MILWAUKEE—Black men desiring to improve safety and quality-of-life issues met at Milwaukee’s Muhammad Mosque No. 3 on January 3. They met to share information, promote an all-hands-on-deck approach to problem-solving and to hear an inspirational New Year’s message by Student Minister Nuri Muhammad of Indianapolis.
Student F.O.I. Captain David Muhammad said the purpose of Student Minister Nuri’s visit was to promote self-improvement. “The intention behind Brother Nuri’s visit was to begin the new year off with a sober-minded focus.
With the focus of inspiring and strengthening those members of the community, particularly the men, to organize, to make our community safe and decent, (and) to stop the killing among our youth,” Student Capt. David said.
Local leaders and a cross-section of Black men of various ages attended the meeting to reaffirm a commitment to sacrificing for the greater good and to share a message of hope, the knowledge of self, and the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s teaching of do-for-self work as demonstrated by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.
Citing the attendance of community notables such as Rev. Walter Lanier, Brother Shawn Muhammad (a.k.a. Gat Turner), among others, Student Capt. David said the event was an important men’s meeting to promote unity and working together.
“Violence prevention activists and other leaders from grassroots organizations to elected officials to others, are addressing many of the ills in the city, particularly challenges with education, declining infrastructure, environmental racism and gun violence in our community,”
Student Captain David Muhammad explained. “But all of it stems from the lack of the knowledge of self and a lack of love for self. Brother Nuri gave what he called a ‘locker room talk.’”
Under the theme, “A New Man: A New Beginning,” Student Minister Nuri Muhammad, of Mosque No. 74 in Indianapolis, shared that change must start with men in order to bring stability to a community long deprived of strong male role models.
“We will never get the ’hood right until we get the home right, and we will never get the home right until we get the head of the home right,” Student Minister Nuri Muhammad said.
“I am submitting to us, brothers, that the first phase of all nation building, the first phase in making our neighborhoods a safe and decent place to live is that we have to become safe and decent thinking men.
“If we don’t get man right, woman will never be right, and if we don’t get her right, since she is the first teacher, the first nurse … then we will never have a nice community, a nice neighborhood, or a nice nation as a people,” Student Min. Nuri Muhammad said.
“We have to develop a certain amount of spiritual maturity as a people, where we stop needing permission from the White man to celebrate those we love or do the things we need to do. We have got to be about the business of working out our own salvation.”
Drawing from the lessons of the Bible, the Holy Qur’an and from nature, Student Min. Nuri Muhammad said there is a difference between those who hope for miracles to solve problems and those who work out formulas to solve them.
“If we stand back up in our community, we can bring the whole ecosystem of the Black community back into divine order when we become the men that God wants us to be,” he said.
Rev. Walter J. Lanier is the pastor of Milwaukee’s Progressive Baptist Church and has dedicated much of his time to serving Black youth. He said in recent years, a study by the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM), showed Black people ranked low on an index of well-being when compared to other U.S. cities.
“Both in 2020 and 2024, Milwaukee (was) at the very bottom of that list, number 50 out of 50 for African American well-being,” Rev. Lanier said. “But it’s got a long history of segregation, enforced segregation, rigidity, and failing to develop and cultivate spaces that are healthy for us. What we do at our church, we are fairly active in a wide range of issues,” he said.
“Our church is a place where people regularly convene to educate, and to equip and to mobilize,” Rev. Lanier said. “I was appreciative, deeply appreciative of the invite extended by Student Minister William Muhammad to come and share about Black men organizing, which is aligned with what the Nation (of Islam) is doing in terms of centering the work in the uplift of Black men in our community.”
Others in attendance agreed with the importance and timeliness of the Jan. 3 message as well.
Amir Grooms, an outreach lead with 414Life, brought a group of young men to hear Student Min. Nuri Muhammad speak. Mr. Grooms said his role within his organization is to help mediate conflict, to interrupt gun violence and to assist those who have been affected by it in the city of Milwaukee.
“I work with a lot of the young people that they deem at risk to be affected by gun violence or to commit gun violence,” Mr. Grooms said. “I’ve lived the experience, so I’ve been where they’ve been and even worse.”
“They really enjoyed it because even after we heard the message, we kind of debriefed,” Mr. Grooms said of how Bro. Nuri Muhammad’s message was received by the youth who came with him. “They were following up and touching on some key points. They were very, very impacted by it.”
Student Minister William Muhammad said he was happy to have Student Minister Nuri Muhammad visit.
“In our work here in Milwaukee, we are really striving to galvanize our community, in particular the Black men in the community, organize them, encourage our brothers to organize ourselves so that we can follow the Minister’s instructions to make our community a decent and safe place to live,” he said.