07/13/2002
IWDM Study Library
IWDM Talks About Elijah Muhammad 
California

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
IWDM: My father and mother were very young children and they knew each other. They lived in the same area. My father was from son born in Sandersville, Georgia, up in a little place called Deepstep, Georgia.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Deepstep?
IWDM: Deep, D-E-E-P, Deepstep, S-T-E-P. Deepstep, Georgia, but it's not known that well. Sandersville is in the same area. We say he's born in Sandersville, but actually I was corrected when I went to visit the site there. I was told that was Deepstep, Georgia where he was really born.
My mother, she's from Cordele, Georgia, but my father and-- Pardon me. My father's father and my mother's father were both farmers and they knew each other. They knew one another. They had an occasion to be around each other, so my mother and my father got acquainted while they were yet youngsters, not quite adult.
They fell in love. My father decided one day that he was going to go up North and he wanted to elope with her. He came, he said-- He told us he came while it was still dark outside and let her know that he was there to get her. She climbed out the window and they went to Macon, Georgia. Macon, Georgia is where they got married.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Okay. I believe it was 1919?
IWDM: I'm not sure of the date, but we can check that. Anyway, they got married and didn't go immediately to the North. In fact, they had at least two children, two or three. Maybe more. Two, I think two children born in the South I believe. I'm not sure of that, but I believe so.
Finally, they were raising the family in Detroit where I was born also. I was born not in Detroit, I was-- We say Detroit? Hamtramck, Michigan.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Hamtramck, yes.
IWDM: Yes, and that house still exists and got a mayor I understand. I just learned that about a couple of years ago. Hamtramck, Michigan it's still yes, a town with a mayor of its own. That's how they met and got married without the permission of my mother's father, my grandfather, on my mother's side. Without his permission.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Was there opposition?
IWDM: I saw him much later. I heard the story many times when I was a boy and teenager and young man, but I finally got a chance to meet my grandfather, my mother's father. He told me, "See, I didn't think that boy would ever be anything, so I didn't think he'd ever have any money. He's a big shot now."
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Now he was kind of well to do himself?
IWDM: Well, what they do, my grandfather's father had 5 cents and he had $5.
That was well to do.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Did your mother's father become a member in the Nation of Islam?
IWDM: Yes. My father's father, not my mother's father. My father's father and my father's mother, my grandmother.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Yes. Maria.
IWDM: They joined the Nation of Islam early in the '30s when my father was there and just a new minister for Mr. Farad, his teacher, the one they called master Farad.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Yes. What year were you born in?
IWDM: I was born in '33 October, almost at the end of 1933, 10th month, 30th day of October.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: What kinds of things do you remember being told about yourself? I know there were some things that Mr. Farad had said to your mother and father concerning you and some of your other siblings?
IWDM: Yes. For some reason they talked about a lot to me in the house when I was coming up, a little boy. Very little boy. As far as I can go back I heard the story. My sister, Raya, she says she knows what happened better than anybody.
She had to correct me because I thought my name was written on the back of the door in chalk, that's what I was told. All my life I was told that Mr. Farad, before I was born my mother was pregnant with me. That he wrote the name Wallace D. Mohammed.
Spelled M-O-- Same way I spell it now. Spelled M-O-H-A-M-M-E-D. He didn't spell it like we spell it. My father changed that spelling much later in the '50s. Anyway, I was told that he put my name in chalk on the back of the door, but my sister corrected me. She said it wasn't on the back of the door. She said it was on the wall behind the door.
If you opened the door and the door would go against the wall. Say if you come in the room and then you close the door, you'll see my name on the wall where the door opens. She said that Mr. Farad told them, say whenever it starts to get faint, take the chalk and trace it over. She said and that's what they did.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: That was where, you were living where at that time?
IWDM: We were living on a street called Yemen.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Yemen street?
IWDM: Yes. That's where my parents were living when I was born. Yemen. Thirty-nine something. Yemen street in Detroit.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: So up until the time that you moved, that name was on that wall behind the door?
IWDM: That's what they tell me.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Was it a particular person's room?
