[Editor’s Note: This article is reprinted from The Final Call in December of 2003, and The Final Call will continue to publish articles written by our late and dear Mother Tynnetta Muhammad.]

“And certainly We gave Abraham his rectitude before, and We knew him well. When he said to his sire and his people: What are these images to whose worship you cleave? They said: We found our fathers worshipping them. He said: Certainly you have been, you and your fathers, in manifest error.”Holy Qur’an, Surah 21, verses 51-54

To atone means to be in harmony with the essence of one’s divinity in perfect union with God. To be spiritually elevated into the mind and thinking of God is to know who and what God is, and to know who and what we are, in relationship to the Divine Creator. The Eight Step Atonement message delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan on October 16, 1995, brought us back to that union with God and the Divine order of the worship of the One God, whose proper name is Allah.

F.O.I standing shoulder-to-shoulder at Million Man March.

The sounding of our mental death and destruction from severe affliction and oppression to the state of mind of peace, harmony, happiness and joy is at the core of the message of the Million Man March. This message struck a universal cord that has vibrated around the planet. It was this picture on the Washington Mall at the Capitol steps with nearly two million Black men–Christians, Muslims and other faith traditions–that captivated and inspired people, families and nations around the globe. It was this explosion of sound and sight that reverberated around the world. This picture spoke more effectively than a thousand words.

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This sound and picture was translated into the A-Tone-Ment message, expressing the musical note of the “A” tone that vibrates at 440 revolutions per second. This number also represents the number of years that we have been held in captivity by strangers in a strange land. This momentous occasion opened even wider the door of the lion (representing Black and Indigenous people) in a cage (in America), who are now steadily on the road to exodus.

The history of Abraham, recorded in the 21st Chapter of the Holy Qur’an, represents the divine work of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his greatest helper, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, who are destroying the false worship of our enemies as idols, taking them as god before God. Following the Million Man March, the lion in the cage came out into the open territory that truly belongs to him if he is to exercise his full freedom of citizenship along with all others.

With modern equipment of the computer age and rapid transportation, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan was divinely guided to travel around the world in three historical World Friendship Tours to open dialogue for peace with nations as never before. This period began in 1996 and continued through 1998 with several peace initiatives and strategic journeys to the Middle East and troubled spots, including Arabia, to deliver the reconciliation and atonement message for peace.

Since that interval of time, our global condition in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Americas have worsened with increased violence, humiliation and bloodshed. Yet, the number one problem that America faces in regards to her hold over some 40-plus million ex-slave population is still begging for resolution on the basis of justice and freedom.

In a review of our history, three mighty attempts have been initiated in the process of our redemption to free us as the lion in the cage–beginning in the year 1930 with the coming of Master W. Fard Muhammad. The raising of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as the first begotten of the dead began in 1931 as the second door and way out of our captivity. The third door and way out in our exodus journey has come through the efforts of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan as the divinely appointed spokesman and representative of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, serving his nation as Aaron was to Moses and Ali was to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

The coming New Year, 2004, we will have completed a cycle of 74 years since the Master’s coming, who laid the foundation cornerstone of our rebirth as a Nation. The 19 mathematical code of the Holy Qur’an is revealed in Surah 74, verse 30, as a timeline announcing the end and the doom of our open enemy and oppressors.

According to the problem to be solved concerning the lion in a cage, the time to accomplish this work in the mission of the resurrection of our dead people is limited by the hour, by the day and by the year clocked at 60 minutes, 24 hours in a day, and 365 days in a year, which is the measurements of this world according to the present Gregorian calendar. When all these figures are added together (60 + 24 + 365), the sum is 449. When we reach the year 2004, this figure would mark 449 years since our enslavement in America.

These are thoughts to think about as we reflect on the Million Man March and the meaning of the A-Tone-Ment message as we enter into the year 2004.

“And they intended a plan against him, but We made them the greater losers. And We delivered him and Lot (directing them) to the land which We had blessed for the nations.” –Holy Qur’an, Surah 21, verses 70, 71