MM/DD/YYYY
IWDM Study Library
Building Community Life

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
Now I want to tell you that the KKK, they were savages. And if any of 'em are still living with that mind, they're savages. They don't have knowledge. They call themselves Christians, but they do not have knowledge of their book. If they did, it would change their way of thinking and behaving. They hold on to scripture without knowledge. They have scripture by faith only. The world's best known sacred scriptures are more about human societies beginning, mystical beginning, and also about predictions about how life will end. Life meaning community life, how the community life begins from the natural human life that the Creator gave us. It begins from that light. It grows from that light and upon that light and how it will be concluded, how it will end conforming to man's G-d-given life for community and the behavior that man should have. That is what keeps life for the human family or for humanity.
Favoring lifestyles that robs the community of life. Robs the community of vital human character and brings about the death of our communities, moral, death, spiritual death, cultural death, material death. This is something that has taken us from progressing, from following developmental life to regressing and losing our progress that our great leaders, our heroes, even during the time of slavery and after. from Frederick Douglas and even before Frederick Douglas. Nat Turner, John Brown. John Brown, a white man. They thought he was crazy because he made great sacrifices to tell the world, especially America, that slavery is wicked, that it has to be stopped. He was killed.
And from Frederick Douglass to Dr. King, we've had all these wonderful leaders. And all of them wanted us to be G-d-fearing and all of them wanted us to be of good moral character. So losing your good life, losing your good moral life is a big crime, especially when you look at the price that was paid to keep moral life in us. It's a big crime. It's a crime against the nature G-d created for you. But it's also a crime against all those wonderful heroes we had that were trying to lead us who were deprived of community life by slavery, that was trying to lead us to a noble, honorable, rich community life. Myths are in the way of progress. You don't know how much your life is governed by myth, by myth. Looking into myth and the nature of myth tells us a lot about the freedom that we have and the freedom that our great leaders hold precious now and still, still hold precious tells us a lot about that freedom, the freedom we enjoy in America. Once you're given freedom to be responsible for it on your own, the freedom that manifests under your control may be poison, very detrimental to the freedom that was intended for you.
The noble men who formed the ideas for this democracy, they didn't see freedom as the freedom to do anything you please, to even become nasty and indecent or become criminal. That's not the freedom they worked for. That's not the freedom that they left to us. Freedom to them was the freedom of the thinkers, the freedom of the free thinkers, free thinkers, and their interest was freedom of the mind, freedom for the intelligence, freedom for the best that is in the soul of man. They wanted to be like a plant, to let come out of the dead body, the dead mind, the most precious things deposited in the there by G-d, the Creator. They want to see that free. They didn't want the freedom that we have now. This freedom is destroying us, destroying our families, and destroying our community. A great prophet was asked by the strong oppressor who was ruling the land that he was in, said, "Well, if you leave from me or if I banish you from the land, what would you have?"
How would you survive? And the Prophet answered him. The Prophet said, "The one who created me will guide me." The one who created me will guide me. The great thinkers, they studied human creation and they got great guidance, insight into human creation. And they got great guidance from how human beings are constituted and they use that guidance. They use that knowledge to improve upon the life and advance the life, progress the life according to the will of G-d or in accordance with the plan of G-d for human life. That's how people have come into great life, great comforts, great benefits. We have to return to scripture and we have to follow the best of our religious leaders, the best of our religious leaders. As the politicians of Chicago, they say, "You reward your friends and punish your enemies." We should reward our good leaders and punish our bad leaders. You punish them by not serving them, you punish them by not following them.
It is believed that after man discovered language, language, he began to progress greatly. We shouldn't take language for granted. You shouldn't just speak any kind of way. You were created with a brain, the highest, the richest, most resourceful brain in creation. No animal, no insect, bird whatever, have been given a brain like yours. The brain, our Prophet said, Prayers and Peace be on him or upon him. He said, "G-d did not give creation anything more useful than a human brain." Too many of you love ignorance. You work against your precious brain.
