11/21/1993
IWDM Study Library
The Ego and Superego Personality

By Imam W. Deen Mohammed
As-salaam Alaykum.
That is peace be on you. Al-humdulilahir rabbil aalameen, the praise is for Allah, that is G-d, Lord of all the worlds. We witness that there is but one G-d. And we witness that Muhammad to whom the Quran was revealed is the last prophet, Allah servant, and messenger. The prayers and the peace be upon him and what follows of that traditional salute to the last prophet. Let me first express my appreciative for the opportunity to address you here in Los Angeles on this occasion. And to again say that we were certainly fortunate to witness the banquet last night. It was a very excellent, well planned, well-done program.
We appreciated the message of help that came from the keynote speaker, a man of many, many wonderful credits. A very qualified man, a leader in his field. That is the field of business, the field of economics. I want to talk a little bit about the title we've chosen so that we won't confuse it with the common knowledge or ordinary meaning that we would associate with expressing ego and superego. I'm aware of a Sigmund Freud’s study of the human nature, psyche. And what is said of the ego inside the field of psychology or psychoanalysis. I don't particularly accept this idea of the ego that we find in psychology.
When I say superego, I'm only recognizing one meaning for the superego and that is the personality or psychology. The personality of the human being, its behavior and all that we would think of in the total picture of a sensitive responsive human person. And for us, that person really comes into his or her real life or intended life when that person finds its place in society, its service in society, and accepts responsibility for the welfare of society or accept at least his or her share in the responsibility for the welfare of the society.
I would like to point to a few figures in the African American’s history and identify this superego as I am seeing it. When we look at the history of our own people, our life since that history and life began in this part of the world, America, the West, the United States. We can see something very, very special. I don't think anyone with the knowledge of the life of a people how they began their life, how their life was lived, and how they turned out to be or how they came to be established.
If we would look at the reports on people, family, tribe or nations or races. However, we define the group, if we would look at the reports on people, the life of people. Their struggle and their final achievement of success for themselves. We can't find any, I don't think, more deserving of our attention than the life of our own people, the African American people. Now, I do believe, and I've said this on more than one occasion. I do believe that had we then put in a time far behind us. And what happened to us had happened like 2,000 or even a thousand, no, I would say it has to be prior to the advent of Muhammad the last prophet, prayers and peace be on him.
If what had happened to us had happened prior to the advent of the last prophet. Then I'm certain that we would have had our life and our history formed in the context of Revelation. Because I find no people in reveal books having a life more deserving of that time of detention than our own people, the African American people. But I'm going to just begin with our life here in the United States of America or in America in the Western hemisphere. We were brought from the homeland called Africa. And we were sold to individuals of the European, American or Caucasian race.
We were sold to them and there are a few, which here in this particular vein that I am in right now. But there are few, very few reports of free people of color purchasing a very, very few people that were brought from African and having them as their slaves. But we know the great majority of the slaves were the property of what we call the white race, white folks. So, our life as we can know it, circumstances don't permit us to know our life on the continent of Africa. We can only know of our people's life on the continent of Africa. We don't know of our life on the continent of Africa.
We can only know how our people lived prior to the slave trade and doing the slave trade. We can know how African people live today and since that time till today. We can know that, but where did this man come from? Where did he come from? Did he come from Egypt? Did he come from Sudan? Did he come from Ghana? Did he come from Sierra Leone? Where did this man come from? Did he come from Nigeria? I don't know and you don't know and the same goes for you. Even for Alex Haley though I recognize his great work. His great book. We don't know because the circumstances that we came into this country upon won't permit us to know that.
We were just purchased by people. Nobody was recording history. Nobody recall the name of the person that was purchased or taken from Africa. That he was taken from this spot, and his name is, no, that wasn't the interest. The interest was simply to bring persons to this part of the world that could do the labor that had to be done. And in some parts of the United States, the conditions were such that the Indian, the first natives of this part of the world, they couldn't survive those conditions. This is history. So, the American Indian was tried, he was used for labor, couldn't survive the condition. So, they thought Africa, the continent of Africa.
Those people over there, they live in similar circumstances environments like Carolinas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and different parts of the United States. They said, "Yes, they live in similar environments. They can stand the heat and humidity, and the mosquitoes, so let's try them out." And we were brought here for that purpose, to work in the wilderness or the unestablished land. When it was a wilderness or virgins’ wilderness, we were brought here to supply the need. The need for a particular kind of laborer. And there was no interest in who we were, what tribe we were being taken from or what history we've been taken from, what culture we were being taken from, what religion we were being taken from.
No interest to know that. There's much I would like to say about this story. But when we look now at the history of other people that were taken from their origin, their land of origin, and brought to another land and put in a terrible situation, made the subjects or dependents of another people, we can't find the likeness of our history and our experience. We can't find the likeness of it. Now, I asked the question that I used to ask when I was a minister for the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.
