(applause)
In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful
to whom all praise is due,
whom we forever thank for giving us the honorable Elijah Mohammad
as our leader, teacher, and guide.
And I specifically, ladies and gentleman, and brothers and sisters,
open up like that because I am a representative
of the honorable Elijah Mohammad.
And were it not for him, you and wouldn't be here today.
In order for you and me to devise some kind of method or strategy
to offset some of the events or the repetition of the events
that have taken place here in Los Angelas recently,
we have to the root. We have to go to the cause.
Dealing with the condition itself is not enough.
- We have to get to the cause of it all. - (crowd concurs)
Or the root of it all.
And it is because of our effort toward getting straight to the root
that people often think we're dealing in hate.
But first I would like to congratulate and give praise to the negro,
so-called negro leaders and so-called negro organizations
and, excuse me if I say so, it's hard for me to just outright say negro
- when I know what that word really means. - (thunderous applause)
The person whom you have come to know as Ronald Stokes,
we know him as brother Ron.
One of the most religious persons to display the highest form of morals
of any black person anywhere on this Earth.
And as one of the previous speakers pointed out, who knew him,
everyone who knew him had to give him credit for being a good man.
A clean man, an intelligent man, and an innocent man
when he was murdered.
The negro, so-called negro, organizations and leaders should be given
great credit for their failure or refusal to let the white man divide them
and use them, one against the other during this crisis.
(thunderous applause)
As Reverend [Walkard] Wilson pointed out, I think it was eight years ago today
that the Supreme Court handed down the desegregation decision.
And despite the fact that eight years have gone past, that decision
- hasn't been implemented yet. - (applause from audience)
I don't have that much faith.
I don't have that much confidence.
I don't have that much patience.
And I don't have that much ignorance to--
(thunderous applause)
If the Supreme Court, which is the highest law making body
in the country can't get even eight percent compliance
within eight years because it's for black people,
then my patience has run out.
(applause)
When black people who are being oppressed become impatient,
they say that's emotional.
(murmuring)
Please, when black people who are being deprived of their citizenship...
not only of their civil rights, but their human rights,
become impatient, become fed up, don't wanna wait any longer,
then they say that's emotional.
(laughter and applause)
The negro, so-called negro, leaders and organizations should be praised.
They should be congratulated.
They should be complimented
because out of all of them combined, the white man has not yet found
one who will play the role of Uncle Tom.
(thunderous applause)
But yet he has found no Tom, no puppet, no parrot, who is still dumb enough
in 1962 to represent the injustices that he is inflicting against our people.
(applause)
We don't care what your religion is.
We don't care what organization you belong to.
We don't care how far in school you went or didn't go.
We don't care what kind of job you have.
We have to give you credit for shocking the white man
by not letting him divide you and use you one against the other.
(applause)
In the past, the greatest weapon the white man has had
has been his ability to divide and conquer.
As Jackie Robinson pointed out beautifully on the television last night,
4/5 of the world isn't white.
- Isn't that what Jackie said? - (applause)
And if 4/5 of the world is dark, how is it possible for 1/5
to rule, oppress, exploit, dominate, and brutalize the 4/5
who are in the majority? How did they do it?
Divide and conquer.
If I take my hand and slap you, you don't even feel it.
It might sting you because these digits are separated.
But all I have to do to put you back in your place is bring
- those digits together. - (applause)
This is what the white man has done to you and me.
He has divided us. And used us one against the other.
But today, thanks to Allah, you can say thanks to God
or thanks to Jesus or thanks to Jehovah-- whatever you are...
(applause)
But as a follower of the honorable Elijah Mohammad,
we have been taught to say thanks to Allah.
And that's what Jesus said. Jesus called on Allah.
He said, "Allah! [inaudible]"
I believe what's good for Jesus is good for you.
If Allah was good enough for Jesus to call upon, I think he
- should be good enough for you to call on. - (man) That's right!
Since the so-called negro community has shocked the white man
by resisting all efforts to divide us,
I think that you and I should continue to shock him
by singing and working together in unity.
Despite religious, political, economic, or educational, or social differences,
let us remember that we are not brutalized because we're Baptist.
We're not brutalized because we're Methodist.
We're not brutalized because we're Muslim.
We're not brutalized because we're Catholics.
We're brutalized because because we are black people in America.
(applause)
Here your mother is being raped and you're not supposed to be emotional.
Your woman bleeds, your woman can't walk the street
without some cracker putting his hands on her--
- and you're not supposed to be emotional! - (applause)
If you say that you're fed up, if you teach the negro
- but don't even know their own name-- - (woman) That's right!
