‘The time and what must be done’–2013 Lecture Series, Part 33
Editor’s note: The following article contains a distillation of the hour long message delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as Part 33 of his 52-week Lecture Series “The Time and What Must Be Done.” This message originally aired on Saturday, August 24, 2013. Order this message it in its entirety on MP3, DVD and CD at Store.FinalCall.com or call 1.866.602.1230, ext. 200. Be sure to visit Media.NOI.org for the full series.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
Greetings to you. I am Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, that Great Preacher of Freedom, Justice and Equality to the Black man and woman of America and the Western Hemisphere, and the Aboriginal People of the Earth; The Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, and a Warner to the government and people of the United States of America, and a Warner to the nations of the Earth.
It is wonderful to be back on the broadcast again. I first want to thank Brother Minister Ishmael Muhammad for letting the public know that The Minister was taking two weeks to try to get some much needed rest– which I never got, because my mind was preoccupied with where we wanted to take this broadcast for the next 25 or 30 weeks.
My mind was also preoccupied with the completion of my Ramadan fast, and family and national problems. So in truth, I never really got the rest that I thought I would get, however, I am grateful for some of the quiet time that allowed me to receive some powerful thoughts through my study that Allah and His Messiah gave to me for future broadcasts to you.
I’m also thankful to Brother Ishmael for reiterating and telling the people to put that bowl on the table, or a bottle on the table, and continue every day to put in that bottle or bowl a nickel from each member of your family. And, during the 18th Anniversary of the Million Man March, which will be held in Tuskegee, Alabama: That is the place from which I will announce the bank and the accounts that you can begin sending your monies to, that we will begin to start The Process of Economic Development not for a “group,” but economic development for a whole nation of people.
Now some of you have stated your worries, as I received in some “tweets” and emails, about “persons stealing your monies.” This is so serious with us, that anyone that is in a fiduciary responsibility will have to sign a form that will give us the right to take their lives should they be guilty of stealing the peoples’ money. I will pledge my life first. Then anyone who will come on board to help, they will have to pledge their lives.
And we have those among us that will honor that pledge–for if you try and rob our people, then there must be a penalty for this; because too many liars and thieves have been among us, and to attempt to rob our people of their future is worthy of death.
I’m honored to be back, and I thank the Twitter force for their great work, and I thank the ministers and followers who are engaging the public in a beautiful manner. Our subject continues, “The Time and What Must Be Done” from the 103rd Chapter of the Holy Qur’an Al-Asr (“The Time”) which reads: “By the time!–Surely man is in loss, Except those who believe and do good, and enjoin one another to Truth, and enjoin one another to patience.”
50 years later, still begging for ‘jobs’ and ‘justice’
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said when Black people in America only numbered 22 million, that we had become “a nation within a nation”–but a nation completely dependent on our former slave masters and their children to provide us with jobs, education and sustenance.
Fifty (50) years ago when the historic march on Washington took place, the cry at that time was for “Jobs!” and “Justice!” The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said then that America, as a nation, would not be able to furnish enough jobs for her own millions of unemployed, and then furnish jobs for us and our population which was continually increasing. Fifty (50) years later we are now at nearly 50 million Black people in America–in a completely dependent condition at a time when the economy of America and the world is in a steady decline.
So those millions of unemployed of White America are very real, and the millions of unemployed Black and Brown are also very real; so the question that we must ask ourselves and try to answer intelligently is “What is the best way forward for us?”: Is it to march again, and beg for jobs and justice, when the government can no longer provide this for themselves, much less us? Or should we follow The Wisdom that was in a letter from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to Martin Luther King, Jr., cc’d to the Civil Rights leaders at that time dated July 6, 1966?
Let’s look at what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote talking to Dr. King, cc’d to Mr. Roy Wilkins, the Executive Secretary of the NAACP; Mr. Whitney Young, Executive Director of the National Urban League; Mr. Floyd B. McKissick from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); and Mr. Stokely Carmichael–named later Kwame Ture–Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). These are the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s words:
“Dear Sir: We have reached a crucial crossroad in the life of our people here in America. Since all of us who love our people are walking toward one goal: freedom, justice and equality from the common enemy–let us realize that in unity there is strength. Let us come together in a meeting to discuss the future plans and programs needed to achieve these goals for our people. If we have any love and respect for each other, let us be intelligent about the matter and present to America and all the world a united black front. The destiny of 22 million is too important to allow disunity among us to prevent our achievement of a united front of Black Americans. The meeting nor the place need not be public. Please let me have your answer within ten days. Cordially your Brother, Elijah Muhammad, Messenger of Allah.”