So you think of yourself maybe as uneducated. You think of yourself as poor. We all were born undereducated and we all were born poor, but our human tools and our original human spirit made us turn to the best that we could find outside of ourselves and inside of ourselves. And we worked ourselves out of ignorance and we worked ourselves out of poverty. Now, we don't believe in Darwin's theory. I studied this theory and I knew he was a thief. He stole information or he was given it by others and he didn't give G-d credit for it. And then he put it in his language that hides G-d, that hides G-d the Creator. He put it in his language so that we would worship him.
But we didn't evolve from apes. We evolved from original precious human life and we become apes when we leave G-d. We can't forgive the freedom road of our pioneers. There are many of them who paid great price. The nature that G-d gave man won't accept abuse, mistreatment, injustice. We naturally rise up against such. Nat Turner. He knew he would die. John Brown. He knew he would die. Frederick Douglas had a better opportunity. The abolitionists were working at the same time, whites. And we have had whites all along since then joining us and supporting us and risking their life to help us get attention and justice in this country.
Many of us perhaps don't know Elijah Lovejoy, David Walker. But we know Sojourner Truth and the many others. And Dr. Martin Luther King, the last of our great freedom fighters. We know them, but do you know Elijah Muhammad was also a freedom fighter? We have so many little problems that become very big problems. We called ourselves colored people. It was hard to get us to change from saying colored people and to say black. But the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he kept driving the point home and it caught on and Christians and all started calling ourselves black.
Yes, proud that we are black. James Brown, the most dynamic performer I have ever seen. I met him after watching the show. Somebody said, "Do you want to meet him?" I said, yes, I'd like to meet him. So they took me backstage and I met him. So soon as I met him, I just wanted to say thank you, James Brown. Thank you Mr. James Brown. So I said, look, I just want to say we really appreciate you for making us proud to be black. Because his song, Black and Proud, Black and Proud. Here's what he said to me. He looked at me like he was surprised to hear me speak that way. He said, "It was your father who inspired that in me."
Elijah Muhammad. Now you who have been in the name of Muslims in Islam for 40, 50 years, 60 years, you also have to thank Allah, thank G-d for the teacher of my father, Mr. Fard. Because he gave us a strategy that would eventually make us give up the dead part of the life he gave us. See, when the seed is put in the ground, when life comes into it, the life comes out of the inside and the dead part on the outside is left to go the way of death, eaten up by the earth. Or it falls down to the earth. Now some lift them up like grass, like wheat grass and the dead part will fall down to the earth eventually. And only the part that should live stays. Now if you read scripture, and I do have some scripture readers here, many, I'm looking at you, I know you. If you read scripture, then you should also understand that it is prophesied, that the temple would not stand forever.
The temple was built to fall. It was built to fall, but it was built to hold a message to life until the life could come up. And then the temple itself as a material thing falls to the ground. It must fall. "Destroy this temple and I will build it up in three days." That's prophet. That's scripture, the scripture of something that was said back then, but it's also a prophecy. Don't you know Mr. Fard understood that? He did. He understood that. And he built his temple not to stand forever but to be destroyed. “Oh Wallace, that guy destroyed everything we had." No, I did not. I destroyed only what Mr. Fard wanted to die in time. To serve you for a while, hold you for a while, inspire you for a while, feed your life until you see that a lot of dead stuff is in this and throw the dead stuff away.
Praise be to Allah. You know, I was watching Channel seven, ABC, and came a commercial Loyola University commercial. Catholic University I'm sure most of you know. And they had the words "Also treatment of the spirit." Now they offer so many courses that you have to take if you want to finish college, but they say they also offer course for the treatment of the spirit. They ain't big enough to take all these Negroes, all these African Americans, all these niggers. "Oh, he used the wrong word." What's wrong with niggers? It means the same thing that negro mean. The dumb southern white supremacists, white supremacists. He learned that a lot of us, we came from Africa. So he found a place that was rich in culture at one time in history called N-I-G-E-R. But it's not pronounced nigger, it's pronounced Niger, not nigger. So he started calling us incorrectly, pronouncing it niggers. Niggers is a better word than negro because negro is just black. It does not take you back to a civilization and a culture, but Niger does.