IWDM: No, I didn't know-- I don't know what room it was. My sister would know, Raya, use to Loti. Raya Mohammed. She would know because she was big enough to know. Just to know the house, she could tell you which room that was. I wouldn't want to try. I think it was a bedroom, but I'm not sure of that.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: How did your family manage during the depression years, '29, '30, '31? W.D Fard just came into the picture. After he left, immediately after he left?
IWDM: Yes. When he came it was 1931? 1930 is the year that's given officially as 1930. I've seen correspondence 1931, about 1931. We know in 1931 he was there and active with the people, with our people. Life was-- You can guess. If life was bad for rich people and it was. A lot committed suicide.
They couldn't accept poverty. They lost all their money with the Wall Street crash. You know if it was bad times for them where ration food, food was rationed, it must have been very bad for poor people like African-Americans. Very poor African-Americans.
My mother was getting some kind of assistance and my brother, the oldest brother Emmanuel, I was told that he was very helpful. She said he would go out and walk the railroad tracks and pick up coal that would fall from the box cars that carry coal.
He would sell the coal and make money and give it to my mother. Back then, it was just very, very hard. My father, from what she told me before he learned of Mr. Fard and his teachings, my father was always out in the street drunk. He was a drunk.
He would hang out with his friends, do nothing but drinking. He wouldn't come home. She would have to go out and get him to make him come home. She told me that-- She said son, "One time he was so drunk, I had to let him rest himself on my shoulder." She said, "I almost had to carry him all the way into the house, up the stairs."
She said, "And I dropped him off my shoulder onto the bed," saying, "That's where he stayed, slept." That was his condition before he met Mr. Fard. Similar it was a condition of many that his teachings have reached and changed their lives the same way Mr. Fard changed his life. Because my mother told me this, she said, "Son-- but at the same time, it's different times, big time elapsed between this," and this is when I was a grown man and preaching.
I had started preaching as a minister for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. She said, "Son, your father was too proud to go on welfare and get assistance," saying that he was too proud to come home and let his children see him, so he just stayed out drunk on the street with his friends. He couldn't handle it. That what she was telling me. He couldn't handle the situation. But she said, "My girlfriend told me, she said, there’s a man that's saying some things about our people saying we didn't always dress like we dress."
We once dressed in long flowing cloth and we were belonging to royalty and said we were kings and queens."" This is the girlfriend speaking to my mother, she said, "I'm going to hear him Wednesday night." Tuesday night, I'm not sure, it might have been Tuesday night. She said, "Will you go with me?" She said, "Son, I thought about it," and I thought and I said, "Well, maybe this might help my husband." She took him. She took my father. That's very important.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Yes, it is.
IWDM: My mother actually took my father, upon information from her girlfriend, took my father to see the one they call “the savior, and Master Farad, god who came in the person, in the flesh et cetera. Took my father to see him for the first time.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Were they saying that then or after he left, that god was in the person?
IWDM: Well, we don't know what they were saying then. I don't know what they were saying then. All I know is that he was preaching that message about black people and that's what my father heard and my mother was with him. My mother went with him.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Was your father meant to go or was he accepting to go?
IWDM: No. She said she invited him and he said okay, he just said he would go. She said and he went and she said they listened to him, they listened to Mr. Farad talk. When the meeting was over, as they were walking out of the meeting, my father told my mother, he said, "Clara, when you go back home, we going to have to throw all the pork out of the icebox." Now that's what one lecture did. One speech. But now, I understand that his talks were very long.
They said that sometimes he would talk so long, daylight would be coming before they finished. They'd start at night, like at eight, nine, ten o'clock, then he would talk to them all night long. They'd say daylight was almost coming, starting to show. I had heard that daylight was starting to show. She said, "Son, I had a girlfriend. She had as many children as I had, in fact, she had more children than I had, saying I couldn't throw that pork away. He told me to throw it out. I took it out of the icebox and I gave it to my poor girlfriend." May Allah blessed her for that.
In that condition back then, it was almost the condition that justifies the eating of pork if you don't have any other food. In Quran Allah says, "If you are forced by hunger and have no other means, no other food, eat it, but don't eat it to your satisfaction, eat enough to keep your life." You're supposed to be disliking that you have to do that.
