07/18/1987
IWDM Study Library 
Sacred Life Connections Newark NJ Pt.3

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
The muscles always drag his body along the ground to get from place to place. Now suppose you had to lie down there and drag your body eight blocks down the road. Would you jog along the road? Would you take your walk tomorrow morning if you had to walk with your skin, walk with your muscles and your skin, under your skin, pull your body with the muscles under your skin down the road? Oh, that snake sure has to toil to make it down the road.
But G-d want us to look, that He, "Look at that creature. That's a despicable creature. That's a despised creature. But look. That creature I have created accepts the situation I put him in. And he has been toiling along to get from place to place. And he has survival senses that most of you human beings, with great human intellects, do not exhibit, do not exercise." Yeah, so G-d want to show us that. So, G-d uses the same similar words. You will not get your best in your life without struggle, without toil, without strong effort.
How did our mothers keep us, during the time of slavery? How did our mothers keep us? How did the old people keep us with a hope, with appreciation for life? How did they keep us? They kept us because they had extraordinary strength. They had extraordinary strength, extraordinary strength. How do I know? Because my mother is a product of those people.
And I know my mother. She had extraordinary strength. My mother would be bothered by problems, all kinds of problems, problems of not having her husband with her, problem of fearing for her husband's life, problem of not knowing whether he was killed or in jail. That was during the bad days for the Muslims. She didn't know what was happening. She would be afraid to tell her children what the situation was with her husband. We could see in her face she was carrying a great burden.
But if one of us got sick, that poor woman getting up in the morning before we did, preparing everything, cleaning the kitchen, preparing the food, everything, washing the clothes on her hands, doing all that, hanging them on lines in the house in the winter, on lines on the porch in the summer, just going to the store, doing all those things.
That poor woman would wake up in the middle of the night if one of us was sick, wake up in the middle of the night, come there. Many times, she wouldn't know that I was awake. She would come there, and she'd lift the cover up, and she'd put her hand on my face to see if my temperature was gone down, in the middle of the night. And if she felt me hot, she'd wake me up, or make me just sit up. She would give me tea. She would wrap me up. She would sit there with me until I go to sleep. And I was a big boy.
She didn't do that just for me. She did that for my brothers and sisters too, if they fell sick. She would do that for her husband, if he fell sick. She was just that kind of person.
They had tremendous strength. They were ready to serve human life. They were ready to protect human life. They had tremendous strength. We'll find one every now and then like that. But buddy, if you're waiting to get a wife like that, man, you better be prepared to live a thousand years. I hope you'll be potent when you find her. I know they're out there somewhere, but it's like looking for that needle in the haystack.
So, understand that you will not get anything without effort. So, we few who are dissatisfied with the status quo, who are dissatisfied with the excessive conditions of life in these big cities, we few, we have to understand that we are few in numbers and our few numbers make us precious in terms of what we should accept as a burden of responsibility for the good of the whole world. We should prepare ourselves for more responsibility. Prepare ourselves for greater work. Have a greater imagination.
If you've been performing well for your family, perform better now for your family. Do it more. Do it with more dedication. Do it with more awareness, with more conscience. Perform even better for your parents. If you've been performing well for the school, for Clara Mohammed School or for some other institution that you believe to be worthwhile and a good thing for the society, work harder for it.
Or some idea, or whatever it is, or for the government, or whatever it is, if you are a conscientious person, and you have good intentions, and you're working for any cause, now go back home and work even better. Do more. Prepare yourself for more responsibility. Because it is the future is really depending on the people who have survived this destruction of the world.
Many of us don't understand that the destruction of the world has come already. The destruction of the world has come already. We have to prepare ourselves for the new days and refuse. You should take on bigger imagination to accept bigger imagination and bigger courage and more responsibility and go forward.
Don't say, "Well, hey. I'm not a college graduate." I'm not a college graduate. I only have three hours credit. That's not much. I can't even say I'm college at all. I have no college. I'm a good high school graduate.