So you see, we have to wake up and straighten out our minds. Now we don't want to be called Negroes. And I heard some Spanish people, they were standing on the side and they saw a lot of us coming. I knew a little Spanish and they said Los Negroes, those Negroes, that's what they said. They said Los Negroes. And they were saying those blacks, that's what they were saying. So negro and Spanish is mean black. That's what it means black. Now I know the way you use the word gives it a meaning also. So the way that dumb white supremist, I keep calling him dumb because that's the only way I can excuse him. He had to be dumb, he had to be uneducated, he had to be uncivilized. Okay? So being so dumb, he called you nigger and the way he came, the spirit he came from made you hate that word.
So I understand how the word got the meaning that you hate. I understand that, but we need to rethink and research because we are not doing much with our community life. And I believe this ignorance has to be seen firstly, for us to come into a new mind and take charge. We have to qualify for freedom. To qualify for freedom and economic empowerment, the faithful must defeat this spirit to be nasty that is in us at home and in the streets. If it was just in the streets, it wouldn't be so bad. But that nasty spirit we have is in the home too.
Regressive mind, shameful lifestyle, show off spirit. Spirit to show off. Silly monkey nature, spirit to just have simple, foolish, fun. We are being destroyed people. We have been influenced into having tunnel vision, but we are not a community of cyclops. The cyclops have tunnel vision. The cyclops couldn't do much with their life. In myth, they have one eye right in the center of the forehead, one eye, not two, one eye. G-d revealed religion so we would take pride and cherish and value our creation, the human creation. And then our Holy Book says, See how He's given you two eyes, not one, two eyes. To see outside and inside. To see outside and inside. To see and question, to see and examine what you see. To see and investigate what you see, to see and dig into what you see.
And that's how we become educated. And if we want to follow the professor or the teacher, we have to be guided into that understanding that you cannot learn by just looking on first sight, but you have to have a second sight to look into, not just on. Modern man's ignorance, nukes his world, nukes his world. We still see the clothing. You're growing in dress Clothing getting more popular, getting richer, more attractive. The buildings getting more attractive, more accommodating, the material that's growing and growing. Well, what's inside? Nothing. Nothing. And that's what the nuke bomb does. The nuke bomb takes away the life of people, but leave the money standing so the victor won't come to rubbish. The victor will get rid of you, but take over your material establishment. Well just like the nuke will do that for towns with houses and everything and banks and big buildings and leave 'em all standing unharmed. The breath you are breathing from the poison cultural air is nuking you. Your physical body is still there, but the person we used to know is dead, gone, vanished, disappeared.
I love these words of Maya Angelou. I saw her on a video of the movie Madea’s Family Reunion. I saw the movie and got these words. She says, "The sun has come, the myth has gone. We see in the distance our long way home." Beautiful. So rich, when you connect what she's saying with us. African-American community, the African-American community. She said the sun has come. G-d opened her mind. G-d gave her knowledge and insight. The myth has gone. The false pictures that once was reality in our mind. They're gone. She got the light out of the dead. The myth, the myth gives you a dead, something dead. Now we see all of this great material achievement, but I was walking on the street and I noticed that through the concrete sidewalk, very small cramp that was growing grass. And the grass that was strongest was a tough grass that we don't want for the lawn. We call it crab grass. And I thought about it. I said, well, if grass try to get out from under the concrete or grow in the concrete long enough, it's going to get tough and tougher. Difficulty brings ease. Facing the difficulty brings about ease, little grass breaking through the concrete. Then I was taking my walk in the, well, it's really the forest preserve, but it's also the park, Country Club Hills Park. And they have a nice walkway, five miles or more. I was walking and I noticed the blacktop called asphalt. There was coming up little grass, coming up through the asphalt.
