[Editor’s note: The following article contains excerpts from the Sunday, November 29, 2015 address of the same name delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan live via webcast from Mosque Maryam in Chicago, Illinois. This message is now available at Store.FinalCall.com in its entirety on MP3, DVD, CD formats or by calling 1.866.602.1230, ext. 200.]
Brothers and sisters, you are a good people, but you’ve been in the hands of a rebel against God; and any time God’s Guidance, His Law, is not respected by you, and you rebel against His Law, you make yourself an enemy of God, or a “devil.” In the Genesis of the Bible, Adam received good instruction. He wasn’t like us: We never talked with God personally; but Adam had a direct conversation with God, and then he rebelled.
Now, they put the blame on you, sisters. That’s terrible to say that the poor sister (Eve) got Adam to rebel against God—I don’t think you should take that any longer, sisters, that’s not your fault. But the scripture teaches “the serpent” started talking to Eve, and she became susceptible to his deceitful interpretation of God’s Instruction. [Women are very powerful … Because, even some “pillow talk” caused “Brother Adam” to disobey God—and the rest is history.] The world that we live in is a world of rebellion.
God didn’t lie to Adam when He said, “Don’t eat of the fruit of this tree, because the day you eat it you will surely die.” Satan comes along and says, “Oh, He didn’t mean it like that. You misunderstood: He meant that your eyes would come open, and you would be like Him!” Who wouldn’t want to be like God? So the poor boy got tricked, and from that point death has mastered life. The scripture teaches, “As by one man sin entered into the world, and death came also by sin, death has passed to all men.” The world that we live in is called, scripturally, “death.”
Our eyes did come “open”: Before we were blinded to the lower nature of Self, but when you rebel against God Who says in the scripture, “My Ways are not your ways. My Thoughts are not your thoughts. I Am from above while you are from beneath.” Well “what happened” that His Way is not ours; His Thoughts are not ours? What happened? Our eyes became opened to the lower nature of the human being, and instead of growing up and reflecting God, we grew up in a world where evil has become the order of the day. And so, death has passed to all men. We are not what we could be. We are not what we should be. We are made in America.
You know, when I was coming up, anything that was “made in America” was supposed to be “better.” You’re right—a better devil, a better wicked one, you learned all the folkways and mores of a wicked society, and we have adopted their method of life, which is a form of death. The Bible teaches, “There’s a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.” So today is called a “Day of Resurrection”: We have to be raised from the mental, moral, social, political, educational state of death.
‘A cry from a human is a prayer for deliverance’
How do you know that a people are “dead”? They are not engaged in The Business of Life. What is “The Business of Life”? God gives every creature the desire to do something for itself.
Have you ever seen a black bird in a line looking to the white bird to give it something to eat? … That’s a strange picture, isn’t it? But no creature that God created is without the ability to make a home for itself; to guard itself against the enemy of itself. True? But look at you. Beautiful Black brother and sister, look at you: We’re sitting around asking the White man to respect us as a “man,” but we think like “little boys.” Little boys, you know, they come to “daddy,” “Daddy, can I have?” Or, “Mama can I have?”—and naturally, “mom” has the power then to tell you what room you lay, stay in, what time you get up in the morning, and “if you go out, be back by such-and-such a time.” This is a “dictatorship”: When you are not man or woman enough to run your affairs, you live under somebody’s dictates other than your own. Here we are now, 460 years from the time that our fathers set the soles of their feet in North America, and our cry is, today, “justice.” We want justice. We want fair dealing. And what answer are we getting?
Consider when a baby “cries”—and in November, in Compton, Calif., they found one buried under some asphalt; it was just a few hours old, but somebody heard a cry. I mean, the way God has created life: A baby, whether two years old or two months old, can cry in a way that the voice is pitched against “the sounding chamber” (the area between your nose and mouth), and if the voice is pitched in the right way (it can produce a bellowing sound “Ahhh!”). But a baby, just two days old, was crying: Somebody heard the cry, and dug the asphalt away and found a child alive. And the news said the child is all right. There has to be a God somewhere!
Now, my question is: “How long have we cried?” Our fathers cried, on the ship that brought them here, to be delivered. And some jumped in the sea to the open mouths of sharks rather than to be made a slave. Others suffered three months in the holds of ships, chained, urinating, defecating, and living in their filth. Many died, and others, the strongest, made it to the shores of America. The Middle Passage was like a “sifter”: It sifted out the weaker ones. But brothers and sisters, we were fortunate because our fathers made it—and from them we came. You are so much stronger than you give yourselves credit for being; because our fathers endured much, and the cry seemed to go unanswered. A cry from a human is a prayer for deliverance … .