Why? Because he took took it away from her.
Please, please. 20 million black people don't even know their own language.
Why? Because he took it away from us.
20 million black people who don't even know their history
of their ancestors. Why? Because he took it away from us!
And if you try and tell him how thoroughly and completely
they can rob, he says you're teaching hate.
(applause)
[That's something __________ want.]
(murmuring)
Today we're coming out college, you're coming out of the leading universities.
You're trying to go in a good direction.
But you don't which direction to go in.
And if somebody tries to take you right to the root of your problem
they say that that man a hate teacher.
If I ask why should the Senators in Washington--
and, then again, if we tell you that negro are being hung on the tree,
or being shot down illegally, unjustly...
and those negros should do something to protect themselves
you say you're advocating violence.
The white man is tricking you! He's trapping you.
He doesn't call it violence when he lands troops in South Vietnam.
- (applause) - Please, please, please!
He doesn't call it violence when he lands troops in Berlin.
When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, he didn't say get non-violent.
He said, "Praise the Lord, but pass the ammunition."
(applause)
But when someone attacks you, when someone comes at you with a club,
when someone comes you with a rope, when someone comes at you with a gun,
despite the fact that you've done nothing he tells you, "Suffer peacefully."
- (murmuring) - "Pray for those who use you to spite me."
[inaudible].
And how long can you suffer after suffering for 400 years?
(applause)
So I just wanna play up that little point right there
because he said that we play on your emotions.
And when you turn on your television tonight,
or your radio, or read the newspaper, they're gonna tell you in that paper
that I was playing on your emotions.
Imagine you, a second class citizen. That's not getting emotional!
It's getting intelligent.
And as far as your mayor is concerned, I see [audible].
A man named Jordy,
who has been slandering the Muslims,
a professional liar-- a professional liar.
(applause)
Who has mastered the art of using half truths.
Put in the paper that they break into our religious place of worship
and got records that they can use to prove that most of us have criminal records.
You can't be a negro in America and not have a criminal record.
(thunderous applause)
Martin Luther King has been to jail.
- (applause) - Please.
James Farmer has been to jail.
Why, you can't name a black man in this country who was sick and tired
of the hell that he's [catching] who hasn't been to jail.
Charged him with being seditious.
- They put Moses in jail! - (woman) Yeah!
- They put Daniel in jail. - (woman) Yeah!
Why, you haven't got a man of God in the Bible that wasn't put to jail
when they started speaking up against exploitation and oppression.
(applause)
They charged Jesus with sedition.
- Didn't they do that? - (crowd concurs)
They said he was against Caesar.
They said he was discriminating because he told his disciples,
"Go not the way of the gentiles, but rather go to the lost sheep."
He discriminated! Don't go near the gentiles,
go to the lost sheep. Go to the oppressed.
Go the downtrodden. Go to the exploited.
Go the people who don't know who they are,
who are lost from the knowledge of themselves and who are
strangers in a land that is not theirs.
Go to those people! Go to the slaves.
Go the second class citizens. Go to the ones who are suffering
the brunt of Cesar's brutality.
And if Jesus were here in America today, he wouldn't be going to the white man.
The white man is the oppressor! He would be going to the oppressed.
He would be going to the humble. He would be going to the lowly.
He would be going to the rejected and the despised.
He would be going to the so-called American negro.
(applause)
To have once been a criminal
is no disgrace.
To remain a criminal is the disgrace.
I formally was a criminal.
I formally was in prison. I'm not ashamed of that.
You never can use that over my head.
And he's using the wrong stick!
I don't feel that stick.
(laughter and applause)
I went to a prison because I believed in men like Sam [Jordy].
I went to prison because I trusted men like Sam [Jordy]
I went to prison following the philosophy of men like Sam [Jordy].
But since I've been following the honorable Elijah Mohammad,
I have been reformed and that's more--please--
that's more than Sam [Jordy] and [Chief Parker]
and all these other white politicians that have been able to do
with the inmates in the prisons of this state.
They should give Mr. Mohammad credit. They should give Mr. Mohammad credit
for reforming and rehabilitating men whom they have failed
- to reform and rehabilitate. - (thunderous applause)
Mayor [Jordy] went forward to some press report
that Mr. Mohammad had once been found guilty of contributing to the delinquency
of a minor.
He failed to explain, purposely, that in 1934,
the honorable Elijah Mohammad refused to send his children
to white schools in Detroit, Michigan, that were teaching you
about little black Sambo.