I ask this question now again, I asked it maybe 30 years ago. If there is a G-d of Justice who came to other people or sent helpers from Himself to help other people in terrible situations who had been cut off from their forefathers or who had been cut off from their tradition, their traditional life, and their past history of freedom or of glory or whatever. If He, G-d that is, was justified to come to their rescue, intervene Himself, and send a helper from Himself with a message from Himself to those people, to me. My common sense says we are more deserving of an answer from G-d than the people that we give recognition to in scripture and in history.
Yes, I know of no people in scriptural books or in history books that are more deserving of divine intervention on their behalf than my own people, myself and my own people. I know of no other. I repeat, I believe if we had had this happen to us prior to the advent of prophet Muhammad, the last prophet, prayers and peace be on him, we would be in scripture. Our life would have come in scripture. The great men who were able to influence in the beginning of a superego, the great men like Frederick Douglass, and others would not yet be called men of vision. They would be called men of divine vision.
They would not just be called social activists or political activists or educators, they would be called prophets. I can't find, even Moses. “Well, Moses parted the Red Sea”. Yes, I'm still trying to see that.
I can't find any man, any prophetic figure that is of more significant in my opinion than Frederick Douglass in the life of our people. Now I know this is saying something to you and disturbing some of you maybe. Why are we not recognized? Don't you know Dr. King is called a prophet by many of his people? And some of the same African Americans that called Dr. King a prophet has been in conversation with me and called Elijah Muhammad a prophet. And I mean with reverence. Why is that tendency in some of us to perceive or to see Dr. King or men like Dr. King and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as prophets?
Because common sense says, “these men have rose in our life no different from the role of Moses in the life of the Hebrew, no different. And G-d was with Moses, G-d was with Dr. King. G-d was with Moses, G-d was with Elijah Muhammad and I'm speaking for his followers. His followers will tell you that right now. G-d was with Moses, G-d was with Elijah Muhammad. They'll tell you that right now. And I for one won't have anything to say, I'll just listen. I want to make it clear to you that I do not recognize any prophet from Allah, from G-d after Muhammad the prophet. Make that very clear to you.
Congregation: Allahu Akbar.
Attendee: Arabia.
IWDM: Yes, that's the one sister. Sallallahu alayhi was salam, prayers and the peace be on him, that's what I said.
You know Paul said, “there could be a whole lot of talking in tongues. But let's talk plain so we can build logic upon logic, make sense out of things”. So, if I recognize and I do, Muhammad of the Quran. The Quran, the Holy Book read by Muslims all of this world, as the last prophet, then how am I to explain what I'm saying? I see prophets as messengers of G-d in a very, very particular special context. Outside of that context, I respect Christians and other people, other religions referring to their figures as prophets. But not in that context, outside of that context. I have read the Bible, I'm very familiar with the Bible. And the older books of the Bible use language like seer. S-E-E-R, seer for prophets.
A person with the ability to foresee, psychic people, those who have strong psyche and ability to see into the future or to anticipate what's going to happen, and predict what's going to happen. Such persons, if they come as servants of G-d, they would be identified and even today, there are those who identify them as prophets. That is not prophet in the context of the major prophet, or the classic prophet of Christians. Prophets like Abraham, Ibrahim we say in Quranic language, in Arabic, Moses or Musa, and Jesus or Isa, upon them be peace, and the last prophet Muhammad.
What make these prophets now of scripture a different group or set of beings or prophets, prophetic figures, from the rest of these? What makes them different? What separates them from the rest, from the many many others that people are calling prophets? G-d the Creator, highly glorified is He. He sends prophets to introduce to man or to society a particular page in His plan for man or for society.
This is to be seen and treated separate from this nature of man and woman that permits individuals to anticipate the future, to explain happenings in the life of man in society, and predict or anticipate the future. And do it in the name of G-d, a supreme being, an almighty power above them, this is different from that. Prophets like the ones that are called minor prophets in the Bible. And I would say because maybe I'm not quite comfortable with that language, but I am comfortable with this language, prophets like Dr. King and many others that we have great respect for.
Prophets like them, though their life be worthy of our study, worthy of our attention. And maybe will excite in us respect for G-d and belief in G-d just like the prophet Abraham, the prophet Moses, and others will do. These figures, these prophetic figures, they did not come revealing to us or as a sign from G-d to us that now G-d is opening up another area for us to see in His plan for man on this earth. We will find they're already being in existence the original type for men like Dr. King. The original type for men like anyone that we would give or want to give such respect to or such credit to. We will find already the prophets that came from G-d written in the Catholic scriptures, we find already figures, original types for them. So, we would have to say that Dr. King is a man like one of the prophets of the Bible. One the types are already there. And any other figure, some of these figures, they can't rightly be called men like types in the Bible because we find in the Bible the type is sometimes shrouded in secrecy, covered with mud so we can't even really see exactly what is the original figure, what is the pure figure because the figure is shrouded in secrecy, shrouded in mud. I didn't want to say filth, so I said mud.