A cry from a baby could mean, “Could you change my diaper, please? I have gas, would you burp me, please? My diaper is full of something, and my skin is irritated; would you put salve on me, please?” However, babies can’t talk—but a wise mother knows exactly what that sound is. There was a woman, strange from birth—in fact, people like her are always considered very strange; we have some like that among us. They’re really geniuses, but we are not equipped to handle people with high, high intelligence, and vision. This was a White lady; she knew whales: Whenever the whale made a sound, she knew what that sound meant.
She knew when the whale was crying, she knew when the whale had a need (wasn’t feeling well); she studied the whale to the point where every sound that the whale made, she understood it. And she wrote a book concerning it that is like a “guide book” to those who deal with whales. Our cry has been heard not for a day, not for a week, not for a year, but for centuries. And it appeared that nobody heard our cry.
The Universal Law of Justice that makes a demand on every form of savagery
You know the horrible way that our fathers and mothers died in slavery; we knew the whip and the lash, and we knew the horror of the brutality of our former slave masters. I heard a program on CNN one morning where they were talking about the absolute “savagery” of this group called “ISIS,” how they torture people, how they cut off the heads of people; lower people in a cage into a fire, and burn them alive. People are saying, “Oh! Oh my God, this is savagery! This is SAVAGERY!!” And if I were in the studio, I would show them a picture of Black folk hanging—I would show them a picture of White folks standing around like it was a picnic; I would show them Black bodies burned, and I would show them White people taking off the heads of our slave ancestors. Was that also “savagery”? So if the killers of Western man are “savage,” where did they learn it from?
Now, I’m not apologizing for that behavior, but I want to give you context. See, you’re very tender-hearted; you’re such a beautiful people, I mean even when you kill you just get tired. White folks don’t get tired of killing. There were 112 million to 120 million Indigenous people here called “Indians” when the White folk came, but when Master Fard Muhammad came to North America in 1930 there were only two million Indians left. Somebody did some killing. Was that savagery? Go in The Caribbean where some of our parents are from, or some of us are from: There used to be Indians all in the Caribbean. See if you can find them today! Rivers of blood flowed in some of the islands when the Europeans wanted to slaughter the Indigenous people … was that a form of savagery?
I read once that in The Congo, Leopold, from Belgium, took a young Black girl, she may have been 11 or 12: he wanted to show his strength, so he took his sword and struck her in the head and split her body in half. I didn’t write that book, but I read it.
I want to ask you a question. The Law of Justice makes a demand on every action … and as Jesus said to his disciples, “God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth the same shall he also reap.” Obadiah The Prophet said, (pay close attention to these words): “As thou hast done”—“past perfect tense,” talking about an action that somebody engaged in, in the past; now watch the change of tense—“so shall it be done unto you.” There is a Law working here that is universal in its application; it has no color, no race, and no gender. It’s God’s Law. You can’t sow wheat and get back potatoes. You’ll get back what you put out. The problem with this is what they did to us was in the past that is continuing in the present. See, they have not changed; times have, they haven’t. So, what they did to us in the past: Is there a price that the present generation may have to pay for what was done in the past?
You may say, “Oh my God, no! These people didn’t do it”—and White folk will tell you quick: “We didn’t do nothing to your people! We didn’t have y’all in slavery, n—a.” They would be telling the truth. They weren’t a part of that—but they are the beneficiaries. You know, it’s like some of the young brothers that steal a lot: They can’t help it, because they have no job, they have no means of making a dollar, so they say, “Whatever I can get my hand on I’ll steal it, go in the barbershop and sell it!”
And you are sitting in the chair getting your hair cut, not thinking that you “need” a flat screen TV, and a brother will walk in off the street and say, “I got somethin’ for ya!” And you don’t say, “This ain’t Wal-Mart’s … I know this is not legal”—and then he’ll tell you what the price is and you forget about the law: “I’ll take that!” You don’t consider that you’re receiving stolen goods. Is there a penalty for that? “Yes.” There is? Now, they stole us: We didn’t come here willingly! We were kidnapped, and taken on a westerly course! I’m going someplace (with this point).
You say, “Well, slave-making was a part of it,” “slave-taking was a part of it,” and when you made a slave you did something to that human being that they would perpetually be in a state of servitude. You take away their name, their language, their culture, their religion; their history, their God, their country—you wipe that out as though it has no meaning to a people; then, you impose on them your language, your culture. A value system that White people have for themselves does not value our lives; that is why “Black Lives Matter” is alive today: because Black Life has not mattered in White America! They passed on the goods that they stole to generations of White people.
