We Must Have Land To Call Our Own
Address to The Nubian Leadership Circle, Summit IX
[Editor’s note: The following article is the continuation of the timely message delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan during The Nubian Leadership Circle’s (NLC) National Black Leadership Summit IX themed “Laying The Foundation For Our Own Black Nation,” which was broadcast live via webcast on Saturday, October 14, 2023. To view this message in its entirety, please visit media.noi.org/video/thmlf-2023-10-14-nubian-leadership-circle. For more information on the aims and goals of the NLC, please visit nubianleadershipcircle.org.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
In last week’s edition of The Final Call newspaper (Vol. 43 No. 4 dated October 31, 2023), I asked each of you to go to the back page and study what Allah gave to the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad for all of us, which is “The Muslim Program” (“What The Muslims Want” and “What The Muslims Believe”). Under “What The Muslims Want,” the first three points are as follows:
“We want freedom. We want a full and complete freedom.”
›This first “want” is universal. A “full and complete” freedom is a freedom that fully develops the talents and gifts of the human being, and shows them how to expose their gift, exploit their gift for the glory of The Giver of that gift. … But freedom is not free if it doesn’t attach to justice.
“We want justice. Equal justice under the law. We want justice applied equally to all, regardless of creed or class or color.”
Do you think we can get that type of freedom, and that type of justice, under the political/economic/social system of White America? If we can’t get it under them, why are we wasting time trying to be with our former slave masters in a political reality that cannot guarantee us what we need to be ourselves?
So when we say, “No justice, no peace!” well, you haven’t had no justice, so now you don’t have any peace. What good is life when you don’t have peace? So how do you get peace? You get peace by living and setting up a system of laws that are in harmony with your nature; laws that cause you to grow like your body grew.
“We want equality of opportunity. We want equal membership in society with the best in civilized society.”
Do you think we can get that in America under this social, political and economic system, and under this religious system? I don’t think so. Do you? Well, how necessary is “equality,” and “justice,” and “freedom” to our being a living people? If you want freedom and you want justice, then you must want equal membership in society with the best in civilized society.
Now, we have to face this: If we can’t get freedom, justice, and equality in this system of things, that says we have to separate from this. “Separation” is not an ugly term; it’s what we do when we can’t get along with each other … .
Strong, loving relationships undergird a committed Black nation
I am in a relationship with my wife, Khadijah, and we’ve been in this relationship for 70 years. We just celebrated our 70th anniversary. And you know, my wife is so special a woman: We were teenagers, in love with each other. Teenagers! In the city of Boston. And we would walk together, dress similarly; people would peel back their blinds to take a look at her and myself. Because, you want to be loved, and you love “love,” and when people are in love, real love, you say: “Look at that! Isn’t that beautiful?”
Yes, it is! So don’t talk about “I’m in love,” and the “honey” done fell off the “moon,” and you’re fighting each other. You’re going to have problems. And I am sure, if you want to build a Black nation, you have to have a strong family at the root of that nation! And at the root of that family there has to be a strong marriage.
I was talking with my wife the other day, and I was reminding her of when I first hit her. I was a young boy; I was in The Nation, coming up under Brother Malcolm. He was fierce, as a man, and he didn’t want to be controlled by a woman in no kind of way. (Don’t get angry, sisters, I’m just telling you about my brother who I came up under.)
I was treating my wife like she was a member of the F.O.I. (“Left Face!”) Well, it’s not quite that bad (smile)… . But she didn’t like it; and she said to me one day: “You know, you’re breaking up our marriage.” Later on, when I came to a Saviour’s Day convention, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad was speaking on, listen to this subject: “The Control, Respect and Protection of The So-Called Negro Woman.”
Whew, I jumped into that lecture! But I mean, the sisters: Don’t talk to them about no “control,” now; see, they don’t like that word. But it’s a good word. Because you can never protect what you can’t control. And your love diminishes when you cannot find the common ground in your marriage, where you stop arguing all the time.
So, my wife and I, we don’t argue a lot. My first child will be 70 years old in February; she has never heard her father or her mother argue and call each other out of our names. Not one time! I hit her once, in my stupidity—she hit me back, in her intelligence—and I ain’t never hit her again! That blow: It wasn’t that hard, but what it did to me was to show me how little of a man I was; that “you’re trying to control a woman by beating her.”
If you’ve got to beat a woman, you shouldn’t have a woman. A woman is the creature of God that He created for us, as a man; and the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad told us the only “heaven” for a man is found in a woman. All the hell that you’re catching? That comes from a woman, too, when you don’t treat her as she should be treated.