G-d permits us to save our life, and that's very important to know. G-d permits us to save our life when our life is threatened. He permits us to do even this thing that is forbidden, especially in this situation, in the case of eating pork. We are permitted to eat it if our life is threatened and we don't have anything else to survive on. Think about that. In light of what's happening in the world today.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: How was Elijah Muhammad as a family man, as a father? You didn't really become acquainted with him for maybe the first ten years he was on the run and in prison at the time during your younger years, your very younger years? Growing up through your teens and on up, how was he as opposed to the public figure, how was he at home?
IWDM: We always knew my father as the messenger of Allah. As the messenger of Allah who came in the person of that man I mentioned to you, our savior and master Farad, that what he was saying, WD Fard, and W Farad Muhammad. Those were names that he used. We were told, my mother made it plain to us that your father is the messenger of Allah and you have to obey what your father gives me for you. She never came directly from herself when she was giving us orders on how we should live.
She came in the name of my father and backed him up with god. She said Allah he was god in the flesh. That's how he was introduced and we didn't see him any other way. We knew he was our father, but we didn't relate to him. I didn't know my father. I met him, but I didn't know him, really, as a father living in the house with us, until I was about fourteen years old. Yes. About fourteen years old. I thank Allah for my mother, most of all, but also for my grandfather and grandmother.
While he was in prison, he told my mother, he said, "I'm going to ask my father and mother to come and stay with you all. They will help you with the children." And they did. With the house and the children, they did, big help. Something else that's very important to note too, and that is that my father, before he was in prison, there was a period of time like five or seven years, maybe, as much as seven years, when my father was, in the words of my mother and others who told us this, was actually on the move to keep angry jealous leaders and the supporters of those angry jealous leaders from doing harm to him.
He would disguise himself, he didn't use his name, he would use other names, he even once used my-- In fact, brother Benjamin, who passed, but he didn't pass without leaving his story, his version of my father's life. He said he met Mr. Evans. He didn't meet Mr. Muhammad, he met Mr. Evans, and Evans is my mother's maiden name. Evans, yes, Clara Evans. My father was in disguise so people wouldn't know where and I don't think it was only-- I'm saying this on my own now.
I don't think it was only fear from Nation of Islam leaders who couldn't get the leadership when Fard died. It went to my father, he got-- The great majority of the people to stay with him. I think it was also, my father knew, because they had a been arrested for running the school and taking minors out of the public schools. They called it contributing to the delinquency of a minor. That was the actual charge made against them. Mr. Fard was arrested. My father was arrested. They were in jail, they did some time in the City jail.
I think my father was aware that it wouldn't be too good for the police department to know his whereabouts. I think it was both concerns he had, that the supreme captain, who was Collat, that Collat Muhammad would and he wasn't as dangerous as some of his people who were supporting him. Back then, because my father never said Collat was on his trail. He did say one of Collat's supporters was on his trail, and he said he would see him occasionally. He'd be following him.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Was Collat appointed to position by WD Fard as the supreme captain?
IWDM: Yes, the first two positions, the first two most important positions of the Nation of Islam founded in the early '30s was by the teacher who had the concept and my father who did his work. Even while he was living, he was in the United States with my father and the believers who are the people he attracted.
Still, he was in the background and put my father in the front. My father did most of the teaching and everything. My father was responsible for the secretary, the guards on post, you know they had two guards like ushers in a church, but they called them guards on post who saluted and everything to exchange guards.
He was responsible for all of that but my uncle Collat was the supreme captain so the men got orders directly from Collat.
The men, to take their post, to do whatever they had to. They got orders directly from my uncle Collat but my father was over uncle Collat than Mr. Fard there, then Collat said, "No." He said, "You are not over the men you are only to teach. I'm over the men." He refused to accept that my father was also over the men. He was trying to get an army just like what happened in my lifetime. I've seen it in my lifetime.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: I'm just thinking the same thing.
