[Editor’s Note: This article is reprinted from Volume 31, No. 52 and The Final Call will continue to reprint articles written by our late and dear Mother Tynnetta Muhammad.]
“Say: O My servants who believe, keep your duty to your Lord. For those who do good in this world is good, and Allah’s earth is spacious. Truly the steadfast will be paid their reward without measure. Say: I am commanded to serve Allah, being sincere to Him in obedience, And I am commanded to be the first of those who submit.” —Holy Qur’an, Surah 39, verses 10-12
As I continue my Reflections on some of the early history of Master W. Fard Muhammad’s presence in America in the 1930s, with particular emphasis on his three and a half years in Detroit, Michigan, teaching the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad in person, I am reminded of my own early childhood growing up in the city of Detroit during the ‘40s and the ‘50s. My first introduction to Islam took place while I was in my senior year of high school. The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad stated during one of his Table Talks, that the more we know of the White Man’s technology, the more advanced we will be in the Hereafter. Therefore, the curriculum he established taught at Muhammad University of Islam reflects the study of Earth Sciences, Mathematics and Astronomy. This leads to a career in engineering with all its particulars, including architecture, draft designing and the building arts and trades, which are all based on a rudimentary and advanced study of mathematics giving us the exact science of everything in life.
The Automobile Industry came to birth in America in Detroit, Michigan, under its founder Henry Ford in 1903 and the invention of the Model T Ford in 1908, while the Wright Brothers were beginning their flight endeavors also in 1903. This was also the time of Amelia Earhart’s beginning career as the first female pilot to attempt solo flights across the Atlantic Ocean in 1928. In the late 19th century and turn of the 20th century many other advances in machine technology were underway, including the discovery of the electric light bulb by Thomas Edison and the use of electricity throughout many cities in America. This was also the era of the founding of Alexander Graham Bell Telephone Company and Telegraph System and radio technology.
The film industry had its start in the 1890s to the 1930s with advanced photographic cameras and sound equipment including the later development of black and white TV. As we emerge into this present day science of microbiology and the study of the DNA and cloning with advanced medical procedures in Health Care, simultaneously, we have moved swiftly into the New Age of space exploration, opening the door to extra dimensions and time travel.
It was in the scientific lab that Yacub, the father of the White race, first peaked into the microscope and discovered the two germs of life inside the original Black man and performed his work in separating the two germs, black and brown, by setting up a method of birth control in the grafting of the White race. This process continues into the modern science of Genetics and the Genome Map.
While in Bimini visiting the Museum, several outstanding individuals who were inventors and scientists working with Henry Ford in the period of the automobile industry in the 1930’s came to Bimini as industrial leaders from Detroit, Michigan. They settled here and built a small resort for their employees on North Bimini, which has now been developed into a first class Boatsman’s Paradise and Health Spa.
A current Detroit businessman is offering land investors properties which were handed down from the Queen of England, Elizabeth II. While in high school there were many alternatives offered to students after graduation that would lead to careers based on vocational and industrial training outside of entering a purely academic career in the colleges or universities. If this process were followed today, we would have less unemployment or need for jobs that we could supply for ourselves.
When the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan recently toured some of our colleges and universities in the South, he found that there were very few students enrolled in the careers of Engineering, Mechanical Arts and Trades embracing Architecture and the study of Agriculture. Why? Because the Liberal Arts and Humanities, English Literature and History, Theater, Drama, Dance and Physical Education training leads one to an athletic career based on sport and play and entertainment, keeping us in a state of dependence upon our former slave masters–the majority of whom were trained in the skills that would keep them superior and at the head of the class in Building Arts, Economics and Administrative positions.
As the Honorable Elijah Muhammad has pointed out to us the White man very carefully established a curriculum at Howard University and other Black colleges all designed to keep us out of the studies of true Business, Economics, the Knowledge of Mating and the Art of Military Science. The Museum on the Island of Bimini caused me to have a flashback to Detroit, Michigan, and the lifestyle engendered there with class distinctions between Blacks and Whites and the Classism and Racism that imploded within our own Black society setting one apart from the other.
The Whites generally were the achievers in their careers, with a few exceptions, many of whom became millionaires and successful business people because they did not have these obstacles in their path. We were kept outside of their society, Jewish or Gentile, always lingering in the back of the classroom and mainly viewed by them as the artisans for entertainment and as sport figures and beauties in competition in Theater, Drama and Dance.
I recall in my own background growing up in Detroit, Michigan, being at the top of all the Cultural Arts, Theater and Dance with little training in the Mechanical Arts and sciences that would lead to independence and a world of our own until Islam came like a burning Light of Truth.
“Say: I fear, if I disobey my Lord, the chastisement of a grievous day. Say: Allah I serve, being sincere to Him in my obedience. Serve then what you will besides Him. Say: The losers surely are those who lose themselves and their people on the day of Resurrection. Now surely that is the manifest loss!” —Holy Qur’an, Surah 39, verses 13-15
To be continued.
