JABRIL.MUHAMMAD
A few years ago, the scientists of this world, told the world that Pluto was a very tiny planet. I saw this on TV in January a few years ago. Later, into the middle of the same year, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and Mother Tynetta Muhammad told the world of their wisdom, of the planets that came from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. At the end of that year, (December) the scientists of this world made public their view of the planet Pluto, but again but they made Pluto very, very tiny in size. Why? I know this is now September 22, 2011. I know, Allah willing, most people can’t read this until next week. I intend to explain this later.
I’m continuing the words from Brother Akbar Muhammad:
Brother Akbar: Then I start meeting him, (Minister Farrakhan) more often. In 1963 I met him a couple of more times, when he came down to New York.
›Then by 1963, ‘64, he was coming down quite regularly, but especially in ‘64, and also at the public rallies.
I remember August 16, 1963, we had a public rally at the corner of 115th Street and Lennox Avenue. Brother Akbar Muhammad (my note: one of the sons of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad) he came in from Cairo.
Minister Farrakhan was to speak at the rally. Minister Farrakhan was there and I was able to shake his hand. He was sitting on the podium. Malcolm spoke, and Akbar had something to say. That was August 16, 1963.
Brother Jabril: You said something about 1964.
Brother Akbar: OK. Going into 1964. Well, James Shabazz was placed over the New York Mosque as the minister, and he let Minister Farrakhan come in. I remember when I had an incident with some people who had left with Malcolm. Minister Farrakhan came down.
I know he was outside. We were at the bakery in Corona, and I had told the Captain what Malcolm had said to me at the court building that night. Malcolm came out to the car and said ‘Larry you’re dead.’ I told the Minister about it, and we had a laugh about it in Corona. Then by, that was 1964, and I was seeing him very often.
Brother Jabril: This was when Malcolm was struggling about the house–the court battle about the house.
Brother Akbar: Yes. That was during that time. Then by 1965 when Minister Farrakhan became to be the Minister in New York in May, I was a lieutenant or a secretary… well, anyway I became his secretary at the Bronx Mosque.
Brother Jabril: You became his secretary?
Brother Akbar: Yes. I was his secretary. And he wanted to get me back into teaching.
Now, I’m about to end our words, for now.
Brother Jabril: On 116th Street?
Brother Akbar: Yes, on 116th.
Brother Jabril: Now. By this time, you had formed some impression of the Minister, but you’re not working directly with him.
Brother Akbar: No. I wasn’t working directly with him, by this time. But I was managing the restaurant, and then I was the secretary, after we moved up to the Bronx. When our Mosque burned down, we opened up in the Bronx.
We rented a place in the Bronx, and I was his secretary in the Bronx Mosque. So I was working very close with him then.
Brother Jabril: OK. Now at some point, you became an assistant there.
Brother Akbar: In 1967 is when….
Brother Jabril: … part of that time you were still doing the restaurant …
Brother Akbar: And the secretarial work. Then in ‘67, I became his assistant, because the way it happened, one day he was going up to the Bronx to open up, and he ask me to come up and open up for him. I put on my uniform, and I was going to open up, and Brother Shah didn’t want me to do both.
So I made a decision that I would resign from the restaurant, and get back into teaching. I went and got my job back as a salesman, and then I started teaching. I started assisting him as a minister in the Bronx first, and by the time we opened up Manhattan in ‘69, I was opening up for him, and by …
Brother Jabril: Between ‘67 and ‘69 you were working with him as an assistant?
Brother Akbar: Yes.
Bro. Jabril: That’s in the city and sometimes out of the city.
Brother Akbar: Yes, in the city. Well, I was assigned to Newburgh. I was teaching up in a little town called Newburgh, and then eventually from Newburgh I went to Corona, took over the Corona Mosque.
Brother Jabril: When did you take over the Corona Mosque?
Brother Akbar: I believe in 1968, because I was the secretary at the Corona Mosque, the day Malcolm was killed. That was in ‘65. I was managing the restaurant and I was the secretary. Minister Farrakhan wasn’t in New York then. He didn’t come until that May.
Brother Jabril: Now, so you became the, I used the word …. administrative assistant, what was it really?
Brother Akbar: Well, I like the administrative assistant; I was his assistant minister. OK. I was working with him since ‘65, but in ‘67 I actually got back in the ministry, and started assisting him directly because when he got there in ‘65, I was in the secretarial department.
Brother Jabril: Now, a few things. He got his name, Farrakhan, in ‘67?
Brother Akbar: No. May of ‘65.
Brother Jabril: May of ‘65. And he got made National Spokesman, ‘67, ‘68, ‘69?
Brother Akbar: I think in ‘67, or … I thought it was … his title… It was ‘67?
Brother Jabril: … or beyond.
Brother Akbar: I got to look in my book.
Brother Jabril: So by the time he became National Spokesman, you were already the assistant minister?
Brother Akbar: That’s right.
Brother Jabril: Did you see any change in him? How did he handle it? What kind of comment did he make to you about that new position?
Brother Akbar: I don’t think he made any comment. He didn’t make any comment to me directly, other than, he always encouraged us to be good helpers. That was one of the Minister’s hallmarks: making helpers for the Messenger. “I got to make more helpers for my father.” I mean that was his constant theme. Give the brothers a chance to become helpers. You know, we need a million ministers, and he was always pulling people, looking for helpers.
He set up the Ministry Class, where we could teach young brothers who wanted to become ministers. He allowed brothers who wanted to teach the opportunity to teach.
Brother Jabril: At a certain point he became the object of jealousy and envy. Would you say that his desire to help others to help the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was met with that kind of evil in some others? My question is how did he handle this?
Brother Akbar: Well, for a long time, I guess he looked at me as a younger brother in the Nation; he protected me from a lot of that for a long time.
It wasn’t until about ‘67, ‘68, because I remember in ‘67, he went to New Orleans, and Hampton, and I think that was about the second or third college, I went with him on, outside of the city.
I didn’t go to New Orleans, but I met him in Hampton, Virginia. He taught in Hampton. That was the same time that he went to Dillard.
This was in ‘67, he left there and came to Hampton, and that’s were I met him at on the road. But he kept me away from a lot of that, and then in ‘68 and ‘69, I began to see it and he began to talk about, you know ….
Brother Jabril: Tell me about that.
(That involves jealousy and envy. This is a very short article, but you can read about that when Brother Akbar’s book comes out. In the meantime, you can get Minister Farrakhan’s words of Malcolm X, Part 1 through 3; Saviours’ Day 1965: The Assassination of Malcolm X; The Murder of Malcolm X, 25 Years Later; Malcolm X Movie: The Trial of the NOI.)
But Brother Akbar said to me: He (Minister Farrakhan) began to see that coming. That was laying in the back of his brain. And as he began to work, and his star began to rise, he began to see it more and more.
And when he talked about it, he would use the fact that he understood it, because he understood positive jealousy, he said, and so he doesn’t blame them.
He doesn’t feel nothing against them, it’s just that they have what is called positive jealousy, and that they love their leader, and they think that anybody is blocking out any credit or light that should go to the leader, then these brothers rise up.
He said that he could understand them, but I’m not what they would want me to be. You know, I love my leader, and I’m not going to try to get no glory for myself, or take anything away from my leader.
I mean that’s the way he talked to me, which kept me on track. It was good. It was beautiful.
(I interviewed Brother Akbar and others, for a book I was making about 19 or 20 years ago. I have at that time quoted a few people who know him (Brother Akbar) and me, but that involves jealousy and envy. I hope you will read my articles carefully and fully.)
More next issue, Allah willing.