I have to sympathize with followers of men like prophet Jones, prophet Cherry, and prophet Elijah Muhammad or messenger Elijah Muhammad. I have to sympathize with those who have been influenced by the Bible. And they have no reference except the Bible. So, they say, “Elijah is a prophet, Elijah is a messenger of G-d, prophet Jones is a prophet, and there are others. I'm not naming all of them, in our history that identified as prophet. All right, am I making myself clear?
Congregation: Yes, you are.
IWDM: I hope I'm making myself clear. I understand now that G-d in creating this universe, set this universe to laws, and everything that He created of life on this earth, He set it to laws. And these laws work to eventually establish G-d's plan. G-d's plan for human beings. We speak of the natural phenomenon and we see the natural phenomenon in the physical or natural order, the effects of climate, the effects of weather. And we see how this particular area or this particular realm of reality has affected human beings as we have lived and multiplied on this earth.
We can't explain how this human society is today without some respect for the role of the natural environment and weather in the destiny of man, all right? Okay. Well, now man comes up and he reacts to this natural phenomenon, natural world, and then he finds that his social life is not only affected by him, but it's also affected by natural phenomena. And that just as the physical environment and climate, the weather influences the shaping of man social order, economic, business, economic affected, and these influences are not always in the hands of man.
Why? It is because of the natural factor, the physical factor, the nature of the earth itself. Allah says, and this is Revelation. Allah that is G-d says in the Quran that man should not think that his is a bigger creation than this world order we call the universe or the cosmic order. We are never to think that is Muslims. Muslims are never to think that the human creation is a bigger matter than the creation of the stars, and the moon, and the sun, and all of this physical reality, no.
We come into this world and our minds are freed, and we have the power of reason, and we begin to shape our environment with our own hands, even shape the circumstances for our life in the future with our own hands, and we forget that individually, we are to be identified. You don't look at the history of man as a society or as a group and come up with a description of what a man is. You look at the individual person in his anatomy, and in his makeup, and the possibilities for his mind, and you come up with a definition for what a man is, for what a human being is. Individually, we are subject to physical reality. We cannot get life except by the means of physical reality.
And physical death comes upon each and every one of us, we cannot escape it. We are born physically in the wombs of our mothers coming here with no authority, no power whatsoever, knowing nothing, helpless. That tells us that our first support is this physical reality, that's our first support, and it is a necessity we cannot get around, we live on the physical reality.
We're born of the physical reality, we must live upon the physical reality, and the physical reality finally swallows us up again. We’re dead and we're cycled into it again. This is the reality. So, what makes us so super?
When we're born like a rabbit or a chicken or a horse, and live like that and die like that, no superego. But when we're born like Muhammad and turn out like Muhammad, there is a superego. When we come into this world and we find a scheme, a plan for our life, and we believe that that scheme or that plan was long ago written in the very physical reality itself. And that the physical reality like a seed of any fruit or any living thing, it has in it the plan, the pattern for its life, its future, and its destiny.
We believe then that our physical reality, this physical self of mine, nothing but the flesh, the human anatomy, the design that we study as a physical thing, as a physical purely material or physical entity, in it, as it is in the seed, in it is a plan for my life, and for my future. I cannot get any more for myself that's already written in this physical entity. You can't get more of an apple out of an apple seed than it's in an apple seed. Similarly, you can't get more of human being out of a human being's body than is already in the human being's body. And Allah created the human being's body, G-d the Creator, He is the producer of the human being's body.
All right, now, I want to digress just a little bit. Our keynote speaker last night, he said. No, not the keynote speaker, pardon me, correction. Although the keynote speaker what he said and he gave us what we can use to write books, to develop into books. But it was the one who was a former actor, Nick Stewart. He said that "A chain is no stronger than its weakest link. Let us make the black community strong and save America." I thought I would just get off the road a little bit and go back and pick up what he said last night. Now let's get back on the road that I'm on now.
G-d says in Revelation we call Quran to Muhammad the last prophet, of us the following of that prophet, "You are the best community brought out or evolved for all people." “Antum khaira ummatan ukrijat lin nas”. And I repeat the translation in English, "You are the best community brought out or evolved for all people." “Lin Nas” means for all people. You, speaking to us collectively. And the same G-d tells us with the same Revelation, with the same Quran or Holy Book, "You will certainly find in Muhammad an excellent model for you to emulate."