IWDM: He was trying to but you got the wrong person in mind who was behind that. I'll tell who was behind it one day. After the interview, I'll tell you who was behind it. Collat was given the title Supreme Captain of the Nation of Lost-Found Nation of Islam and my father was given the title First title Supreme Minister of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: I get it. What was your first position in the Nation of Islam or first occupation?
IWDM: My first position was Junior FOI and I became like a lieutenant of the Junior FOI. I used to be a drillmaster for the Junior FOI in Chicago.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: What was your first occupation?
IWDM: My first occupation, doing anything my father asked me to do. 
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Wielding?
IWDM: Clean the yard, wash the windows-
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: You were driving taxi cabs at one point.
IWDM: Well you mean outside job.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: That would have been outside the Nation of Islam.
IWDM: Most of my jobs were inside the Nation of Islam. I only took that long and that was then, I'm a man with children now when you talk about. I was forced to go outside to find a job, yes, but my occupation was minister, it was first. Whatever that Elijah Muhammad gave me, I used to clean poultry at 31st and Wentworth, I went to work at our grocery store and I was only a teenager about 15-16 years old.
Maybe even earlier, maybe 14,15 years old. I cleaned poultry, slaughtered chickens and gutted them, and scald them, and took the feathers off with my brother, Elijah. Both of us did that. On 31st Street when I was a teenager. My father started up himself. All the business, no help from anybody.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: He taught himself how to butcher?
IWDM: Yes, and he had a business mind and he set up the store. He had the meat supplier place. It as a market of some kind. Show him with the chops how to cut the parts of the beef. How to cut it up. He did and I recall looking at his meat as a boy, on display in the cases and it looked just like what I saw as a boy in other markets. Just the same to me, I didn't see any difference.
He did it according to the instructions he got from the seller, the one who sold him the meat. I've seen him take a half of side of a beef, half a cow on his shoulder flip, take it off the meat hook, take his shoulder and lift it up high enough to clear the hook. The chopping block was close by, so he took like two or three steps and knocked it off his shoulder onto the wooden block and cut it up, the honorable Elijah Muhammad.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Now, your aunt Annie.
IWDM: My father's youngest sister?
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Yes. Was she responsible for helping him to learn to read and write at some point?
IWDM: I don't know, I can't say. I've never heard that but I know he told us he taught himself to read and write. No, he didn't say it like that, he said, "I taught myself to read well and to have a good hand." That's what he said. He was in school only three years, elementary school in Georgia so that couldn't have been much. No.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Especially back then.
IWDM: Yes, three years anyway not much but back in that time it was nothing.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: I hear he witnessed atrocities of a friend of his being hanged.
IWDM: No one was a friend of his, it was just people. He just saw African-Americans, blacks. Right after hanging. The way he came wherever he was going, I don't know, but I think he said he was going home and he took a route to a house. I guess trying to make a short. He went through this area where trees were and he saw a black man hanging from the tree.
He said the effect of it on him stayed with him. He said he would die with that effect on him. He said to himself, "I'm going to try and help do something about this." That's what he said. I told you a story he was actually wasted by hard times, by the depression of 1929 to early '30s. He met this man who was a foreigner, he wasn't an American. He was from overseas. He met this stranger and his whole life changed. He had seen that hanging but that hanging hadn't motivated him to take charge of his life. It was only because to do anything about this, he would first have to take charge of his own life. He got the help for that from Mr. Fard.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: We can understand his commitment to Farad's message based on what was happening in his life prior to that.
IWDM: Yes. He was 100% devoted as an obedient servant of Mr. Fard just as G-d. Just as a man obeying G-d. I know that he was obedient to the last.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: To the last day?
IWDM: To the last. Just before his death he was still obedient to Fard but his faith had been shaken and a lot of things going on in his mind. It had been weakened a bit but he was still obeying nobody above Mr. Farad, not even me. I was trying to change his mind. 
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Well, he did say a few things in support of you and what he saw coming from you, what he heard coming from you?
IWDM: He loved me and if anybody could talk to him especially about spiritual matters it was this man right here, his son. He knew my sincerity and he was expecting things from me, big things from me. He told me, he says, "When you get to 40 you're going to get messages from G-d, Allah." That he told me. Said, "Allah's going to talk to you." That's what my father told me.