They call us the grassroots, right? Coming up through the asphalt. Vines. If you let them, they'll grow all over a building, cover the building up, vines. Little flimsy thing. It ain't strong like a tree or even a bush, strong bush. It's flimsy vines. Will go all up over that. I saw a movie of New York City. It was really a movie that was trying to get us to turn around from savagery and it showed how wild games had become very popular in New York and civilization, Civil government had disappeared. And New York was occupied by wild folks, wild motorcycle riders and others. And eventually vines and growing plants made a jungle of New York, covered it all over. In time, knowledge and science tell us in time, if man neglect his world, in time, you won't even find a trace of it.
Iron will rust and become dust. The iron structure, the steel structure will all come down, not to mention the wood that will deteriorate much faster. So all those things will go and the scripture says, search, travel and search and see what became of great nations before you. How you don't find hardly any trace of them anymore. They have been buried under the ground, buried under the ground in time. Wind will cover them with leaves and other things. Yes, rain will come, bring 'em down. Rain and wind, the weather will wear 'em out. Trees dropping leaves. The leaves keep piling up. Few thousand years they go back to the earth and become dirt, the leaves. And all those organic things. And the earth keep rising up. And what you made keep going down. And pretty soon you can't find any trace of the material accomplishments of a great people. So what gives us a start will also bury us and put us out of sight. And that's G-d's creation. So G-d says, "Think not man that you are bigger than the creation." You are not bigger than the creation. Think not that you are bigger than the creation. The creation supported you coming here and the creation will take you away and erase your presence forever.
Yes, we think ourselves too important. We think ourselves too wise. We think ourselves too mighty. Put the mighty, the mightiest of your tough men in a small room with an ape. And we know what will happen. Yeah, don't let you have nothing but your muscles. Don't let you have a pistol or anything. Not even a knife. Put you in a small quarters with a ape and we know what'll happen. I hear you now singing soprano. Don't be tough, that make you small. Don't want to make people think you tough and show your toughness to people. That make you small.
Yes, man is becoming sterile. Can't come up with a vision anymore to advance his world. We had great men of vision in our past, great men of vision who helped advance the human life for American people and women, great people. But the intelligence is becoming sterile now. Our males on the street level and upwards, we are becoming show offs, bullies. We're becoming a global species of little daring big men, little daring big men aren't we Mr. President Bush? Several years ago I was a guest of Yasser Arafat. And for many the Palestinian quarters that I witnessed first hand is a camp rigged and designed obviously to me, to contain Palestinians under extreme conditions to take away the human qualities of their life and to drive them out of their human form, out of their human sensitivities. While there as their guests, I observed their distressful existence, but I also observed their unflinching moral and political determination and their human concerns, which included human concerns also for Jews, feelings for Jews, human feelings for Jews. And I know Palestinians are a humane people. They're not what you see and hear about. They are humane people.
We have to qualify for freedom and economic empowerment. The African-American people coming from slavery, seeking opportunities in this world, had our attention, our interests, our focus put on this world. Our politicians and all. They had to put their attention on this world coming in. Once you get in, you should stop putting so much attention on this world and put some attention on your past, on your human essence to see if you can better your human essence so you'll be qualified to get more freedom and to have economic empowerment. Troubled lifestyles that we see in the street. They're blinded. People are blinded by troubled lifestyles. Rich cities of the ancients were walled in. They had special gates through which a tourist might enter.
Cairo was one of those great ancient cities and it had civilization, scientific achievements over most of the world. And at one time, I'm sure over all of the world. And a story is told to tell us the nature of myth or to introduce us to myth in the Egyptian mythical religion. And it goes like this. That to enter that city you have to solve a riddle. You come to the gate and there was an oracle above the gate, a mythical creature that could speak to you in your language. And this mythical creature called the oracle would ask what moves on four, on two and lastly on three. The answer that you give should be the man, the man, the man.