Like if any of us, God forbid, die today, and you have a car with some notes on it, you might will it to your son. As long as you didn’t steal it, you give it to him—but he can’t really own it until all the notes are paid; so (if that is the case), all he gave you was a debt. Well. If they passed on to several generations the slaves that they stole, there is a debt that must ultimately be paid for such a crime. And that’s why Thomas Jefferson said: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever.” So Thomas Jefferson knew that some generation was going to have to pay for what they’ve done.
The ‘mirror’ that America, Black people, must look into
Those of you who say, “ISIS: They take these young girls, and they, they rape them! Boko Haram—these crazy people in Africa. They kidnap Black girls and marry them off! They’re terrible people!” A “mirror” is a hell of a thing to look at when you’re ugly—ugly people break mirrors, and say: “You know, I don’t want to look at that!” And when you wake up in the morning, you do look in the mirror to see what last night did to you; your wife may be able to take it, but you’re not going out to meet the community with your breath smelling, drool coming out of your mouth. … Stuff happens when you sleep—and here are a people that have “died.” The decomposition of our humanity makes us stink in the Nostrils of God: Anytime we could take a nine-year-old (Tyshawn Lee of Chicago)—“because I didn’t like what his daddy did”—and take that boy into an alley and assassinate him that means we have descended into the bottomless pit of hell.
What is the price America has yet to pay for what America has done to the Natives, to our Mexican family, and to us? The Mexicans are not “aliens”—they’re coming back home. Texas was theirs, Arizona was theirs, New Mexico was theirs, California was theirs, parts of Utah and Colorado were theirs. So now they’re pouring into Texas, and White America is saying, “This is terrible! These wetbacks are coming over here and taking our jobs!”
You know doggone well, Black brother and sister, that you don’t want to be in no field picking grapes and whatnot—not you! You might be jobless, but you’re not going in any field picking grapes, strawberries … . Come on, Black man; so you’d rather fashion a criminal enterprise than be on your knees every day, picking. But now, what happens to a nation when the time has come that they have to pay? See, you are awakening now: They can’t keep us like our fathers were—especially our young people.
The colt and the ass: Our young people represent ‘The Generation of Fulfillment,’ because the cry that our fathers made has to be answered somewhere, somehow, by somebody! Now who is going to answer our cry? Go home, dust off your Bible, and let’s take a good look at God, Who really is Present. He has come to answer the cry. It is written in the Book of Genesis (Ch. 15:13-14) and the Book of Acts (Ch. 7:6-7) that for “400 years” we would have to be in bondage, but after that time God would come, and “He would judge that nation which we would serve.” The Judgment is on America as we speak!
Poor Barack: You know, he wanted to be Pharaoh in the time of the end of Pharaoh’s rule. …
“The role of Black Youth and Black College Students in The Struggle”: Study the Book of Matthew, Chapter 21, the parable about “The Colt and The Ass.” Because, Jesus is as real—as a revolutionary; not no milquetoast fellow, but a real revolutionary, that (the enemy to our rise) tries to make us believe that what happened in the past has no relevance today. But what you read about Jesus, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that 25 percent of it is “history,” but 75 percent is “prophecy.” So as long as you’re looking backward, you’ll never see “today.”
Jesus was talking to his disciples; he said, “Look, go over here and you’ll find an ass and a colt tied with her.” He said, “Loose them, and bring them to me.” Now if they’re “tied,” they belong to somebody else. Now, Jesus is no thief, but he wanted that donkey; but “tied” with the donkey was a young colt. And look at what Jesus said, “If anybody asks you,” because if you’re stealing somebody’s going to ask you, “What are you doing?” and pay attention to the answer that Jesus told the disciples to give the person that questioned them about taking “the donkey” and “the colt”: “Tell them The Master has come, and has need of them.” That is such a heavy scripture! Jesus, now, is about to go to Jerusalem, and he comes riding on the donkey, but the colt is right there with him! A “colt” is a young horse; and the horse is the most intelligent of the beasts—“the donkey” is unlearned, but “the colt” is a young learned brother/sister. You’ve got the picture?
Now most of the Negro leaders, practically all of them, don’t pay any attention to the unlearned masses of the people, nor have they engaged the young college students because if you don’t have a job you can’t tithe. So pastors don’t care about people that have no money! And that’s why the church is dying. Go visit the churches, you’re a Christian; you see the old people there. Where are the young? They don’t want anything to do with it. Why? What has happened to the church, and “religion,” where young people see preachers as “pimps”? This is real. …
Today, there are some that have a lot of young people with them, and if you pay attention to what they’re teaching: It’s not this same doctrine that our pastors would preach to us about. “Liberation theology” is what young ministers want to preach.