As this broadcast is being shown, our people probably have just finished meeting on The National Mall to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. I know that we shall have heard many good words… Although I was not invited, I must say that I am happy to see that so many convened to listen to the various speakers, especially the words of the President of the United States of America. This, however, demonstrates a condition that needs to be rectified: When someone else has to finance our ideas of paying tribute to Dr. King and the great Civil Rights Movement, or marches for whatever purpose we wish to march, those who finance us feel they have the right to tell us who is permitted to speak, and who is not.
This, again, shows the pitiful condition that we are in as a people, when we as organizations and leaders cannot finance our own gatherings and marches so that somebody else can tell us “who” we can have, and “who” we can’t, when our condition is such that we need “all hands on deck” to solve the critical problems that we as a people face.
So my appeal to my brothers, Reverend Al Sharpton of the National Action Network, to Martin Luther King, III, to Brother Marc Morial of the Urban League, to Brother Julian Bond, to Brother Ben Jealous of the NAACP; to the Reverend Charles Steele of the SCLC; the Congressional Black Caucus, and all the leaders and organizations that are represented there today and are represented in Washington: My appeal to you today is for a united front for all our leaders and organizations to meet, to plan.
So, can we meet after such demonstration, at a place that does not necessarily have to be mentioned or known? Will you accept an invitation from Brother Farrakhan to meet, so that we can sit and strategize as a people who love our people and want to see us in a better state than we are presently in? Would you meet with me, so that we, together, might plan a better way forward rather than asking the government that cannot properly respond to our needs?
‘Souls left in darkness’: Dr. King’s analysis on the condition of Black life in America
Dr. King presented a talk to the leaders and members at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and that talk was titled “The Crisis in America’s Cities: An Analysis of Social Disorder and a Plan of Action Against Poverty, Discrimination and Racism in Urban America.” This address was made August 15, 1967 in Atlanta, Georgia–four years after the famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the Washington Mall. Let us study his words, and reflect. “A million words will be written and spoken to dissect the ghetto outbreaks, but for a perceptive and vivid expression of culpability I would like to submit two sentences written a century ago”–at that time–“by Victor Hugo…”; and he quoted Mr. Hugo in these words: “‘If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.’”
Dr. King goes on to say: “The policy makers of the white society have caused the darkness; they created discrimination; they created slums; they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also declare that the white man does not abide by law in the ghettos. Day in and day out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his police make a mockery of law; he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions for civil services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison. Let us say boldly that if the total slum violations of law by the white man over the years were calculated and were compared with the law breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man.”
Dr. King went on to quote “five reasons why” we are in the condition that we’re in: “After establishing the general cause of outburst, it is possible to identify five immediate causes: 1) The white backlash. 2) Unemployment. 3) General discriminatory practices. 4) War. 5) Features peculiar to big cities: crime, family problems, and intensive migration.” He then said: “The second major cause”–of “the crisis” in the inner cities–“is unemployment because it furnishes the bulk of the shock troops. Government figures reveal that the rate of unemployment for Negroes runs as high as 15 percent in some cities–and for youth up to 30-40 percent! It is not accidental that the major actors in all the outbreaks were the youth. With most of their lives yet to live, the slamming of doors in their faces could be expected to induce rage and rebellion. This is especially true when a boastful nation, while neglecting them, gloats over its wealth, power and world pre-eminence. Yet almost 40% of Negro youth waste their barren lives standing on street corners.”
Has anything changed, my dear President Obama, and Black people, in 50 years? Has anything really changed?