And my mother didn't even finish the eighth grade, but I think she was one of the most intelligent women I've ever met. Yes. She had common sense, and she had good human senses, good human senses. So don't think you are not qualified.
Do you think Clara Mohammed didn't do something for this world? Clara Mohammed did something for this world. She left her contribution. She did a great thing for this world. Yes. The story is not yet told completely, and it hasn't gone around the world, but in time it will, I'm sure. When a Black woman left from slavery with an eight degree education, stand up to a White man, six foot two, weighing 280 pounds, and tell him, "I'm prepared today, Mr. white man, to die as dead as his door facing before I let you take my child into your school and mess up his thinking."
Don't think she didn't do great things. She did great things. And that's not all she did. When she got in a better situation herself, she came out to every graduation, and she was there to encourage the graduates, to kiss the girls, to give them flowers, to encourage them to go on. And she would tell the graduates sometime, she'd say, "I don't have much money, but you can have what I got to make this food better." Yes, that's a few of the things she did.
But if she didn't do anything but get up in the middle of the night in her bad situation that she was in, in those days, when the community didn't have enough to give us chicken but one day a week. Now that's a fact. The Muslim community, no, they didn't have enough money to donate to give us chickens but one day a week. One day we had fish. One day we had chicken. The other days we had scraps, or either just vegetables and beans. That's a fact.
Now, for that woman to get up in the middle of the night, under those conditions, and come and check the members of her family, and mostly knowing she got to get up soon as the sun get up good and go to work to manage the affairs of her house, the duties of her house, that if she left that alone for us, that wouldn't make her great.
So don't think, in your situation, you are not great, or you can't do anything. Get out of that mind. Marcus Garvey, was he an intellectual? Marcus Garvey was no intellectual, but he had the courage to think big, to talk big, to do big things. Huh?
Audience:
Yes.
IWDM:
Yes. We know about the Dubois and others, but we miss a lot of those people who did not have education. Don't you know some of the best Black institutions that we have in the South were headed by people and were called Colleges? And those persons didn't even have, themself, a College degree, but they had the intelligence. They had the mental courage, intellectual courage, the vision to lead the institution under the name College until it really became a strong College. Yes. Don't think you can't do great things.
And we are not looking for great things to happen on top of the mountain. The time of the mountain is out. We're looking for great things to happen on the plain. Yeah, we're looking for great things to happen on the plain, so don't think great things can't happen.
And let me tell you another thing, in concluding this talk. And I think, whoa, I got 10 more minutes, 10 more minutes according to the grace period. Let me tell you something else that is very good for us. We have to be prepared to advance ourselves by sacrifice and also by means of our resources.
Now, many of us got the resources. We don't have to make great sacrifices. We can open up a great business today, or we have great businesses today. We are middle class people. We're doing well. I'm not saying bring those people down, so we can go up. No, those people are there. Leave them up and hope they keep going forward.
But many of us are not situated, the majority of us are not situated to advance ourselves by those great resources, or upon those great resources. We have no resources. We have to be prepared for great sacrifice.
We should not think that we have to wait for better times in America in order for us to build our individual and collective strength. No, don't think that. You shouldn't think that way. Be prepared to do great things with little.
Some people say it ain't good to think too big. The only thing bad about thinking big is thinking big in a corrupt way. That's the only thing about thinking big. Look. And the only thing bad about smallness, because some of us feel our smallness, "Well, I'm too little. I'm too weak. I don't have enough. I can't. I'm of no consequence. I'm of no significance."
Let me tell you, the only thing about smallness that's bad is thinking small. I don't care how small you are. If you want to do wrong, think small. I don't care how small you are. It's wrong for you to think small. Why is it wrong for you to think small, and you are small? Say, "I'm no big shot. I don't want to do no bigshot thinking. That wouldn't be becoming of me." Yes, it wouldn't be becoming of you to do bigshot thinking because bigshot thinking carries the flavor of arrogance. Arrogance. Bigshot thinking.