That's the minor that he contributed to the delinquency of.
You see this vicious, fork-tongue white man has been able
to take lies and make you turn against those who want to help you
and make others turn against you.
This is the contributing to the delinquency of a minor
that this mayor, or a man who calls himself mayor, is talking about.
In the same article he said that the Muslims are the same people
who rioted in the United Nations.
Someone should pull his coat and let him know that at the present moment
there's six million dollars worth of suits [inaudible] level against two
of New York's leading newspapers for making a mistake of charging
the Muslims as being involved in those United Nations riots.
We were not involved!
And if this fork-tongued man who calls himself your mayor
had taken the time to find that out, he wouldn't be walking into the trap
that he's letting his ignorance lead him into!
(applause)
And if you take the time to read
the Washington Post that came out the Sunday after that incident took place,
the Washington Post pointed out on the front page that the Muslims
had nothing to do with the UN riots and they quoted the [inaudible],
the person who was at that time the Commissioner of Police in New York City.
See, it's lies that the white man has spread about the Muslims
to try and make you afraid of the Muslims, or to try and make you think
that the Muslims were a criminal element, an uncouth element in things
that you have not liked to be associated with.
Also, they say that-- I'm clearing these things up
and then we're going to get into what happened.
They also say that the honorable Elijah Mohammad was draft dodger.
No, he wasn't.
He just refused to go to the army because he was a man of peace.
He was a minister of a religion of peace. He was teaching peace.
So he outright refused to go to the army.
That's not draft dodging. That's intelligence.
(cheering)
Here, before the grand jury,
because the coroner's jury is stacked against negros.
(cheers and applause)
The Grand Jury is stacked against negros.
The press, the radio, the television and the newspapers
- are stacked against negros. - (crowd concurs)
But, please, the Los Angeles Police department is stacked
against all negros, all except those he has appointed to high positions.
The control press, the white press inflames the white public against negroes.
The police are able to use it to paint the negro community
as a criminal element.
The police are able to use the press to make the white public think
that 90%, or 99%, of the Negroes in the negro community are criminals.
And once the white public is convinced that most of the negro community
is a criminal element, then this automatically paves the way for the
police to move into the negro community, exercising Gestapo
tactics, stopping any black man who is in this - on he sidewalk, whether he
is guilty or whether he is innocent. Whether he is well dressed or whether
he is poorly dressed. Whether he is educated or whether he is dumb.
Whether he's a Christian or whether he's a Muslim.
As long as he is black and a member of the negro community
the white public thinks that the white policeman is justified
in going in there and trampling on that mans civil rights and on that mans
human rights. (applause)
Once the police have convinced the white public that the so-called
negro community is a criminal element, they can go in and question,
brutalize, murder, unarmed innocent negroes and the white public
is gullible enough to back them up.
This makes the negro community a police state.
This makes the negro neighborhood a police state.
It's the most heavily patrolled. It has more police in it than any
other neighborhood, yet it has more crime than any other neighborhood.
How can you have more cops and more crime?
(laughter)
It shows you that the cops must be in cahoots with the criminals.
(laughter, applause)
The texture of the hair that God [inaudible], that God gave them
so much that they put lye on it. (laughter)
Do you realise - now, you know brother; lye will eat a hole in steel and you
know your head is not that hard.
(applause)
Who taught you - please. Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair?
Who taught you to hate the color of your skin to such extent that
you bleach to get like the white man?
Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose
and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself
from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?
Who taught you to hate your own kind?
Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to?
So much so that you don't want to be around each other.
You know, before you come asking Mr. Mohammed
does he teach hate?
You should ask who- yourself, who taught you to hate
being what God gave you. (applause)
We teach you to love the hair that God gave you.
Here you, way out in the middle of the ocean, can't swim
and you worried about someone that's in the bathtub and can't swim.
(laughter, applause)
We don't steal. We don't gamble. We don't lie, and we don't cheat.
And that also deprives the government of revenue
(laughter)
because you can't get into a whiskey bottle without getting
past the government seal.
You can't open a deck of cards without getting past the government seal.
Hell, the white man makes the whiskey then puts you in jail for getting drunk.
(cheering)
He sells you the cards and the dice and puts you in jail when he
catches you using 'em.
So, he's against us because we fix it where he can't catch you anymore.
We take the dice outta your hands and the cards out of your hands
and the whiskey out of your head.
The most disrespected person in America is the black woman.
The most unprotected person in America is the black woman.