“The third cause”–of the condition of the inner cities–“is discrimination, which pervades all experiences of Negro”–or “Black”–“life. It pushes the Negro off the economic ladder after he has ascended a few rungs. It stultifies his initiative and insults his being. Even the few Negroes who realize economic security do not attain respect and dignity, because on upper levels discrimination closes different doors to them. Discrimination is a hell hound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.” And “The fourth cause is the war in Vietnam. Negroes are not only conscripted in double measure for combat, but they are told the billions needed for remaking their lives are necessary for foreign intervention. Democracy at home is starved to seek a spurious democracy abroad. Dictators, oligarchies, are given our resources to perpetuate their rule at the rate of $80,000,000 per day, but we cannot afford to spend 10% of this on anti-poverty programs. There has never been an American war opposed by so many. Opposition has now ascended to a clear majority of Americans and merges with the overwhelming majority of the world. The immoral, insane pursuit of conquest against the will of the people has to diminish respect for government. Among those deprived by government, the disrespect degenerates into contempt and cynicism. In testifying before the Senate last December, I said, ‘The bombs in Vietnam explode at home. The security we profess to seek in foreign adventures we will lose in our decaying cities.’”
And what is the “respect level” of government today? The respect level of the government of the United States has gone down: The Congress to 14 percent; the President to 35-40 percent, and The Supreme Court, less than that.
This is the Dr. King that was murdered 1 year later. This is the Dr. King that saw the hypocrisy of America. This is the Dr. King that is memorialized in a statue on The National Mall, frozen in stone like Lincoln and Jefferson and Washington–but the words of Lincoln are in history for the American people to feed on! The words of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are also in books for the marina people to feed on! But the Americans are feeding on a “Dream Speech” from Dr. King, and missing the point of the hypocrisy of a “promissory note” that yet remains unfulfilled. This is the Dr. King that was assassinated.
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Well, should out of this march President Obama pursue a “jobs bill”? Remember the words of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad: “America cannot create enough jobs for her own White unemployed.” The present proposed “jobs bill” was only to create approximately 3 million jobs; but there are over 20 million Americans now that have no jobs, or minimal jobs! So how will that “jobs bill” help us when we are “last hired and first fired”? We have to think beyond government.
Of course, government has a responsibility, but we have to come up with the plan to end our own suffering and help ourselves, then seek government’s help! But we can do it from the $1.1 trillion that we get out of the American economy, if that money were utilized properly. And, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, “We cannot build a future for our people without the requirement of land.”
The Members of The Original Black Nation: Victims of deceptive research experiments and White backlash
Why are we going to Tuskegee to celebrate the 18th Anniversary of the Million Man March? Before we answer that, let us study what our brother, Dr. Booker T. Washington, said about “economic development.”
In his last address on August 18, 1915, three months before he passed from this Earth, he spoke before the National Negro Business League, an organization he co-founded to promote and assist Black people in developing business, at Symphony Hall in Boston, Massachusetts; he states: “…the history of civilization, throughout the world, shows that without economic and commercial success there can be no lasting or commanding success in other fields of endeavor. This League then has for one of its objects not the tearing down or weakening of other organizations, but rather to give them strength and stability.” He then went on to say in that same message: “A landless race is like a ship without a rudder.”
Well, with no rudder, a ship on the sea wanders about aimlessly. But what about a “ship” with no water to float on? That is the terrible condition of a Black people numbering nearly 50 million with no land from which to build an economic future for ourselves.
Look at this pattern today: All of these organizations are meeting in Washington, D.C. in 2013, and Booker T. Washington was in a similar situation in 1915! He makes a similar statement, because organizations were meeting, but, they were rejecting him. Booker T. Washington continues: “To accomplish what I have indicated, we must have a united race, men who are big enough and broad enough to [forget and] overlook personal and local differences and each willing to place upon the altar all that he holds for the benefit of the race and our country.” This appeal by Dr. Booker T. Washington for a “Black united front” was echoed by Marcus Garvey in the 1920s, and then, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in the 1960s. And now, again, by myself in the 2000s. This is nearly 98 years ago, and we are still doing the same thing; because certain people that were meeting, that had different organizations, didn’t like what Booker T. Washington was espousing, and did not want his presence. So, he sent a message to other organizations.
