellence is the study of the human nature, what it actually demands, what it requires as a moral nature. Human nature is moral nature. In fact nature is moral itself. I see some dogs more conscious of their cleanliness than these men walking around here and women walking around here on these streets. I saw a dog last week that was dirty from rainwater. It got itself dirty. The dog got in clean grass and started pushing itself along the clean grass until it wiped that dirt off of itself. How many of these nasty, crazy, drunken niggas will wipe themselves off when they get nasty?
"Oh, don't talk to us like that Chief." I want you to know that a dog got more sense than you got and that you are made to be the master, not only over the dog, but over everything in creation. G-d has designed a human being to rise above everything that exists in matter, sun, moon, and stars, and bring all those things down for human service to dignify the human being as a testimony to the glory of G-d that He did not create something to peter out in shame and disgrace, but He created something for glory, for glorious destiny.
This is the idea you need, the aspirations you need and the respect you need for the nature that G-d has created. And again I say that Jesus Christ himself being a sign of the ascendant nature of the human being when it gives itself to the plan of Almighty G-d. As that plan is spelled out in the nature, Jesus Christ himself is a sign of what I'm trying to provoke in you right now. Respect for your human essence, respect for its ascendant nature. Bring your intelligence in line with what it demands and we'll see a new society and a new world. If you take a human being and send the heart off in one direction and send the mind of the intelligence off in another direction, then you have a human being alienated within himself and that's what has happened to this society. Peace be unto you, Asalaam Alaikum.
Speaker 1:
Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar. Brothers and sisters, just before we conclude the program, we met with the chairman of Cash, they're having a black hero's day in Harlem and we have agreed to extend the greetings to them for a beautiful day and they have extended the greetings to us, but we just extend the greetings of Asalaam Alaikum to the brothers and sisters up in Harlem. Thank you very much for coming. We certainly had an inspirational day, and we thank you once again. We thank the President of Manhattan Community College, Reverend William Sloan Coffin, and we certainly thank Mujeddid Wallace D Mohammed for his very beautiful speech. Allahu Akbar, Asalaam Alaikum.