So, we can’t have a strong Black nation without a strong Black family! We can’t have a strong Black family unless we have a strong marriage. And that marriage should be rooted in divine love. I love that child that I married! Khadijah was 17, and I was 20. And 70 years later, still together; 70 years later, still in love.
Seventy years later, all my children, and grandchildren—I’ve got so many, honest to God, I didn’t go far enough in school to count my children. Maybe at The Nubian Leadership Circle school, they’ll show me how to count my beautiful grandchildren, great-grandchildren; and I am alive to witness great-great grandchildren! Building a successful family life is going to help us build a strong Black nation.
The Question of ‘Separation’
The fourth “want” of The Muslim Program answers the question of “separation.” The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad writes:
“We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own—either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years—until we are able to produce and supply our own needs.
Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by White America justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own.”
“Land that is fertile and minerally rich.” During The Nubian Leadership Circle’s Summit (IX), did you hear my brother talking about mining? Did you hear my brother talking about going to the earth and extracting the value that’s in the earth? We’ve got to do it all, if you want a nation!
“We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply” our nation. We believe that they are obligated to provide that kind of land as part of reparation! Don’t let the White man tell you that you have to marry a White woman, now, and you’re in “heaven.” Come on, now, brothers and sisters. That ain’t what it—that’s not gonna work.
You must have land. The brothers that are talking about getting land, they’re on the right page in the drama of building a Black nation. So, the question of “separation.” Now, we’re doing a lot of good things politically. Some of us are vice presidents, and some of us are senators—some of us are “big shots,” in White America. Stop it.
As long as they run the system, you are just treated as what they call Black folk that get “up” in the society; they say, “That’s just an uppity [negro].” You’ve got to have your own! It must be ours! That’s why the Palestinians are in such bad shape: They will never be free under that system. Never! Anytime somebody can cut off your water, cut off your electricity, cut off your food, you are not free!
All of us that live in America, we’re living somewhere that, if we don’t control the land: If you’re in the big city, they’ve got highways running around the city that allow them access to you, and they can bring you food—or they can keep you from getting it. Just like they are trying to do with the Palestinians as we’re speaking! They can cut off our water, our electricity, and they will do it! Now, if you don’t control the water that comes into your community, and you don’t know what chemicals they are dropping in the water for you and me, then what do you have? You are under their mercy.
Today, they are so frightened of the rise of the Black man and woman. Death is what they want for you, so they give it to you in food, they give it to you in water, they give it to you in shots. And can you imagine? This man is so doggone wicked, he will say: “I’ll give you a joint for a jab.” We’re lining up to get a shot from the enemy, because he says he’s going to give you a joint for a jab.
How many of our people have gone and gotten the jab, gotten the joint, and the joint is poison?
In 1995, I visited African nations on a peace mission, brothers and sisters, to help bring peace to the conflict in the Sudan. The peace mission started in Ghana with President Jerry Rawlings, who sent me to Kenya where I spoke with President Daniel T. arap Moi. President Moi said, “If you want to make peace between John Garang in the southern Sudan and Yoweri Museveni [in Uganda, in central Africa], you go and talk to Museveni and talk to John Garang.”
John Garang’s beautiful wife, she cried, because nobody mentioned “justice” as a means for bringing about peaceful relations. The north had the oil, but the south is where it was coming from, and there was no justice in the sharing of the wealth of the country. So, they were in a war for 20 or more years. Myself and Brother Akbar, we went, we talked with the president of Sudan; then we went to Kenya, then we went to Uganda, and then back to Kenya with the words that we got with John Gurang.
They would have peace, and they wanted peace… But Madeline Albright, who was our secretary of state: When she found out that they were listening to Farrakhan, they shut down the peace movement; it was over. We couldn’t make the move to make peace because we are Black, and we are Muslim.
But we had the love of the president, and the love of the people; because we are not there, as a Muslim, to talk about being a Muslim. President Museveni, after he heard “The Muslim Program,” said to me (and what I am saying, you can check with President Museveni): “Brother, I don’t like Arab Islam. I like the Islam that you’re talking about, Black Islam!”
Now, you say: “Well, Islam shouldn’t have a color.” Yeah, everything got a color, baby. And if you know anything about Arabia, and all that area, it all was Black at one time. It wasn’t no “White Arabia,” it was Black Arabia, Black Yemen, Black Sudan, Black Egypt. Black! All of that area is The Home of The Black Man! But you know, it’s like when somebody sees you in a nice home and you’ve got money: They want your home, they want your neighborhood; they want what you’ve got. Next thing you know, you’re moved out.