It’s not that he was trying to subsume their organizations, or weaken their organizations, but strengthen them; and so he came back to his strongest position, “a landless race,” by stating: “At the present there are far too many of our people living in the cities in a hand-to-mouth way, dependent on someone else for an uncertain job. Aside from what tile soil offers, there are other opportunities in business. …” Ninety-eight (98) years ago, and here we are today. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said these things that I earlier quoted 50 years ago prior to his Departure from among us! And here I am, 80 years of age–not knowing how much longer I have–and we are still in the same condition! This is why I, as an extension of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, am making this appeal again, for a “Black United Front”!
You all that are in Washington: You say you “love” America! What Booker T. Washington was saying, and what Marcus Garvey and Elijah Muhammad were saying is: If we united, and put on “the altar,” like a sacrifice, our egos and our small organizational agendas for something that is in the interest of the whole of our people, ultimately that sacrifice would be good for America.
Don’t you think that if we did something for self, that it would benefit America? Of course it would, because we would then stop our enemies from thinking, “What should we do with the so-called Negro, or the Black man and woman of America, because they have become an intolerable burden on us?”
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Why are we going to celebrate The Holy Day of Atonement, 18th Anniversary of the Million Man March, in Tuskegee, Alabama? First of all, Tuskegee University is a prime university among the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (“HBCUs”). This little town of Tuskegee has given to Black America and the world “giants” in Dr. Booker T. Washington, Dr. George Washington Carver, The Tuskegee Airmen! Also born in Tuskegee was Rosa Parks.
But it is also from Tuskegee that experiments in “population control” started: It started from the Tuskegee Institute itself! Black men were brought to Tuskegee Institute to engage in this syphilis experiment. There is no way that they would have engaged in that experiment, except through deception! Black men were injected with a most virulent form of syphilis that allowed them to cohabit with Black women–and they never were to be treated! When the symptoms manifested they were given a “placebo,” not medicine, to “cure” syphilis. This went on unabated for 40 years.
From the Institute using the good name of Booker T. Washington, and George Washington Carver, this experiment was launched. Think about that: It started from an Institution that was founded on such beautiful immutable principles that would ultimately lead to Black economic strength–the same path that the Jewish community took to gain power in America!
They never “sat in,” though prejudice was against them! They were rejected in certain places; you never saw them “kneeling in,” “wading in,” “praying in,” no! They stayed on an economic course, became wealthy and powerful, and parlayed wealth and power and influence into political domination of the American scene.
Let’s go back to Dr. King’s words, where he stated the first cause of the condition of the inner cities, a “White backlash”: “I place the white backlash first because the outbursts have an emotional content that is a reaction to the insults and depravity of the white backlash. Many people point out that there have been years of some progress, and this is true. Yet equally true is the fact of an animalistic reaction by a significant section of the white population. In the midst of progress Negroes were being murdered in the South and cynical white jurors automatically freed the accused. …The white backlash told Negroes that there were limits to their progress; that they must expect to remain permanently unequal and permanently poor. The white backlash said Negroes should not confuse improvements with equality. True equality, it said, will be resisted to the death. …”
Booker T. Washington did not want to create a “White backlash”; he felt that if he worked to help us develop ourselves economically, it would ultimately lead to a political reality with the right to vote and all of that! But he felt that if we pursued, at that time, breaking down the barriers that Whites had erected in law, then the backlash from White people would stop our economic advancement. Was he wise in this approach?
It wasn’t that we didn’t need to break these unjust laws; he had an economic approach… And it is all right to say that approach was the approach of the Jewish people: When they were told “you can’t come in,” they didn’t try to change any laws! They pooled their resources, and when they couldn’t go into Miami Beach, they just turned around and bought it. We have that same opportunity in front of us today.
Have you thought of Nelson Mandela, the great warrior in South Africa, when he became president? There was “a way” that he could have gone that would have produced a terrible “White backlash,” just like it has produced for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe! As long as Mugabe did not trouble the Whites owning millions of hectares of land, and the resources and mineral wealth of Zimbabwe, he was “the darling” of the Commonwealth nations. But the moment he realized that was not what he and Joshua Nkomo, leader and founder of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), were fighting for! They were fighting to get back the land and the resources under that land, and give those resources back to the Indigenous people of Zimbabwe! So now “the darling” of the Commonwealth nations is no longer a man honored and respected by them; [and] the “White backlash,” and sanctions now, are on him and Zimbabwe.