The most neglected person in America is the black woman.
And as Muslims, the honorable Elijah Mohammad teaches us
to respect our women and to protect our women.
And the only time a Muslim really gets real violent is when
someone goes to molest his woman. - (man) right!
(applause)
We will kill you for our woman.
I'm making it plain. Yes. We will kill you for our woman.
(applause)
We believe that if the white man will do whatever is necessary
to see that his woman gets respect and protection
then you and I will never be recognised as men
until we stand up like men and place the same penalty
over the head of anyone who puts his filthy hands in the direction
of our women.
(thunderous applause)
We respect them, but we want them to respect us.
We think that the law should respect the negro community.
The law should protect the negro community.
The law should approach the community with intelligence if it
expects the negro community to react intelligently.
So, the honorable Elijah Mohammed teaches us
to always avoid anything that smacks of disrespect for the law.
And if the police department tells the truth, the will have to admit
that they have never had any, uh, experiences with Muslims that
have ever been anything other than honorable
unless they themselves come at us in a dishonorable way.
There's no case against the Muslims.
It has no case against these brothers whom they shot down.
And because it has no case, it's trying to create a case.
It's trying to manufacture a case.
And therefore they set up a grand jury hearing of the case so that they
could hear it behind closed doors, and after hearing what we have to say
then they'll- their particular strategy or defense against the actions
that they committed on that April the 27th.
So, at the advice of our attorneys, we purposefully, the victims,
those who have been indicted, or rather those who have been arrested
and are out on bond, have purposefully refrained and refused from making
any statement whatsoever until after the case appears in court.
And when you hear their story it will be in a public trial.
We have already been - had experience with these private hearings
behind closed doors.
Anything that the white man has to do to the Muslim,
he has to do it in the open.
He has to do it in public, or he has to put every single one of us
behind bars for the rest our our lives.
(applause)
When Mayor Yorty called for a government investigation
of a religious group that have the highest moral standards
of any group in the negro community, Mayor Yorty was giving you an
example of what Hitler did in Nazi Germany when he began to go
on the rampage.
(applause)
We feel, we have confidence that the white public and the black public,
if they hear our case, if they hear and have access to the investigation,
will never be fooled by this phony set up that's stacked from the top
all the way down.
And if you doubt it, when you leave home tonight, when you go home tonight
look for the press. I'd like at this time to call forth
these brothers who are under, uh, who were arrested.
The brothers who were arrested. Come up here behind these chairs, please.
(applause)
They were suspects. (laughter)
This wouldn't happen in a white neighborhood.
White man can walk down the street with packages on his head
packages under his arm and packages anywhere else
and won't anybody question his right to carry those packages.
But a negro is suspect because the press makes you suspect.
Yes, the white press makes negroes suspect.
(murmuring)
All the information you need, Officer.
And the Officer made one stay at the rear of the car and the
other go to the front of the car, and while he was taking the one
to the one to the front of the car, the polite attitude, the humble if,
the submissive, intelligent peaceful spirit that he uexpectedly found
in this negro infuriated him. And he began to - he told
the brother; 'put down your hands.' Brother was talking, he's not a criminal.
A man has a right on the sidewalk to talk with his hands.
'Put down your hands, don't talk with your hands.'
And when the brother continued to gesture with his hands
the Officer grabbed his hand, twisted it around, 'round behind his back
flung him up against the car and then that's when hell broke loose.
That was when hell broke loose.
A struggle ensured, shots were fired by the police
and by a negro door shaker.
(laughter)
An alarm went out.
When the alarm went out, instead of the police going to the place
where the incident occurred, the police went one block away
to the temple.
When they arrived there, they got out of their cars with their guns smokin'.
You woulda thought it was Wyatt - what his name?
Wyatt Earp.
I'm telling you, they came out of those cars, and we have enough
witnesses to hang 'em.
With their guns smokin'.
Cheif Packer knows this, Mayor Yorty knows this
and every police official in the city knows that.
They didn't fire no warning shots in the air
they fired warning shots point blank at innocent, unarmed,
defenseless negros.
As I say, two of the brothers were shot in the back.
Another was shot in the shoulder.
Another was shot, two of them were shot, excuse the expression,
through the penis.
(murmuring)
Another was shot in the hip and the bullet came out the other side.
But Arthur here was shot 1/4 of an inch from his heart.
Let me tell you something, and I'll tell you why you say 'we hate white people'.
We don't hate anybody.
We love our own people so much, they think we hate the ones who
are inflicting injustice against them.
