(ThyBlackMan.com) Permit me please to paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi.
First they oppose you. Then they ridicule you. Then they ignore you. Then you win.
This has been the 85-plus year history of the Nation of Islam in North America.
First established on July 4, 1930, in the Heavenly Valley neighborhood of Detroit’s Black Bottom by a somewhat mysterious Arab silk peddler known as “The Saviour,” who held meetings in the homes of residents where he taught them ancient history and called them to come out of the names of their former slave masters’ children, the Nation of Islam was viciously opposed from Day One by authorities who jailed the followers and the leader himself — who was known as W.D. Fard — until he mysteriously disappeared in 1934.
After he left, Fard’s chief lieutenant — Elijah Poole, later known as Elijah Kareem, and then eventually as Elijah Muhammad — led the movement in the face of continued, withering opposition, so much that he fled first to Chicago, where he established his headquarters, and then to Milwaukee and Washington, D.C.
The opposition was unrelenting. Muslims were persecuted for keeping their children from the toxic public schools and teaching them in their own private “home schools” called the “University of Islam.”
The mockery and ridicule of Elijah Muhammad’s followers was also unrelenting, especially that of women and girls who wore scarves covering their hair and wore bulky garments that covered their figures, even as fashions steadily moved toward shorter skirts and more and more revealing cuts, using ever more sheer fabrics. Black people in this country, accustomed to a diet that featured every part of the pig except the “oink,” mocked the Muslim vegetarian-leaning diet and especially the “bean pie.”
As the NOI grew and its message spread, Elijah Muhammad and his chief lieutenant, Minister Malcolm X, were repeatedly attacked and ridiculed. “Experts” from around the Muslim world were engaged to denounce the NOI as being not truly authentic Muslims.
But the powers-that-be recognized that every knock against Muhammad gave him a boost, so they resolved to ignore him, hoping he would fade away.
Meanwhile, the FBI’s insidious Counter Intelligence Program emerged with the stated goal of preventing the emergence of a “black messiah” in the U.S., and it sowed dissension in the NOI and other militant Black Power movements during the civil rights era and drove wedges in movements, making it easier for leaders of splintered factions of various groups — including Brother Malcolm X — to be assassinated, making it easy to blame disaffected followers or rivals for the murders.
After Elijah Muhammad left in 1975, his son Emam Warithudeen Muhammad succeeded him, leading the movement away from Muhammad’s race-first message until Minister Louis Farrakhan — who succeeded Malcolm X as NOI National spokesman — revived the Nation in strict accordance with Muhammad’s original message.
Muslims once again got the cold shoulder treatment, until the Rev. Jesse Jackson ran for president of the United States in 1984 and Farrakhan stepped in to provide security, and went with Jackson to Syria, to help free a captured Navy pilot.
Because of a misquote taken out of context, Louis Farrakhan was condemned as an anti-Semite for something he never said. And that sobriquet remains a part of his “rap sheet” to this very day. Believe me. Louis Farrakhan is not an anti-Semite. He is not a race hater.
A little more than 10 years later, Farrakhan rose from the ashes again to international prominence when he convened the Million Man March and when 2 million Black men heeded his call and came to Washington on Oct. 16, 1995 … a weekday. He overcame the stiff opposition. He overcame the ridicule. And he rose from obscurity.
In the 20 years since the MMM and especially in the eight years since a Black man was elected President, Farrakhan has again been placed on a back burner. He hasn’t said or done anything for which he could be roundly condemned, so he’s been ignored.
In October, despite hardly any media coverage at all, the 20th anniversary of the MMM was observed with nearly 1 million people on the mall. He called for a Black spending boycott over the Christmas holidays, and there was a decrease in overall holiday spending when merchants expected an increase. Wal-Mart announced the closing of more than 150 stores, and other retailers also scaled back their 2016 plans because of flat holiday sales. Of course, no credit was given to the boycott movement.
Again in February, Louis Farrakhan spoke to 16,000 people at the NOI annual convention in Detroit, and one television station’s lead news story that night was about a woman and a girl stealing $100 worth of hair extensions from a beauty supply store, and there was absolutely no mention of the Muslim gathering.
So we’ve seen the punishing opposition to the NOI and now to Louis Farrakhan. We see a new group of Muslims — immigrants to this country — becoming the victims of the ridicule and Islamophobia, receiving the same mistreatment members of the NOI have undergone for more than 80 years. And now we see Louis Farrakhan practically disappearing from public notice, except from social media he generates himself.
So that must mean he’s about to be victorious.
He says watch the weather and for major calamities — earthquakes and the like. We’ll all see. That’s why I say: Be sure to factor in Louis Farrakhan. His time to win must be soon.
Written by Askia Muhammad
Official website; http://twitter.com/askiaphotojourn