No, don't do bigshot thinking, but think big. When more of us have the courage to think big, we better our circumstances. Think big. Think big. Don't think small. Think big. Refuse to think small. Say, "No, that's unbecoming of me to think small. I ain't got a nickel. Don't know how I'm going to get one. Don't know how I can make one, lawfully or legally, but I will not accept that I should be nickel-less or penniless. I should have wealth." Be positive about that. Be firm in that kind of thinking. "I don't have any job in society that's important, but I refuse to accept that this is a situation that I should put up with. I should have more authority, more responsibility. I should have a better situation in society." Think big. Do not be afraid to think big.
Do not be afraid to make great sacrifices. The Chinese people, I admire those people. They joined the Russians in living the Communist philosophy. The Russians did not treat them as they treated their Russian brothers and sisters. That was an insult to the dignity of the Chinese psyche. The dignity of the Chinese ego. It was an insult. It was an offense.
So, they told the Russians, "Okay, we will go it without you. We will make due with what we have." And they shocked the whole world when it was learned that they were making steel in their backyards, making steel in their backyards. The Chinese said, "We will not give up because they won't help us to make steel mills, to build steel mills, foundries. We will take our backyards. We will take the crude oil. We will dig holes in our backyards. We will make pits. We will set the fires. We will make iron. We will make steel." And they did it. And they did it.
Let me tell you. Not only you, but many of the non-white groups in the world are in the same situation that those Chinese people were in. You got people who will be your big brothers, people who will be your protectors, your guardians, people who will be your sponsors, but they will not treat you as they treat their own.
That's an insult to the dignity of most people. We don't like that. So, we should have the courage to tell the white man, "This is a situation I will not accept." Some situations we should not accept.
We should not accept to keep going where the white man let us go in terms of demographics, moving from one neighborhood to another. No. We should tell the white man, "We tired of move in behind you, tired of just moving into your house."
When you move in there, the lifetime of the fixture has gone. They might leave you with one more year on the washer, washing machine. I know. They might give you one more year on the washing machine. You got two years on the stove. So, after you move in, by one or two years, you got to get a new washing machine, a new stove. After a while, you got five years on the roof. You got five years, got to put on a new roof. Right? Yeah. After a while, you got cracks in the basement.
Audience:
That's right.
IWDM:
The sump pump is gone. Right?
Audience:
That's right.
IWDM:
That's what happens when you move in behind other people. We should have the courage that the Chinese have. Say, "Look, we're tired of this situation where we move in behind you. We wait for you to open up a area. We wait for you to give up an area. We wait for you to open up an area to us. We tired of that. We don't want that kind of situation."
Accept less until you can do better. Get together and build cheap economy homes for yourself. You can do it. "Oh, are you going to head up that project, Brother Imam"? No. You have to do it yourself. You have to find brothers and sisters with the courage that you have, with the desire that you have, with the energy you have, with the ambitions you have. Find them, and you get together.
They're doing it in Hattiesburg. We're going to Hattiesburg, Mississippi in the next few weeks. They're doing it in Hattiesburg. Huh? Yes. They bought up some land and they're getting ready to start moving in there. And I guarantee you it won't be the disgrace that Resurrection City was. Is that what they called it? Resurrection City?
Audience:
That's right.
IWDM:
What that city was called?
Audience:
You talking about Soul City?
IWDM:
Soul City.
Audience:
Soul.
IWDM:
Oh, isn't that a shame? Soul Train City. It was doomed to start with. Uh-oh, time is up.
So, I hope we have been of some good to you, and I hope it was worth you're sacrificing to come to this gathering. I hope we will go away with new feelings and more positive feelings, more appreciation for our Islamic content, more pride in being a Muslim, that we'll go back home and perform better and be ready for the next gathering.
We hope to have these mass gatherings as often as possible. I'd like to see them at least four times a year. Don't be discouraged if the crowd is not good. We would have loved to see all those seats occupied, but we don't want them filled up with trash or animals. Thank G-d if they're empty because wasn't nothing to put there but trash and animals.
Takbir. Allahu Akbar. Takbir. Allahu Akbar. Please hold your seats, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters. Please hold your seats for a minute.