Now if you can't answer the question, you cannot be the man. Religion is ordered to keep the need in the human soul and its expression in community life most important and uppermost on man's agenda. So you can work for money, you can work for knowledge, you can work for popularity, you can do all that forever. But if you don't have the essential life of the human creation on the agenda as something you supposed to study and keep and watch to know when something is influencing it out of its form, when something is working against it to see if the culture is hurting it. You have to have watchers. All of us can't be watchers, so you should choose those good leaders of yours in the Church, in the Synagogue, if there's a Jew here and certainly in the Mosque, the Masjid, you should choose those good leaders. Without leaders, you're doomed. Without leaders, you're dead. Without leaders, you ain't going to have nothing. Eventually the Satan and his influence is going to take it all from you. And I'm not talking about a mystery. Satan is real, hell fire is real.
"Well if it's real, show me Satan." Look in the mirror. You probably have become so corrupt, all you have to do is look in the mirror. G-d says to us, "Oh you who believe, save your own soul and save your families from the wildfires of blind passions." That's the Qur'an, our Holy book. For both religion and secular society, family life is first, family life is first. The whole world of achievements has to be seen, tracing back, going back to family. Man as a family, small unit, the first unit of society, the unit or community unit that's called family. It all originated from there. And that's why G-d want us to identify with the whole human family on the planet earth, so that we'll be prepared to survive and enjoy all the riches G-d created for us and not destroy each other. So G-d tells us we all came from a pair, a male and a female. And they had children and family was established. And those families progressed and became tribes and nations.
G-d tells us how it all started and how we got to be where we are. And He says He did that not that you should tower over each other with your egos, but that you should want to know one another, become acquainted with each other one another. Why? Because if you become acquainted with the people from a distant land that you call strangers and the savage, he wanted to conquer everything other than himself. So if he found other people, then he wanted, if he thought he had the might to do so, he wanted to conquer them and take their land and take over their lives. But that's the ignorant man. That's not the divinely guided man. So G-d says He did not make you different for you to tower over each other, look down on each other, despise one another and want to dominate one another. But He made you different so you'll be curious, to get acquainted with these new people or the other people. And when you get acquainted with them, you'll find that G-d gave them something He didn't give you. G-d gave them a land and environment that you have no experience in. So when Marco Polo went to China, he came back with a lot of help for his people, didn't he?
And I'm sure Marco Polo didn't say take an army into China. He was so happy to learn of the things that they had that were not available to him and his people. He brought those things home and said, "Hey, look at this. Here is something here we never seen, we never saw before." And I'm sure it was more than silk. I think it was gun powder that the Chinese was using for festivals, setting off like we do on 4th of July. Beautiful different colors exploding and everything. But that Ku Klux Klan man, when Marco Polo brought it back and he saw it, he saw a way to kill people with it. We have to return to family values as the Focolare people stress all the time. Be family, be family at home and be family with all people. Be family. That one thing can save our community life if we would just accept it and act upon it. Be family. Be family at home and be family in the community with all your neighbors, with all people.
You know in the time of Muhammad the Prophet, they had no jails, there were no jails. They had no hospitals as such. They had no family service institutions as such, the obligation was on the people. The rich was to provide for the poor. So orphans, those children that would've been orphans and left in the streets to survive on their own, the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad the Prophet, Peace be on him, influenced them to share their wealth with people who needed it and to take those children and their mothers, widows, save their widows from temptation to prostitute themselves so that their children could be fed and survive. To take that problem away from them by telling them, "Yes, I'll take care of you and your children." So they raise those children, those orphans as their own children. And that's what Prophet Muhammad told them. Said don't call them slaves, but call them my child, your own child or your son or your daughter. Now was that not connected with prophecy and scripture? It was connected with prophecy and scripture. For it was revealed that those who would accept the guidance of G-d and live the word of G-d, that He would inscribe the law upon their hearts.
