By Messenger Elijah Muhammad
Reprinted from the November 12, 1965 issue of Muhammad Speaks
No. 1-We must recognize people, their office and authority whom we are seeking employment from-that they are the people who own the country and are in authority. They are the people who created the job which we are seeking. They are the people from whom we are actually seeking our existence, whether we work or play.
No. 2-It is true that we are free for the last 100 years. We are supposed to have been free to do something for self -- make our own job. But we have not the unity or the wisdom to create jobs for ourselves--usually without the desire to shoulder the responsibility of doing something for self.
Today I say right here, that we are proving ourselves unworthy of the freedom to become an independent nation, by our refusing the responsibility to go out like men and women seeking the necessities of life and well-being of our own self and nation.
We now are actually making ourselves a shameful people by begging our slavemasters to continue carrying our responsibilities after 100 years of freedom--from the master's mouth.
REGARDLESS how treacherously this freedom was granted, we have had 100 years in which to side-step this treachery and find the most positive way out of it -- unity, education, love of self and kind first, instead of trying to love everybody on the face of the earth and trying to please everybody before self, or work towards the things which are most pleasing to self.
Now, to prove the ignorance in this matter, is the Civil Rights Movement -- which is not asking for anything but a chance to become a permanent free slave to the same people to whom our fathers were in servitude slavery. We could not be justified in asking the slavemaster for equal freedom, equal justice and equality in what is his, if we have the freedom to go for self.
WE SHOULD even ask them to forgive us for asking them for employment or for even asking them for a bowl of soup or a piece of bread, after they gave us 100 years to do for self. You may not like this--but truth is truth.
Go to the employment office of the white man --the creators of your jobs--with the above words in mind. You would not disgrace yourself if you pulled your hat off -- since you had all this time to make employment for yourself.
YOU MAY HAVE in your possession a degree or a diploma from their schools or colleges. This makes it all the worse--you should be across the street making a job for yourself. Speak nice to your would-be employer (good manners).
Do not count how many of his own kind he hired before he talked to you and turned you down. You are in no position to do so. Probably those of his own kind to whom he gave employment had helped to create job and founded the factories throughout the country, manufacturing and supplying the needs of others -- Perhaps of yourself.
So, you are in no position to act equal and independent with the employer. Our greatest trouble sometimes is leaving out the intelligence which we should display.
IF HE HIRES you:
No.1 - God to work to give him a full day's work. Do not seek to do other than that. Respect the foreman as a foreman; the lieutenant as the lieutenant; the superintendent as the superintendent.
RESPECT ALL who go towards the making up of American Citizens and who care for the unemployed people of this country. Do not hide around corners on the job and rob the owner of 5 or 10 minutes or an hour's work. One who does so is not a man who needs a job -- this is the action of a man who needs a rest -- or job to keep from working.
You are free and you have no right to come back and beg a man for a job and then not give him the labor you promised him in exchange for payment. He bargained for your labor; not you idle time. This is nothing but justice.
GIVE YOUR employer your full time. Never let him catch you idling on the job. Be honest with yourself and others.
Do the best that you can to please your employer. Do not say, "I will work as slowly as I can" in order to deny the employer an honest day's work. Say "I will do whatever I can to keep pace with the other workers without becoming exhausted on the job." Do so.
WE CALL THIS a full day's work when a man does the best that he can. Employers like a good laborer like you. I used to be a foreman myself in several places, even in the South.
The reason this warning is given you, is because I have received a lot of complaints about your unemployment.
GO AS clean as possible. Keep a clean mouth on the job and do not use filthy, unclean, wicked or profane language. This is also disrespecting the employment he has given you. Let that person know that you respect his authority.
Do not have unnecessary conversations on the job. He hired you to work; not to converse -- whether it is religion or whatever. Speak when you think it is necessary. Do not try to advertise something without his permission. You should keep your mouth shut -- and when you speak, do so in the right manner. Do not take up the time of other employees with idle conversation.
IF YOU follow these suggestions, I am sure that you will tell me next time that you are now employed and that your employer and you, both, like your work. Thank you.
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