IWDM: There are witnesses to that. He said, "When you get to 40." That's he told me. Said, "When you get to 40, Allah's going to talk to you." He said, "Not like he talked to me. He talked to me with the mind of a man." Said, "But he's going to talk to you." That's what my father told me.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: That would be 1974?
IWDM: I haven't heard him talk yet. I haven't heard G-d talk yet but I know G-d has certainly helped me and guide me and inspired me. 
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: I believe He's talked to you.
IWDM: I haven't heard his voice.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Very quickly, when did you first meet Malcolm, Louis Farrakhan, and Muhammad Ali? I know it was at different times for each one.
IWDM: Yes. I first met Malcolm at my father's house. We were expecting Malcolm. My father had told us that there was a young man who was in prison and that he has studied my father's teaching while in prison. My father said that he had been corresponding with him. Said, "When he comes out he's going to be a minister." Said, "I'm going to make him my minister."
That's what he said. Said, "He's not going to be like these older ministers caring just to come out just once a week with the Bible and Quran and speak and go back home and do nothing for the rest of the week." He said, "This young man is going to be a minister that I'm going to give--" I can’t think of his exact word but he meant the one that he would put him in the lead but he didn't say that.
He did come get into the lead right away. He went long before he was head minister, head of leader in front of all the ministers except my father. I met him at my father's house, he was just from prison. He came from prison and I don't think he did anything but went to his family and saw his family in Boston maybe and in Detroit maybe somewhere and I doubt if he did that. I think he came straight. His brother brought him, Wilford, brother Wilford brought him straight to my father. He looked like he just come out of prison.
His skin, his complexion was very dull like no sun-- like he hadn't been in the Sun. He was a light-skinned person but pale looking and that's from not being the Sun. He just looked like he had come from prison but he was very warm, he was very bright eyed and very pleasant man and very confident that he would be successful as the minister of Elijah Muhammad and everybody else should be getting in the same mind and should be excited about helping Elijah Muhammad build the nation of Islam. That was Malcolm.
First time I knew of Muhammad Ali, Malcolm told me about Muhammad Ali. He said, "Wallace he said. I met a young brother his name is Cassius Clay. Say he's going to be the next heavyweight champion. That’s what Malcolm told me. Said he's going to be the next heavyweight champion says he's is going to be a Muslim, say he's going to accept Islam. We were excited you know!.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: That was before the Sonny Liston fight.
IWDM: Yes, that's right. I saw him on TV for two or three at least about two or three of his fights before his fought Liston and that was my first acquaintance with him. When Malcolm told me about him, okay now I'm making it my business and see he catch three, five on television. I did watch him and when I first met-- I met him in person he was young guy that everybody knew. Young Cassius Clay but he had changed his name now Muhammad Ali and he's at my father's house. He came to meet my father and I was there.
He was just Muhammad Ali, you know Muhammad Ali, back then, lively but he was very respectful of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and therefore respectful of me too just like Malcolm. Malcolm when I first met him he said, "This is Minister Wallace he had heard about me." He called me Minister Wallace. Said, "This is Minister Wallace." Because Malcolm joined about the mid-'50, early '50. I was the minister in 1952. I was a minister young minister in 1952 but didn't have any congregation. I would just speak at the local temple in Chicago, headquarters in Chicago. Yes, I was speaking.
He knew of me as a minister and I was different. He said, "Minister Wallace." With the excitement of, "This is minister Wallace." He said, "You young brothers, say what are you doing?" After he said that he said, "You young brother, what you're doing?" We didn't know exactly what he meant but I had a feeling what he meant. What are you doing for Nation of Islam? For your father?
He said, "You young brothers have to get busy and help the messenger build the Nation of Islam." He came to visit, he's just out of prison and that's what he's telling us on the first meeting with him. Muhammad Ali he was just happy to meet the family members and very subdued in their own Elijah Muhammad 's presence because he went subdued outside, outside of his residence.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Minister Farrakhan, when did you first meet?