(applause)
Who has been shot, the bullet having passed a 1/4 of an
inch through his heart.
I'm not gonna let him talk, which I think you can understand why.
You should listen to the conversation of the police officers
while it was going on.
Two of the brothers who had been shot, who were lying hand in hand,
the officer said they were chanting a death chant.
You read that.
They were saying 'Allahu Akbar'. What does that mean?
It means that God is the greatest. It means that God is the greatest.
(applause)
Understand what the white officer called a death chant was a prayer.
They were praying when they were shot down.
They were saying Allhu Akbar.
And it shook the officer up that they haven't heard black people talk
any kinda talk but what they taught 'em.
And two of the brothers who were shot in the back were telling me that
as they lay on the sidewalk, they were holding hands.
They held hands with each other saying Allahu Akbar.
And the blood was seeping out of them where the police bullets
had torn into their insides. Still, they said Allahu Akbar
and the police came and kicked them in the head.
Police kicked them in the head telling them to shut up that noise
while they were laying on the sidewalk in front of our temple.
Kicked them in the head.
Shut up that noise. And one of them, when he was on his way to the
police station in the ambulance, one of the ambulance attendants
told the white cop, 'why don't you kill the nigger?'
He said, 'I'll tell them that he tried to get away. Why don't you
kill the nigger? While you got a chance. I'll swear that he tried to get away.'
If he didn't say this, then I need to be put in jail, and I'll gladly go.
(applause)
One of them who was being taken to jail in a police car
as the ambulance sirens were coming to the place, one of the policeman
said to the other: 'what are the ambulances rushing for? Nothing
but some niggers.' So, he looked then and saw the Muslim
brothers sitting beside him and he shut up.
But after he got to the jail, the same officer that said this
turned to the brother and said; 'I hope that you didn't get offended by
what I said back there under the heat of emotion, because some of my
best friends are colored.'
(roaring)
That's what he said.
That's his password: 'Some of my best friends are colored.'
And I for one, as a Muslim, believe that the white man is intelligent
enough, if he were made to realise how black people really feel
and how fed up we are without that whole compromising sweet talk.
Why you're the one that make it hard for yourself.
The white man believes you when you go to him with that old sweet talk
'cause you been sweet talkin' him ever since he brought you here.
Stop sweet talking him. Tell him how you feel.
Tell him how or what kinda hell you been catching
and let him know that if he's not ready to clean his house up
if hes not ready to clean his house up, he shouldn't have a house.
It should catch on fire. And burn down.
(applause)
As Muslims, we identify ourselves with the dark world.
So we're not any minority. We're apart of the majority
and the white man is the minority.
(applause)
You have to know this to understand us: we don't think any odds are
against us.
We don't fight a battle like the odds are against us.
Why, the whole dark world today is in unity.
It's one. If you don't think so, look at the United Nations.
When the dark world votes, they vote as one.
They gettin' the colonialists out of Africa, and out of Asia.
Tellin' them to get out. They don't have any nuclear weapons
but they got a solid, united voice and they're unity alone is sufficient
to drive the oppressor and exploiter of their people out of their own country.
You and I need to learn a lesson from that right there.
In the UN, the dark world consists of Buddhist's, Hindu's, Shinto's,
Taoist's, Christian's, Muslims, everything.
But they're together.
They forget their religious and political differences.
They think as one. They move as one
against a common enemy.
And [inaudible] of Algeria, he's going, don't think he's not going,
he's going.
(applause)
They're getting him out of Angola, out of Tanganyika, out of Angola,
Out of Uganda, out of Kenya. He's going from South Africa, too.
He hasn't got long to be there.
All over this earth, dark people who have been oppressed and exploited
by those who are not their own kind, strangers, are coming together to
get the oppressor off their back.
You and I learn a lesson from that.
We are oppressed.
We are exploited.
We are downtrodden.
We are denied, not only civil rights, but even human rights.
So, the only way we're going to get some of this oppression
and exploitation away from us, or aside from us
is come together against the common enemy.
(applause)
When they sat down at the Bandung conference, everyone there
has this in common: a dark skin.
Some of those who were sitting there were socialists, some were communists,
some where capitalists, some were Christian, some were Buddhist.
They were everything! But all of 'em was dark skinned.
And they looked at that dark skin and agreed that this is
one thing they had in common.
Forget that you're a Methodist, forget that you're a Catholic,
forget that you're a Protestant, forget that you're a Muslim.
Remember that all of us are black,
and we're catching h -