They would have it in their hearts. We don't have to have all these taxes spent on law enforcement, jails, penitentiaries. We don't have to have that. If we can bring human life back to the plan of G-d, we would be much richer then we are now. I'm telling you, just loads of money could be saved. Shiploads, truckloads of money could be saved if we would just have it in our heart to be kind, to have mercy. What was that other one? Forgiveness. If just those three. If we would just live with those three, kindness, mercy, forgiveness, we could save our community a lot of money. Lot of money. Now who are we benefiting by following this way that we have in the world, turning our backs on the guidance of G-d. Who are we benefiting? The Satan. The Satan. Who are you benefiting when you go and buy, take the earnings that you got this week or got for two weeks, you paid maybe biweekly or monthly, however you paid. And you take that money and you go to a grocery store and then you go buy all this stuff and you bought 10 pounds, you throw out five pounds. Who are you helping? Satan.
Satan wants the money to come back into circulation no matter how dirty it is. Bring it back into circulation. Drug business. That's what Satan wants. You're dying of drugs. The family is hurt, the parents are suffering because the son turned into a drug addict. It is paining you. It's paining us, the neighbor. Everybody's suffering because drugs is taking over the life of the family or the neighborhood and other things, other crimes taking older neighborhood. But somebody paying for all that. Dollars by drugs, dollars by all these sins that we are committing. Dollars buy them. And the Satan want the dollars to grow fast and big, fast as they can and big so that they get back in the circulation, dollars get back in the circulation. And Satan is the greediest of all creatures in the community. He's the greediest of them all. So he wants that money to come. Doesn't care how it comes. He's so greedy until, pardon me, his extreme greed makes his brain work only for money, control, and dominance.
So he's been doing this. Oh, he's been doing this since man was put in the garden. He started when the man was put the garden he started. So he's way ahead of everybody else when it comes to how to get money to move, and how to get money to grow. He's responsible for most of the growth of money in these United States. Satan. "Oh, quiet down Imam." I'm as quiet as I can get. We have cellular phones now and you don't know the message in cellular phones. Most of you don't know the message in cellular phones.
It mean you have been reduced to nothing but cell intelligence. You have no intelligence in your mind anymore. You only have cell intelligence. They're trying to wake you up. They telling you go back to your cell, go back to your human cell and see what happened to it to cause you to lose your precious life. Observing man, the free thinker, the philosopher and the scientist, how they engage in the study of the mothers nature, the natural existence outside and inside, and how progress was realized for man in society or in community. And civilization grew, wealth grew, comforts grew, the good life grew. The good life grew. Family is where socialization originates, socialization originates. And it's not just socializing with each other as we do at a party or at some happy occasion, but socialization is the knowledge that we get from each other when we engage each other. Your intelligence speaks to me. My intelligence speaks to you. Your concern is passed to me. My concern is passed to you. We see that we can fare better if we cooperate and support each other in the common cause or for the common good. That's how man progresses.
Thank you. Numbers increase in time for Mother nature ruled societies, birth societies and ruled in societies. And then man, he gets all this knowledge and then you see he knows how to use Mother nature. He knows how to exploit Mother nature. In time, he then become the enemy of Mother nature. We have to return back. Our main motivation should be the motivation to preserve the best of human existence, human life, human existence. And to preserve it, you have to be aware of its line of progress in history, its line of progress in history. We're not asking all of you to carry this burden. We are just trying to wake up the many so the few good ones can take the lead and have more support from all of us, from all of us. Insha’Allah, G-d willing. That is coming. That is happening.
We look at these simple things, food. We buy food outside of our community. We bring it into our community. These necessities like food, clothing, shelter, transportation. These necessities should be the responsibility of every individual sharing the life of neighborhoods or sharing the life of community. And we should have our leaders, the strong leaders leading the way and all of us should be supporting them. Look at the money we could have in the poor African-American community if we would just be determined to have all the grocery stores owned and operated by us. "How can you do that Mr?" If you see the great purpose and the great benefit that can come to us from doing that, then you would have the energy, the courage, the patience to support a program, to not go outside of your neighborhood and buy your food. Wait until your brother who's qualified to build that store and operate that store gets it and then work for it. Promote it, drum for it. Go out and beat the drum for it. Let the whole neighborhood know we are not going to accept this going on out of our neighborhood to buy something like food. We came from farms in the south. We know how to grow food. Let's have the black farmers become strong again. You can solve these problems.