IWDM: You're asking me easy questions because the way I met those people was very special. The way I first met Minister Farrakhan, very special. Minister Farrakhan was attending Saviours' Day. He had not yet become officially a member of the Nation of Islam. He had a process, he was a Pretty Boy Floyd. He had a process and he had his beautiful wife with it, had his beautiful wife with him, Betsy Jeanne and I meant both of them in a restaurant where I was the manager.
I had moved up from taking care of the groceries and delivering groceries and cleaning plates and then working in the restaurant as a cashier and cleanup man then a cook. I tried cooking and they liked my cooking. I became the cook and after I had cooked my father made me the manager of the restaurant.
When Farrakhan came to Chicago for Saviours' Day, I was the manager of the restaurant. He came there to eat like most of them there, they come to eat at the restaurant at Saviours' Day. I remember exactly his words to me. He too. He said, "You're the messenger's son?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Wallace?" I said, "Yes." He hadn't been converted yet, because his conversation was just like street guys conversation although he had been affected by the Nation of Islam but his conversation was like street talk because he starts talking about women to me.
He started talking about women to me and how popular he was with women before he met his wife and he introduced his wife to me and said she put me in check. She was a very beautiful woman I met her, Betsy Jeanne. Very beautiful woman, very attractive woman and very modest woman and humble woman but friendly. She was warm, very warm too and I think it's because of Elijah Muhammad.
Anybody back then meeting members of Elijah Muhammad immediate family, I don't know anybody I think not humble, I think humble is the real word. Not only Elijah Muhammad but anyone close to him like my mother, of course, but also his children. They would humble themselves in our presence and that's how she was. That’s how I met him. It was at the restaurant on Saviours' Day and ever since then, ever since that time we have been aware of each other. He made it his business to write me, he used to write me and I used to write him back.
I became the minister of Philadelphia and that's not far from Boston, he was a minister in Boston. We were close by and I visited him in his home, he visited me in my home. At that time Shirley and we had Laila, our only child was Laila, a girl and we would take Laila and go to his home and visit him at his home. His oldest daughter, her name is Mahasin but then she was named after her mother, she was called Betsy Jeanne.
We became friends. Yes, and the friendship survived the separation of ideas because he stuck with the old ideas of Nation of Islam that Elijah Muhammad was carefully weening us off of and I kept moving forward with the change from the old teachings to a more acceptable teaching of Islam or to a more acceptable idea of religion. Though we separated and at times I had to regard him as a foe. A rival that was hurtful because he was saying things about me that were hurtful and he was saying that I was also saying things about my father that was hurtful.
I'm sure many things I said about my father was hurtful because I had to bring the right idea to the people and they were seeing him as a messenger of G-d which was in conflict with the teachings of the Quran as you know. A lot of things I was saying was hurtful and I knew my logic told me that you can't go easy with this.
If you go easy with it, the people will never change. You got to let them know that you are dead serious and that a wrong has been done. If I had went soft through with it, the people would still be back there. In fact, even coming hard many of them couldn't wake up, many of them couldn't see.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: What would you say of the significance of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in not just to African-American history but American history?
IWDM: What is?
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: What do you see has his significant in terms of his contributions in Americans history?
IWDM: The significance of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad? He brought leadership to African-American people, to Negroes as we were called back then. He called the so-called Negro after his teachers' of language. He uses his teachers' language and he called us so-called Negroes. When I was a boy that's what we called ourselves. What he brought was new leadership and a freedom of thought that we had not heard of or dreamed of. A freedom of thought. A Freedom of thought the challenged White man's authority, not only in America but in the world.
The freedom of thought to challenge white man's authority and to challenge his claim to being a superior race. Not that majority of the whites claimed to be superior, we know they didn't but that minority was so strong that they effected life for blacks all over the world especially in America. His greatest contribution was what Fard did to his mind to free his mind up where he was not intimidated by the white man's achievements in the world that he could talk to him on a level, on an equal plane, on equal level as man to man.
Talk to him as man to man and then he could fire us up not to have any fear or hesitation to do the same thing to talk to the white world not just a white man. Many of us could talk to a white man but none of us could talk to the white world until Elijah Muhammad did it except Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass talked to the white world but it was just a part of a speech. For Elijah Muhammad, it was a mission, his mission was to do that.