Any, not just us, didn't say just Arabs, Africans or just Muslims, no, “any who believe in G-d in the last day”.
One condition is that the person believes in a G-d, that there is a G-d of everything. The other is that they also believe that that G-d will have the final say. We all will have to one day hear that 
G-d decide our life, our judgment, justice for us. That G-d will one day decide that. Any who believe in G-d and in the last day, so that means all the religious people who believe in G-d, the G-d of everything, and believe in a final day that's going to bring the matter clearly before all of us. Going to settle the matter for all of us on this earth. 
The great issues we have between each other, the great questions that lay, weigh heavily on our minds and soul, there will be a day when it all will cleared up by one who is that G-d, the same
G-d. Any who believes in that, they will find in Muhammad a most excellent model as an example of what the human being should be about, of what the human being should devote himself to, of how the human being is to live, behave, and progress in this scheme of things created by G-d. The best community. Look at the language, “khaira ummatan”. The way the language is written, it is not written to make us arrogant. It is not written to make us feel that we have some exclusive to this.
The language is written really to make us feel that, yes, we have this, but we can lose it. Some other people may qualify and G-d may give it to them. That's how the language is written, and that's how G-d addresses His special favors to people. That it is yours as long as you respect it. If you don't respect it, He might pass it on to somebody else. “You are the best community brought out or evolved for all people”. Now, we want to make reference to something else now, and that is to man or to the origin of individuals in society, the origin. We know that we are matter that is material that belongs to the total system of material things.
That's why G-d wants us to understand that our creation is not a bigger creation than this total material scheme or plan, we call the universe or whatever we might call it. We know also that
G-d has given us a free will and a rational mind. And because of this special creation, this is a special creation. Because of this special creation, our life, our conscience, our sense of awareness, and our connection with the external existence goes to the farthest region, to the farthest horizon of this big, vast material reality. Although we are in body kind of enslaved, that is restricted in our movement, in our spirit, and in our mind, we're not restricted.
I can sit here in this small place and if I have a way to look out upon the world beyond this place, my spirit and my mind can venture out, extend outward and put me in the farthest region of this universe. I can think myself outside of the small confine into the big, open, vast space we call this material reality. Upon that, we have to say that though man is a human mortal having his birth on this earth, the place of his existence and his travel is the extent of the whole physical creation. While we are native people of earth, when we have broadened our mind and venture out with our spirit to visit the regions beyond earth and this solar system, we must say that we're also natives of the universe.
Does that make sense?
Congregation: Yes.
IWDM: We are natives of the universe. And we didn't need the greatest astronomer to take us out there, it's just the nature of every person to want to go out and sense the great distance beyond, to look as far as we can look and let our imagination take us beyond our physical sight ability. We will have thoughts about what's out there in the great distance and anything we think affects our life. This affects our life. Our spirit goes out there and we wonder what's out there.
We wonder what kind of creature G-d made, what kind of creature this is that has a spirit that wants to soar away from this and fly away out trillions and trillions of miles into space to know what is in that dark, what is in the unknown distance. Yes, that is a super ego.
Now that’s super ego. The human being that just born like a rabbit or a chicken or a dog and lived their life off that way and never get that second breath from G-d, no super ego. And it is the cause of men so favored by G-d that we can collectively identify ourselves in our movement along the plan that those men receive as a super ego. Again, I want to say and make it clear that there is no prophet for me or for any Muslim in his sane mind that have good understanding after the Muhammad the last prophet. But Fredrick Douglas to me and the movement that he kind of provided a hub for, a center for, a superego. Yes, a superego.
I can easily see language like this in script. Frederick Douglass said, "Your claim to Christ," and we say peace be upon the prophet. “Your claim to democracy”. He said, "You're presenting yourself as a model for other nations to emulate, to follow. Your behavior would shame a nation of savages”. Now, I find no prophet speaking with more succinct language, with more powerful language with a power to punch and kick the heart and make the heart come to its senses, hit the head and make the brain come to its senses. I find none of them with any more punch in their word than Fredrick Douglass had when he as a slave.
He was born a slave, raised a slave, fled from slavery, came up and then speak to his master who had his whole race as their property in slavery, as their property, as their personal property. And then he speaks to them like that. He sees a contradiction. That here are a people that claim Jesus and the man that I see in the gospel in the New Testament is not the society I see oppressing me, holding me down and keeping me from my human life. And then he said, they claim democracy but the democracy they claim, I don't see it working. They claim to be a society that other societies should copy, to see as an example. A democracy, a perfect democracy, a great democracy, a divinely, destined democracy but when I look at their behavior, I see a nation that would shame a nation of savages. Oh man, I'm telling you that’s powerful.