The story of the first man is to tell us that G-d made man powerful, resourceful. He can manage for himself in a wilderness or in an environment that has not been developed, not been developed. So you should ask yourself without looking at the Bible or Qur'an, ask yourself how did the first people exist? How did those exist before there was industry? How did those exist before there was science and industry, before there were carpenters and welders and whatever, doctors and lawyers. How did they exist? They're the ones that started all of that for the industrialized nations. The ones that started it all. China was much like that maybe 30 or 40 years ago. China didn't have foundries more than 30 or 40 years ago. Mao Tse Tung, he gave his people the faith in themselves and they produced iron and steel in the backyards. He told 'em, he said, "We can do this and we can do it on our own property." So he started iron. And look now how China has become so big and competing with other nations for recognition, especially economics. Economics. They have such a huge workforce.
They present strong competition to the industrialized nations. G-d knows I've been with it. In fact, I told you on Stony Island, that's been 20 something years ago I think, that you should stop if it takes it, if that's what's necessary to get us to grow our community in business so we can support our own school with our own money, support our own religious life with our own money. And advance our community with our own money. I said, if it's necessary, you should be willing to give up this money you're spending on cars and start riding bicycles.
Do like the Chinese make a rickshaw, make a cab looking bicycle. Put a couple of you big strong brothers that like to show all muscles, hook you up to it and have you take the delicate ones and the ladies shopping wherever they want to go. That's what the Chinese were doing when I went over there. I went over there years ago and that's what I saw them doing. I bet you that rickshaw still over there. They probably much fewer in number, but I bet you they still over there where you can give a man a few dollars or a dollar and he'll take you where you want to go. And it's comparable too. You sitting in the rickshaw, it's comfortable, it's nostalgic. I think something inside say, "Oh, this feel like this was mama pushing me down the street in the buggy."
It is something very pleasant about it. Now, some of you have been downtown and they still have horse drawn buggies or something. You can get on and go for a ride around the city, right? Around the downtown area. They take you for sightseeing in downtown area. Why? Because it's nostalgic. We hear a lot of talk about heredity. Even inheritance is in the language of the Founding Fathers. They say we have inherent rights and we are losing our heritage. We are losing our original heritage of human excellence and a spirit to grow better and do better and accomplish more. That's inherent. You're born, inherent means nobody gave it to you. You had it by birth.
So what we accomplished as a people trusting G-d and working together with each other for a better life in the south, isn't that heritage? If a people forget or get separated from their heritage, they will be in bad condition. Life is developmental, continuous. Progress behind progress after progress, progress after progress. So if you leave your heritage, the history of your heritage, how are you going to continue that progress? So you just starting out in the dark. The struggle was to put you in the light. And in scripture, heritage is very important, and the most important heritage is to come into the excellent creation called human creation that G-d made possible or that G-d gave you. That's the most important heritage.
Now, just for a few words in the political scene, well, I'm talking about, I already spoke in the political context, but this political scene here, I'm talking about Democrats and Republicans, okay, politics, Democrats and Republicans. For me, we have been hurt by just following something because we think it's what we should do or we think we owe it something. I think that's why many of us follow the Democrats. We follow the Democrat, we vote Democrat, we vote Democrat religiously as though Jesus Christ is the leading Democrat. That's no good. If something helps you and then later on you discover it's not helping, it's not helping you. You should question it. "Oh, you trying to get us to become Republicans." Oh, you'll see when I continue. You'll see as I continue. The Carter Center. I wish I could tell you much about the Carter Center founded and headed by former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rose Carter, Rosalyn Carter. I wish I could tell you much about it, but we don't have the time. But I ask you to consider supporting the work of such noble persons as Jimmy Carter. Wonderful man. I don't have enough time to tell you what he's doing.