Frederick Douglass said to the white world, he said, "You claim to believe in Christ Jesus, you claim to be Christians, followers of Christ Jesus yet your behavior is such that will shame a nation of savages." No, he also added democracy, "-and you claim democracy but your behavior such that will shame a nation of savages." Now, he was he was talking to a white world. That was a great man.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Yes, he was.
IWDM: Great man, great leader but it didn't happen again until Elijah Muhammad.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Now, the movie project that we're working on, what kind of significance do you think the portrayal of Elijah Muhammad in the development and evolution of the Nation of Islam up to your leadership? What significance do you think that holds? How important is it for people to see that?
IWDM: How I see him? I see him as the Reverend Jackson acknowledged to me and he didn't tell me to keep it a secret but I think it was private. It was in private that he said this to me so I'm saying it. We publish this, understand that he didn't give us permission. What he said to me because I expressed a surprise at what he was saying to me about the conversation that members of the Black Caucus would have, positive words about my father. It surprised me.
I thought a few of them would have something good to say about my father but I thought the majority of them was afraid to acknowledge him in any positive way. It would be just negative, negative all the time. He said, "You know what we call your father?" He said, "Behind doors you know what we call your father?" I said, "No." He said, "We call him father." That's what Reverend Jesse Jackson told me.
That's how I see him, that's exactly how I see him. He was the father of the Black race after slavery, after discrimination, segregation. We got a leader Elijah Muhammad. He was father of the black race. He’s the one that grew us up from boys, ashamed to be called black or ashamed to think positive about our black skin and our nappy hair. He made me like nappy hair so much until-- I'm telling you nappy hair in my opinion is beautiful I mean really beautiful. I'm not joking, I'm serious.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: I understand.
IWDM: It's a beautiful hair, nappy hair.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Yes, it is.
IWDM: I mean curls, twisting up at the skin and making knots like a nap rug. Wash it, put some oil on it, that's a handsome man. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad influences in my life and thinking I'm sure made me grow up like that. I never saw nappy hair as bad. It angered me when I hear somebody say, "You have a nappy head." It angers me now when I hear stuff like that. Black was a fighting word that's why you cursed each other out.
You black so and so and then you better be on guard because you might get knocked out in the mouth. But all that was changed by Elijah Muhammad. Not only that, Elijah Muhammad talked to people about their diet. He didn't demand that they become Muslim in nation of Islam but he shared his teaching with everybody and he said don't eat that pork, don't eat that pork, don't eat that cheap meat me and they ate the cheapest parts of the pig.
Now you know that I came up in a poor neighborhood, the grocery store where the pig was on display, you didn't see chops and all those fine pieces of ham. You saw feet, snout, fat back. You saw the cheapest part and now you have blood pressure and death. So, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad he's telling them not to eat that stuff and he's telling them to care about yourself. Clean yourself up, wear clean clothes and shine your shoes he would say.
That's a father and a good father. That's not an ordinary father, that's an exceptional father. I agree with Reverend Jackson he's a father. To me that's what he was to us more than anything else, a father. But with that teaching comes a reform on how you treat your wife, a reform of how we think about our wives, how we think about our children, our obligation to our wife and family and children, to our home in to our neighborhood. He made us more conscious of this than anybody else.
I see him as the social reform teacher and leader with strong moral emphasis in his message. He insisted upon truthfulness, cleanliness, righteousness although the concept of G-d and man was different, it wasn't in accord with Islam.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Wonderful wow. With that the focus is clear and I'm sure that we can use this information to fine tune the script on the life of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and those wonderful supporters and family members of Elijah Muhammad. We just think it's a necessary portrayal particularly in this day and time and in terms of how people are viewing Islam and the misconceptions of Islam in the world where we have a capturalized picture of how Islam can come into the world and not be finely tuned, and not be all in accord with the Quran.
IWDM: There are many groups small groups, not very big ones but many small groups throughout the world that have teachings about Islam and Muhammad the prophet, peace be upon him, and prophet and messenger of G-d from Mecca who established a religion in Arabia and it spread from there to Africa and Asia and even Europe and now here and all over the world.