Mandela was loved because he did not put Black people on a war path to take back what rightly belongs to them, so White people were comfortable with him. And they were also comfortable with Booker T. Washington with his approach! Mandela was wise, for if they took the “military path,” it would have destroyed South Africa. He gave South Africa time to develop mentally, educationally, spiritually–so that ultimately you have to make White people uncomfortable.
Ultimately, the wealth that is under the foot of the people of South Africa belongs to the people of South Africa, not to those who are sucking the life out of South Africa while we have the right to vote, but are still living in terrible conditions! We cannot get justice and freedom in America, seeking to make our former slave masters and their children “comfortable” with our approach!
Why Tuskegee University? It is ‘The Seminal Fluid’ of The Kingdom of God
Why Tuskegee? Booker T. Washington had his young students in architecture lay out the plans for Tuskegee Institute; they took the clay land and made bricks and built the buildings. They were not looking for somebody else to do it for them! They were learning how to make themself useful to self, as well as others.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad loved Book T. Washington! The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Elijah Muhammad was in love with Tuskegee University; and he said to us he wanted to see Tuskegee returned to those wonderful principles upon which that institute, and now university, was built.
When I spoke to the students at Tuskegee University on March 22, 2013, I said: “You are more than who you think you are… Because of ‘who’ you are, you are in danger. So tonight I want to expose the danger, and by God’s Grace, give you the guidance to be exactly what I said you are: ‘The Seminal Fluid’ of The Kingdom of God.” Tuskegee University has received high amounts of government funding for research and experimentation, the most recent being the HeLa, or “immortal cells” (the oldest, most commonly-used human cell line), which are cancer cells used in testing and creating vaccines!
I said at Tuskegee: “Your former slave masters don’t give you money without another purpose beyond what they tell us! …You have to remember history to guide you in the way you think! It’s all right to think that people have ‘changed’–but you cannot go to sleep; you have to watch to see if the change is real.” For example, in the 1940s the U.S. government experimented by infecting the people of Guatemala with syphilis and gonorrhea and sexually transmitted diseases! The government has now acknowledged this; On October 1, 2010, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, apologized in a statement with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding this HeLa experimentation.
And, brothers and sisters, this is what I’m afraid of; that with the research that is going on in Tuskegee with the HeLa cells, now The Enemy has created genetic weapons that are designed specifically for certain genetic groups–and they are designing different drugs for that same purpose! Dr. Jonas Salk used the HeLa cells in producing the polio vaccine; but yet, a contaminant was introduced into the vaccine! Also, it was this HeLa cell that was the carrier of the cancer that was introduced into “SV40” (an abbreviation for “Simian vacuolating virus 40” or “Simian virus 40,” a polyomavirus that is found in both monkeys and humans) into the polio vaccine; and that’s why the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, in the ’60s, forbad his followers from taking the polio vaccine.
Now they say that 2,000 pounds of HeLa cells have been produced… And they’ve gone all over the world! So instead of these immortal cells being used to curb the rise of cancer, the opposite is true: Cancer is proliferating all over the world, especially in Third World countries–and especially among the Black man and woman in America. Is this an “accident”?
Why, in the scheme of things, was the syphilis experiment “so important”? Why is the HeLa experiment and research “so important”? Why, in the scheme of things, was this experiment to start at Tuskegee, in Alabama, where Booker T. Washington established the principles 1.) self-reliance, 2.) self-help, 3.) commerce, 4.) industry; and 5.) agriculture–and where George Washington Carver was? And they even told George Washington Carver that he should not marry; that he should not have any children, because these oppressors did not want to see another “Carver” in a future generation that their children would have to contend with! My question is: What type of research is this, and how will this research benefit us as a people?
Scientists took these cells without asking for permission, and have made millions of dollars off of these cells. And the woman–the Black woman, Henrietta Lacks, from which this immune cell, this great cell was taken–has not received anything, though the world is benefiting from this HeLa cell.