He's helping suffering people all around the world almost, especially in Asia, Africa and in America. Wonderful man. This is from to the materials that he sent me. And I want to share with you what I did In return. My office, I had my office send $6,300 contribution to the Center. And I just wish we had more money, would've given him much more. Now, I was offered to join what they call the Ambassador Circle that provides critical funds for the Center's operation and program. It contributes to a lot and it permits the donor to join, the ones that are invited there or the one that come there, to join them and get executive briefings and also allows you to, allows that person to hear reports on the progress that's being made by the Center.
And I was told that your generosity will help assure the Carter Center will have resources to sustain our worldwide efforts to wage peace, fight disease and build hope. And that's what they're doing. And the results is almost unbelievable that private citizens can get together. We know he was President of these United States, so that says a lot about what he should be able to do, but it's still amazing. It's amazing. He says, despite only recently having emerged from 14 years of bloody civil war, Liberia has become a model for other nations seeking to implement peaceful elections. Liberia, I'm sure you know about Liberia.
In a historically significant election last October, Ellie Johnson Surly became Africa's first elected woman president. And how did that happen? The Carter Center workforce went there and stood by them, worked with them, and gave them the faith that the gangsters would not be able to stop them or overcome them. Isn't that a shame? African-American people have stopped being responsible for their own life and community and let gangsters take over. That's not just Africa, that's here in America. Building on a reservoir of trust. That began with mediation efforts by the Carter Center in early 1990's and they made progress and now as they say, it's a model, our country can have democratic process and enjoy electing, voting and electing their officials.
I also want to point out another Democrat to you all. One that a lot of us put down. President Clinton, President William Jefferson Clinton. Bill Clinton also makes trips to Africa and other places. He put his law office in Harlem. He could have put it somewhere else. He put his law office in Harlem, New York, right in our midst, in a city where we achieved a lot for community life and business 60 or 70 years ago. And lost it all because we gave up. Yes. He also goes to Africa and make great contributions to that suffering continent to open up opportunities that will give them a better future. I want to also include Senator Barack Obama. He's here, but he recently made a trip back home to his family in Kenya, and he visited also other parts of Africa as well. Senator Obama is a quality human person. These are the people we should be looking at. These are the people we should want to organize to support. Yes, I want to mention somebody else, the Republican Condoleeza Rice. The lady is educated, resourceful, brilliant and powerful.
Now how am I going to choose between the Democrats and Republicans. Got all these wonderful Democrats, believe me, if it wasn't for my knowledge of the works of Jimmy Carter and the role that Bill Clinton is playing right now and a few other Democrats that I know, I don't even see a Democratic Party. Where is the Democratic Party? It doesn't exist except in a few noble Democrats that seriing humanity and not just politics. So I know you heard the news that I'm a Republican. I was honored by the National Congressional Committee to be selected as a first Republican from Illinois.
Well, I've never said I'm a Republican. I've never asked to be recorded as a Republican, and I regret that I ever went to vote and got recorded as a Democrat. Yes, I'm giving it to you straight. Now I don't want to interfere in your political life how you vote. That's not right, but I'm letting you know that I'm not committed to either party to vote for them and I never will be. I'm going to vote for the good guy. I'm going to vote for the clean guy. I'm going to vote for the true guy. I don't care if he's Democrat or Republican. Thank you very much. Peace be unto you, Asalaam Alaikum.Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Before I leave, and this is a tribute to our hero, hero in our moral life, Bill Cosby. It goes like this. I asked the question first. I say, have nasty cold water got us in hot water? Then I begin, Where goes today's youth, most live a life of lies. Few a life of truth. The Slow Walking Three. Now I'm going to tell you who that is. Did you see those boys perform on Cultural Night tonight? Those three boys, they had a powerful message. I'm referring to them. The Slow Walking Three says, "Blame points back to you. Let impulse for every fun thing in the street groove keeps us prone to lose. Now watch the street language or be hung by it. Clean your asphalt. Don't be drugged off. We know street life's a drag. Now get yourself out of that bag."