To me, that's the proof that the African American people have a super-ego. Yes, we have a super-ego. The super-ego does not come all at once. The super-ego evolved just like humanity evolved. From lower and weaker, from small to greater and stronger and great et cetera. Until a great civilization is realized and then we start talking about ego and super-ego. Now, I’m going to make it a little bit more nervous for you.
After Frederick Douglass and the freedom movement comes something called the lost and found Nation of Islam. Not just the Nation of Islam by itself, but when I look at the Nation of Islam as the most noticeable element in another movement. Not the civil rights movement, not Frederick Douglass movement, another movement. However, it's not completely to be separated or divorced from Frederick Douglass movement. It can't be but because it is so strange, so odd and so original we have to say, "Here's is a new movement coming into being."
But we can't again see, I repeat, see this movement as only the Nation of Islam. Because when we study what was happening in the early '30s and even in the '20s, we see likeness of what's happening earlier in what was formed as the Nation of Islam. We still have the photo of the Fruit of Islam under its first captain, who was called the Supreme Captain. The blood brother to Elijah Muhammad, my uncle who's passed, passed before my father did, Kallatt Muhammad. His name is spelled K-A-L-L-A-T-T. Kallatt. Kallatt Muhammad. How did they dress? The photo shows the men dressed in suits, dress shirts, ties, like this tie, not a bow tie like what you see now, straight ties and Fezs like the Moroccan Fez or like the Turkish Fez.
Now, if we can't find that picture of the male member in an order called Muslim or Al-Islam, before Fard did that, then we have to say Fard began that, he started that. But it is a known fact, the Moorish Science Temple members will tell you that that was the dress given them by their leader who also was thought to be a Prophet, Noble Drew Ali. Here is Fard imitating or borrowing or taking from Noble Drew Ali who came before him. Did he only take that? No, we find him also taking language, terminology. Fard was not the first to claim that the whole world was Asia and that Africa is Asia and that we are to be correctly referred to as Asiatic, not African.
It never caught on but that's what Drew Ali taught his followers, and they would tell you right today, they're Asiatic. After the Moors. That's what they'll tell you. Where the Moors come from, did they come from Asia or Africa? They came from Africa. The Moors came from Africa, not Asia. North Africa or the West before the white world was called the West. That part of Africa was called the West. This is history. When anyone said the West prior to the discovery of the new world, they were talking about the Moors, that part of the world. The Moors. That's what they were talking about, the Maghrib, the West.
So Fard comes now and he borrows from the look, from the dress and he borrows from the language and he says to us, through Elijah Muhammad, a lot of you don't know this, but Fard didn't hardly ever speak directly, hardly anything. Everything he said was through Elijah Muhammad his student. Those lessons that many of you studied, you thought they were original from Fard, if you look on those lessons, it says, "These questions are answered very near correct by one of the Lost/Found in the wilderness of North America by the name of Elijah Muhammad.
So, we're reciting lessons and blowing our heads up, inflating our heads, and some of us thought we're so big that we could ignore Elijah Muhammad. And wasn’t doing nothing but repeating the answer that Elijah Muhammad gave his teacher Fard. Fard would ask Elijah the question and Elijah would give the answer. Who is the original man? The original man is the Asiatic black man. Didn't say the African black man, the original man is the Asiatic black man. Now, you cannot like what I'm saying, but you can't take it out of history. These are not my words; these are words of the Nation of Islam. The original man is the Asiatic black man, now here comes the inflation. “The owner, the maker, the cream, best of the crop of the planet earth”. Now it’s going to get heavier and heavier.
The father of civilization. Now, here's where it blows the black man’s mind, “and the G-d of the universe”. Oh, Lord. Now let us see how original is that language. The Catholic theology, “from 
G-d, man and back to G-d”. That's where the idea came from. In Catholic theology, they say, "Man's origin is to be traced back to G-d. And he descends from G-d into the earth, into the world and ascends again back up to G-d to rule on the throne of G-d." So Fard say, "I've got to get something for this black man that's crushed by those people who believe that. I've got to get something for these black subjects of theirs that's equal to that." So, he says, "The black man is the original man, the owner, the maker, the cream of the planet, the father of civilization, the G-d of the Universe." What gives him the idea now that there was an accommodation in the suffering black community of places like Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee for that kind of talk? There were already black men that was saying to black people they were G-d, divine. They were already, yes. Prophet Jones, Father Divine, Daddy Grace. Father Divine he was teaching that before even Fard. Yes, so there was already an ear for that kind of language and Fard knew it. So, Fard used it. He said, “What means and methods must be used?” Here is the man with the original idea, the teacher himself putting the problem or the task to the death and dumb and blind people that he comes to give sight and hearing, etc. too. He said, “Ask them”.