A Black nationhood requires Black soldiers to protect, defend it
We want something that we can protect. We want something that we can defend. We cannot talk about “Black nationhood” without a Black soldier to protect what we build. If you want life, and you want a nation, and you get it, your life should be given to protect it! So we, in The Nation of Islam, say: “We are fighting for Islam and we will surely win, because we’re with our Saviour Allah, The Universal King.
We are united with our nation and called by His Name. So let us rise, Black man and woman, rise, you Muslim! Fight for your own!” Don’t fight for somebody else’s! But the whole Earth is yours; we are the natural owners of it all, and now God has come to give us some of this Earth that can be ours. The scripture says, God talking: “He takes the kingdom from whom He pleases and He gives it to whom He pleases.”
You are the people of God. You are the righteous—that’s your nature. And in building your Black nation, you can’t build it on drunkenness; you can’t build it on “pimpin,” you can’t build it on “druggin,” you can’t build it on “thuggin.” You must build it on the pure love that we have for God Who created us.
The brother that’s sitting right next to you, or the sister, they are The Creation of God. You must learn to be loving and kind to each other. Share knowledge! That’s what I heard The Nubian Leadership Circle talking about (“Come and share knowledge!”). Share what you know. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know, because everybody has some area that we don’t know.
I love listening to people who know their area, and I respect and honor you, because I am a student of all of you. And when I heard you speaking today, I said, “Oh, this is going so good.” It’s the ninth summit … . I don’t know if God will bless me to be with you on No. 10; I hope I will be with you. But if I am not, I’ll never leave you. Brother Sadiki, what we are involved in can never die. …
Brothers and sisters, Brother Sadiki is happy to serve you, and to serve the idea that brought you together, with myself, nine quarters ago. And I pray that God will bless you, Brother Sadiki, with good help; people that want you to be successful and want to be a part of that success.
Study The Muslim Program; build on good character, righteous dealings
In my conclusion, I want you to look deeply into each word of “What The Muslims Want” and see if it doesn’t make sense. Why are we paying taxes to a government that is offering us nothing? Their education is no good. “The service is no good, but I’m taxing you for what you’re not getting.” Trump said, “You might as well try me! You ain’t getting nothin’ from nobody else!” And you’re not going to get anything from him either! But we will get it from God, and get it from ourselves.
F.O.I. and M.G.T., why don’t we get a paper to everybody! And brothers and sisters, when you get the paper, just do this: Just set aside a little time, and read it! We’re not trying to make you no “Muslim,” because we can’t make you what you already are! How about that one? (Smile)
I hope you will get The Final Call newspaper and study The Program of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. Study it; write down the things that you agree with. Or even the things that you don’t agree with, write it down and let’s have a question and answer session one time. Because to have a nation, a Black nation, look at what he is asking us for! “I want land that’s fertile and minerally rich, with an outlet to the sea.” You’ve got to know how to negotiate when it gets to negotiation time on what you want!
Don’t ask for a lot of money. “You see, I need a billion dollars!” Well, by the time we get around to asking for money, you won’t have the dollar anymore; it is going to cave in for sure. And my brother with the “cryptocurrency” … And that is all good. But I tell you, when I was with Elijah Muhammad one day, early in the morning we were having coffee. He went in his pocket and he pulled out a gold coin, put it on the table, and he said: “One day soon this will be the medium of exchange.”
So, be careful of games that people are playing. And when they come to you for your money, we need people to examine everything! Because the worst thing we could do is give you our money, and then we don’t see you no more; the money is gone. “Oh well.” Not with us. This is serious. When we put up our money, what we are saying is: “We trust you.”
I trust Sadiki Kambon. He is my brother. I want to be able to trust all of us who will be working with each other to produce the Black nation. So don’t always look for money, look for the building of good character! We must have good character, and we must be righteous in our dealings.
To all of you that I met during the summit, if I am blessed to be with you in the next quarter, or the next two quarters, I pray that I will see you again. If not, never think of those of us who fight for all of us as “dead.” We can never die as long as you are alive. So, live for each other, die on behalf of each other; then, your living and our death will never be in vain.
May Allah bless you. Thank you, Sadiki; thank you all for allowing me this privilege to be with you today. Thank you for listening as I greet you in peace: As-Salaam Alaikum.
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