Why Tuskegee? Well, Tuskegee is like a “manger.” A manger is like a trough; it’s a feeder that is made of carved stone, wood or metal construction, and is used to hold food for animals, as in a “stable.” Jesus was born in a manger…
It is not an accident that such greatness has come out of that little city! Tuskegee is a “manger,” it’s a place of feeding ground–a “feeding place” for a people that have been made savage; that from such an institute, which is now a university, can come that which will civilize not only the Black man and woman of America, but from it, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad saw “a world institution.”
Land of Our Own and Qualifications
When we dedicated Mosque Maryam, The National Center of The Nation of Islam, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad called it a “Center for the Re-Education and Re-Training of the Black Man and Woman of America.” Did you know, brothers and sisters, that in 1965, Tuskegee Institute invited the Honorable Elijah Muhammad to speak?
He did not go at that time, so he sent our great brother, Dr. Lonnie Shabazz, now known as Dr. Abdulalim Shabazz, a great educator; and he was received with great love and respect, and honor.
Read Message To The Blackman in America, Chapter “Land of Our Own and Qualifications,” under the section “The Unity of 22 Million” on pages 220-221. At that time, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote: “At present, we have hundreds of clubs and organizations; thousands of teachers; hundreds of educators, scholars, scientists, technicians, doctors, lawyers, judges, congressmen, ambassadors, professors, tradesmen of all kinds and engineers of most every kind. We have all kinds of religious believers, teachers, preachers by the thousands, agriculturists, herdsmen and cattlemen and fisherman and hundreds of hunters of wild game. …” We have all these organizations, all these talented people. The one thing we don’t have is the unity of the whole.
What actually is preventing this unity of now nearly 50 million of us? The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said it is “the ignorance and foolish love and fear of our enemies” by the professional and leadership class of our people. “These are disgraceful ‘Uncle Toms’ in a world of freedom, learning an advanced science in every branch of study. How long shall we seek the white men’s education to become their servants instead of becoming builders of a progressive nation of our own on some of this earth that we can call our own?”; so the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, “…By the help of Allah, I have and I will still prove to you that Allah (God) has given me the only solution to our problem here under this race of [enemies]. If you can prove to me”–us–“that you have a better solution for the future of our Nation”–“Black people,” he said, “I will bring my followers and myself and [I will] join you. [But] if the solution given to me from Almighty Allah is best”: Why don’t you come; why don’t you bring your followers? Why don’t you sit down and let’s agree on a program that will advance us beyond begging for the crumbs that fall from our enemy’s table?
The Great Honorable Marcus Garvey was inspired by Booker T. Washington’s autobiography Up from Slavery; he said, “I read ‘Up from Slavery,’ and then my dream, if I may call it, of being a race leader, dawned.” Marcus Garvey was fond of saying, “Up you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will!”; and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad picked up that motto, and said to us: “Up you mighty nation, you can accomplish what you will!”
Let us get up from the foot of our 400-year-old enemy, and stop being beggars and start thinking of ourselves as builders! And join with me in celebrating the 18th Anniversary of the Million Man March in Tuskegee, Alabama on October 19th and 20th! Put those nickels and dimes away, and remember that on that day, we will announce the bank and the banking institutions, and how we will go about it!
We are inviting all of the Black students of the 14 Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Alabama; we’re inviting the students from Mississippi and Georgia and Louisiana and Texas to join us! We want to sit down with these young colts–I’ll get into that more in an upcoming broadcast of “The Time and What Must Be Done”! Let’s sit down and think about the type of disciplines you must study in order for us to be a nation of builders and not beggars!
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I close with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his final remarks on April 3, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee–he saw that Black people would one day overcome: “[And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?] Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land…
“I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man, for mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
He did not say he saw “the promised job.”
He did not say he saw “the promised integration of Black and White.”
He said, “I’ve seen the promised land”–“I may not get there with you, but we, as a people, will get to that promised land!”
Who made “the promise,” and where is that land? Tune in next week, same time, same station.
All the Twitter Army, go to “tweeting,” and you tell all your friends to listen; and I hope to hear from all of you. May God Bless, Guide and Protect you; may He help us to find the common ground, and unite, so that we can solve The Problem of “poverty and want in the midst of plenty.”