It's like a man coming to the sickest part of the neighborhood. No water, no electricity, no medicine everything is contaminated and disease everywhere. He asked them, "What means and methods must be used?” 
We have to see these things. When you see these things, we can come to the right understanding. All right, and it was not just African Americans, there were some whites of that time too. They were saying outrageous things. They were saying some things that shook the world at that time. You'd be surprised what Henry Ford said back during the time of Fard and Drew Ali about the evil that he saw in the society or in the world.
You'd be surprised what he said. I'm sure his family wouldn't want it to be heard now. And there are others who predicted, in fact, even in 1914 that was supposed to be the end of the world. In 1914 there were men of Europe and America predicting the end of the world. And they weren't just predicting it behind closed doors. No. Their predictions were carried by the press. “The end of the world is coming in 1914”. The end of the world came so often for us, I forgot about it.

Yes. We were told, I was a boy at that time, I was only three years old. We were told that the first prediction of the end of the world was for 1936. And when the world didn't end in 1936, they got some more predictions and between the '60s and '75 man we got a lot of predictions. But it was always kind of softened. Because we were told that, "If they would behave better, they would get an extension of time. We can beat prophecy if we know prophecy”. Now, that’s not these folks speaking, that was the voice of the Nation of Islam. “We can beat prophecy is we know prophecy”. What I'm getting at is this, nothing has appeared in the history of man on this earth as noteworthy as the life of the African or the black people on this continent. Now here is this new movement now and I'm saying that out of this new movement we're going to see progress for the super-ego. With this new movement, with this strange movement called the Nation of Islam we're going to see progress for the super ego in the African American people.
In spite of all the strange teachings of the Nation of Islam, the Nation of Islam made a contribution to the progress of the African American people or the black people on this continent. A real contribution. James Brown who sang and got popular, “I'm black and I'm proud”. I know him and I was telling him how that song affected me and how I appreciated him singing such a song because I was a follower of Honorable Elijah Muhammad and we appreciated that language.
He told me, he said, "Minister, it was your father that inspired that song." I’ve had conversations with Jesse Jackson, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and the Reverend Jackson in conversations with me referred to my father as the old man and referred to him also as dad. And he surprised me when he referred to my father as dad. He said, "You didn't know that there are people in our circle, blacks, that see your father as their father too." That's what I was told by Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Now here is a man and a very strange movement called the Nation of Islam being rejected by our people and at the same time being recognized by our people. Our people rejecting it but the very same ones that rejected it we find among them those that recognized it for making real significant, real important contributions to the betterment of our race.
It was the Nation of Islam that had the boldness to challenge white America. And to speak to black America like a daddy and tell black America how to behave if you want respect. And not to be ashamed of your color, your color is the best. Its positive affect is seen on our people. Not only that but our people wanted integration that worked for the movement with Booker T. Washington for self-help, for self-employment, for entrepreneurship et cetera.
A business idea, a self-help plan. But that was lost and forgotten. And it was the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad that awakened it again when there was no support for it. And encouraged our people to be responsible for creating jobs for themselves, to open businesses, acquire land, become producers. The Nation of Islam. And I mean a big vision. Bold, aggressive vision.
He would have in his paper sketches of his idea like the white man long before we had TV, electronics, transistors and all that. He put it in the funny pages. Buck Rodgers. The world of Buck Rogers and Dick Tracey, et cetera. Long before those things came out. Finally, now we're realizing the world that was seen in cartoons. Now it's a reality.
The transistor that Dick Tracy had that nobody had it. It became reality. The modern transportation that we saw in the funny papers is now a reality. The TV and everything when you see the picture and press, it's a reality now. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad saw us having land, having our own trucking line to bring produce from the farm to centers in the city, to supply the grocery stores.
He saw us having cargo planes. He saw us having ships. He did more than Kaffite, who’s in history. A man, he was a free black man while others in the race were a slave. He had a vision to go and open up trade with Africa and got support from whites to do that and they deceived him as they deceived Garvey and his people too.
But anyway, there was the idea that was existing. But they never were as bold and as effective with their language as Honorable Elijah Muhammad. They never were as determined to get their message across to the masses of our people as was the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, he used the typical man, robbed, deprived culturally, no education, no wealth, no job, no dignity in the society. He used that man to form his vanguard. He used that man to form his vanguard to bring the whole race, the poor, the ignorant, the intellectual and all to another higher level of awareness.
Yes. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad did this and he was effective. Very effective. He was so effective that the media changed its psychology. Said, "Look, ignoring Elijah is not working. Elijah doesn't need newspapers; he got his own. Elijah doesn't need the TV; his people see him in person.