There are groups that if you heard what they teach, you would say, "Wow, this is almost the strangest, as strange as what Elijah Muhammad taught in his early days." Very strange stuff and he was not the only one to say G-d comes in a man. There’s another group long before his time who claimed that one of their leaders was G-d in the flesh. No, it wasn’t the Moorish American.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Ahmadiyyah?
IWDM: No, I don't want to give you a name but they're still known, they're still around. Not Ahmadiyyah, not Moorish America. No, this is Arab, this came from the overseas and they say that their leader was G-d and the leader was executed still saying he was G-d.
Interviewer: Really?
Wallace: Yes, the government executed him,
killed him and his followers still exist and they still believe. We know of another great story like that, right?
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Yes, okay. We have a very excellent boxing promoter Murad Muhammad out in the Newark New Jersey area who is-
IWDM: Our friend, he is brother and friend.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: He’s promised to come aboard and give some help toward financing this film and making it a reality. Another very good brother film producer and director Hadi Shabazz called me up who has already begun the story board and laying out the budget for the filming. What you’ve seen cost the items that are included in that scene and they’re coming up with a total budget so they’ll know what we have to work with.
Were really looking forward to seeing that this film is a reality for ourselves to help just make ourselves feel better as a community and know that our contribution is not caught unseen, we know Allah sees and rewards. It’s just good for our family members and friends and fellow Americans and fellow world citizens to know what this whole development was about not to mention coming up to your leadership. That’s going to be a whole another film now.
IWDM: Don’t worry about that one.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: That’s always changing that’s what I’ve found out.
IWDM: Let’s forget that one for now until we finish working on that. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad he was a man of great contrasts that I’ve seen him go out on a Sunday and preach the white man to hell. He had just sat down with a white man and had coffee that morning before going out to preach.
Most people don’t know these two extremes of Elijah Muhammad. He would caution us when he’d give us a fiery message he’d say, "Now don’t you go out and think you can take the law into your own hands. It’s a dangerous time and you’ll only lose your life." He said we are not to kill, he said our savior G-d himself will take care of it. That’s what he taught us and he taught all of us, that's what he taught all of us.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: He taught the very sober.
IWDM: He knew how to use fire but also how to contain it, control it.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Thank you for your time.
IWDM: Lastly, you should include this somewhere, Chicago Magazine is the magazine of Channel 11 Public Television. Called the Honorable Elijah Muhammad recently about two years ago I think, one of the 100 men, persons who had the most influence on the history of Chicago, I didn’t say black, on the history of Chicago. Sun Times came out later like a year later or so sometimes they had the same thing about the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. That he is among a lot of 100 or so prominent persons who influenced the history of Chicago so you should get that.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Well, like mention of that?
IWDM: Yes, you should get it and you should show it on the film because that says what I would like the people to hear. That the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was not just a black with significance in the Black community but the white establishment rejected his extremism and his language that resembled Black supremacy. Through all of that, they were able to see that here's a man that’s really making a positive contribution in spite of what he is saying in the extremes. That should be-
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: On the highlights.
IWDM: -the first thing that you say about the Honorable Elijah Muhammad before you say anything else about him. You should mention that he died he passed and after he passed, these are things that the establishment have said about him. You know you see all kind of citations at his passing from people high in government, Mayors etc. I think that’s the way we should introduce him first. Introduce him as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, passed February 24, 1975 and then show what these people said about him after he passed and even what the Readers' Digest said this in his life, early in his life. Readers' Digest said this I think during the civil rights upheavals. Readers' Digest you can look this up they’ll find it for you, that Elijah Muhammad is the most significant Black man in America that’s what they said. They’re saying something most significant Black man in America.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: Were going to find it.
IWDM: I think we should introduce him that way first and then go back to his family.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: I got it.
IWDM: All right.
Instructor Benjamin Bilal: I got it.
IWDM: Okay.
Interviewer: Thank you very much.
IWDM: Thank you. Allah bless you and you have my endorsement and my full support.


