By Abdul Basit Naeem
Reprinted from the September 23, 1966 edition of Muhammad Speaks Newspaper
EDITOR'S NOTE IN RED
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While, as stated in this space last week, it was not my good fortune to be present at the August 28th rally in Chicago and hear in person the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s eagerly awaited and now - famous discourse on “Unity and Power,” I have since perused the text of his speech as printed in MUHAMMAD SPEAKS (dated September 9). NEEDLESS to add , I fully subscribe to the venerable Messenger’s view that UNITY alone can and will bring about ultimate “power” (Freedom, Justice and Equality) the 22 million black inhabitants of this wilderness ( North America ) desire and ,doubtless, deserve.
Let me emphasize, though that I agree with the U.S. Muslim leader here not because I, too, am an adherent of the Islamic faith and an ardent admirer of the “Little Lamb, without - Spots and Blemishes”; no, I (words missing) opinion because it is, in my estimation, absolutely logical and judicial as well as practical.
There are several urgent and pressing reasons why UNITY just has to be the “key.” To begin with, the Asiatic (black ) people (i.e., so -called Negroes) comprise but one-tenth of the U.S. population - the whites outnumber them 10 to one. Politically, this represents an awfully disadvantageous position, especially amidst a society ridden with all kinds of prejudices and taboos.
The minority status again, provides the black man in this country with little, if any real scope of collective human progress and social betterment.
SECOND, the economic condition of U.S.(so-called) Negroes is even worse. It is common knowledge that they hold fewer jobs; their wages, compared with those of whites even in identical situations, are much lower; they are usually the last to be hired and the first to be fired,etc,etc.etc.
Consequently, no single element of the black community here has achieved unlimited prosperity and self - sufficiency or is capable of aiding the physical (material) advancement of others of “self and kind.” Third, the (so -called) Negroes, though legally free men since the “Emancipation Proclamation “of more than a hundred hundred years ago,are really not “self - independent that is to say, capable of independent thought and action. Due to decades of systematic brainwashing, they remain (mentally) shackled to the white man’s way of life-complete with the latter’s Anglo Saxon named, religion ( Christianity) and language (English). This continues to impede the "one, homogeneous entity.”
The lack of a single ethnic identity further prevents the black people’s growth as development (re-birth) of their own separate and distinct (Afro - Asian) culture and civilization.
AND LAST, but not least, the so - called “Negroes” seem to have, for a minority group, too many self-styled “leaders - each “leading “ (or misleading) a small fragment of the community to a different and often altogether unrealistic and unattainable “promised land.”
This weakens their “voice” as a people - which , in turn ,vastly reduces their capacity to assert their human rights and dignity.
From above, it should be evident and crystal -clear that UNITY is the crying need of the hour. If all black Americans would somehow unite — as the gracious and kind Muslim leader, Honorable Elijah Muhammad, urges, advises and, in the name of Our Compassionate and Most Merciful Savior (ALLAH). even begs them to do —they will no longer have to suffer the humiliation, deprivation and frustrations to which they have been subjected for over 400 long years.
Furthermore, when united they stand, the all-naughty “devil,” whose real (nefarious and noxious) nature is now being exposed , will automatically come to naught.
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