And he gets thousands to look at him and listen to him. So, we're not winning against Elijah by denying him public exposure”. So, on 60 minutes. Mike Wallace came and told Americans in prime time about the hate that hate produce.
Look how he introduced it. “The hate that hate produce. Don't be angry with me for showing this new type Negro for giving him exposure with all his dangerous nitroglycerin and everything else that he is carrying with his language. So, don't blame me for it now, because he's not really the cause of himself thinking that way. He's thinking that way because you hated him first. He’s just the hate that hate produce”.

I look back at that time and I say to myself, "Boy, oh boy. If it wasn't for Muhammad, the last prophet, our race would over shadow the Jews and the Hebrews. The Jewish and Hebrew’s prophets and scripture. Our race history would overshadow it. The most talked about plight of people will no longer be the plight of the Hebrews, it would be the plight of the African-American people or the black people.
And it would be no more their prophet that people would be talking about or be looking at. It would be Frederick Douglass, Dr. Martin Luther King, and even Elijah Muhammad that the people would be looking at. And they would say, “Here is a sign that G-d exists. Here a sign that G-d is a G-d of justice. Look how they brought our forefathers”. We would say it and others would say it of us. “They brought the forefathers of these people, to this land and completely separated them from all knowledge of their pass. They cut them off from their land, from their life, from their cultural life, from their history and everything and raised them as empty vessels as animals with no human recollection at all. And G-d, the G-d of justice came to them and quickened in the dead matter of the slaves, a desire to be a man until there was a Fredrick Douglas lashing out. Cutting into heart, soul and conscience of the white rulers. Until he caused them to repent and they say we can't continue this. The slaves must be emancipated. Yes, it would be told in that light, it would be told in that context, in the context of scripture. I read about the moaning and groaning of the Hebrews and how G-d heard their moaning and groaning. They were told to make bricks but just with mud no straw.

And you know you have to have the two together. That's a simple way of making bricks back then. You have to straw in there to hold the mud together. So, they were told that, “Make it without straw”. But when I look at what we were told in this country from day one even until now. I think our sad story deserves more attention than their sad story. For at least they were expecting a deliverer. Even had an idea of how that deliverer should look, what kind of idea he should have in his mind, what his interest should be. And they had the belief that he would be in opposition to oppressive Egypt.
They had an idea of Moses before there was a Moses. We had no idea of a Frederick Douglass until there was a Frederick Douglass. Because there was nothing that told us. Yes, a very special people. Why am I telling you all this? So, you can think yourself special with G-d? "Oh, yes, though we don’t have a prophet in the prophetic scheme or in the classical scheme of prophets. That means one thing and, in the reality, another. We are like them and even greater. We are a greater people than the Hebrews, we are greater than the Jews. Our special people are like Moses’ and even better”. You know what we will do. Now, just to sober you up so you don’t go crazy. I have not told you that so that you will have some arrogance, some high nose over other people. No. When G-d comes to a people, He comes to a people because divine wisdom and divine plan ordered that. Yes. He doesn't come just because your sickness is worse. Your death was more pitiful, that's not the only reason.
He looks at what affects His will, what interferes with His will, what interferes with His light reaching His people, His creation, His dependents, us humans. And then He responds and advances His plan. Because when you look at some of the people, take, for example, Abraham. Where's the great story of suffering in the time of Abraham. The society were really advanced and progressive society in the time of Abraham. And Abraham was well situated. He was the son of a father who was the boss. He was a chief of that time and his people had great civilization. But they had one ignorance. And that was they were not understanding how to see or how to perceive G-d the creator.
They were seeing the G-d in their idols. And Abraham life began with him rejecting the idols, destroying the idols that his father worshiped. But they had a big civilization just like England, just America, big civilization. Idol gods. Advanced civilization, idol gods. Don't ask me to explain. I don't want to hurt any more than I'm hurting and the truth hurts sometimes. No, I'm not. I'm going to leave it just like that. I just said, England and America, great advanced civilization but idol gods. And that's how the society or the civilization of the prophet Abraham was. Ibrahim in Quranic language. Peace be upon him.
So, where was the great moaning and groaning that justified G-d coming to Abraham. Where were the people that suffered so much that justified G-d coming to Abraham? They weren’t around, they weren’t in existence. But there was a need for logic, for sound reasoning and faith to be reconciled in the scheme of G-d for man and it was time for it. So, G-d sent Abraham, Raise up Ibrahim the prophet, Abraham the prophet. So, why have I said this? Why have I pointed and compared our history, our suffering. And I've said that a G-d of justice should come to us, should hear us if that G-d heard the suffering of other people and came to them? Why have I said that?
I've said that to say this. G-d has come to us, G-d has responded to us, G-d has chosen us. Chosen us for what? Chosen us to send the message again, that's been sent by prophets over and over again. And especially by Muhammad to those who would take and separate or isolate a group of people from the family of man, for mistreatment for servitude et cetera.
The message comes again, that no matter how elaborate your scheme, no matter how treacherous your scheme, how deceitful your scheme, how complex, how hard to decode your program that you may use to hold the people down and deny them admittance. The G-d of heaven and earth sees you long before you start your thing. And already have a plan to undo your work before you even began your work. And now G-d will take that that you put down and find in it someone worthy for Him to embrace.
Don't think G-d embrace a black man or a black woman, just because they've been kicked in the butt so many times or just because they've been rejected so many times, or just because they have so many stripes from lashings and inflictions from white man rule of us.
No, that's not what brings G-d to feed all back man. When G-d see a black man in that state, crushed and beaten and denied, rejected and cut off from all understanding. But he's yet trying to be a decent human being, then G-d picks him up.
And He says, “here's a thing that you reject, here's the thing that you single out for abuses, the thing that you've cut off from his humanity. I will take this thing your cut off from humanity and because you don't have as much conscience that it has in it, I'm going to raise it up to be your example, to be your model, to be your boss.

Yes, we have been chosen. We have been chosen because of the circumstances, because of our history, because of the circumstances in our life. We have been chosen to be raised up and be models for the world. And it is going to whether I preach, whether Jesse Jackson preach, we don't have to preach. You will preach, your children will preach, it's going to come.

It's in our destiny to rise up and be the model that G-d wants for the rest of the society, for the rest of the world. Because America was not alone in her wrongdoing to blacks. The whole world sat by idle and watched what was going on and did very little or nothing about it.

The whole world now should be shown a new model of what G-d approved as a picture for man. And believe me, out of that strange history, beginning in slavery, the worst form of slavery ever in the history of a man, out of that freedom movement, out of the strange thing that occurred called the Nation of Islam and whatever affected it to come into existence have come now a new man. A new man. No one can tell me that Allah has not created a new man in America. Born out of circumstances strange and dark, dark and confusing. Here we are today myself and those who think like me, here we are today.
We're not coming up on any kind of false ideas of our worth, we are coming up upon the true idea of our worth. We don't even want it unless G-d said it, we don't even want it unless it's true to reality and here we are rising up. Rising up. I myself, no degree from college. I only went to college a few hours, hope to go back. But I only have a few hours and I'm the leader, a leader of these people now that identify with me.
And in the following are bachelors, masters, doctors. And I get the most recognition and the strongest tribute or whatever you might call it, compliments or whatever from those with the highest degrees and with soundest knowledge. They look at me and they submit to me. I don't want it; I don't want it and I don't ask for it but they give it. They give it because it's demanded of their own knowledge, their own knowledge demands them, their own human mind and conscience demands them to come to me and say, "Minister, Imam" and I look at it and say how did this happen?
And I know myself, I know myself, I say, "No, this isn't, I didn't bring this about. I haven't earned all this." 
Audience member: Yes, you have.
Oh, I know what you're saying but I'm saying something that is more important. This is a group life and I'm just the focus for it. A super ego, a new super ego. See, when a new super ego is born it’s like a new star born in the heavens. It becomes the center for all the bodies around it. Yes, a center for all the bodies around it. When that new super ego was born, it began to feed the whole society. Pretty soon a culture forms, life, knowledge, culture. All the needs for society forms. “You are the best community raised up, brought out or evolved for all people”.
Super ego. What has made your Imam successful? It has been him doing, the fact that he has done the unexpected. That's what has made him so successful. It was expected that he would come up and try and pretend that he was the honorable Elijah Muhammad. It was expected that he would claim may be that he's Fard incarnate. But he did the unexpected. Yes. They thought that he would lash the white man, but instead he came out with two whips, lashing both white and black.
It was thought that the successor would take us a step further in the building of a black nation. Instead, he universalized it and chose just to be a member in a universal nation rather than be an isolated person from that nation that is universal. So, he became universal where the others were not. They were island people. He chose to emphasize universal truth that are broad and all-embracing. They looked for him to die, they start predicting his death. "He won't make it out of the '60s, he won't make it out of the '70s, he won't make it out of the '80s”. And I guess some of them around now saying, “Wallace won’t make it out of the '90s.
But here we are.
We've got more of our members now rising up in society. Every legitimate interest we find our people getting into it. Business, politics, science, technology, the armed services, whatever it is. We find those that belong to this new group that represents a new African American super ego. You find them getting into all these important avenues, all these important positions of interest. Legitimate interest. It's Wonderful. It is wonderful. We have more professional people in my time than we ever had before, anybody can prove me wrong. Prove it. We never had as many professional people as we have now.


