little so-called Negro ... this little Georgia-born ex-slave? What can
he do? What can he tell us?”
Well, my friends, the Western World’s most learned diplomats have
failed to solve this grave race problem. Her learned politicians have
failed. Her learned theologians have failed. Her learned legal experts
have failed. Her sociologists have failed. Her civil leaders have
failed. Her fraternal leaders have even failed.
Since the Western World’s most skillful scientists and scholars have
failed to solve this race problem, it is time for us to sit down
tonight and reason together, and I’m certain we will be forced to agree
that it takes God Himself to solve this grave racial dilemma. When we
face these facts, we see the necessity for DIVINE intervention ... we
see the necessity for a DIVINE SOLUTION.
If God is going to intervene, will He come Himself, or will He send
someone with His solution? Will we be able to accept this divine
solution when it comes? How will we know if the Messenger who brings us
the solution is really a man from God? What yardstick will we use to
measure him?
Will this man of God be someone from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Howard,
or Tuskegee? Will this man of God be a black man or a white man?
Will he be a theologian or preacher from one of the prevailing
religions of the Western World? Will he be a politician from one of the
major political parties? What type of man do you think God would choose
to deliver His solution to this troubled Western World? How are we to
determine whether or not Mr. Muhammad is a man from God? And, how are
we to determine if it is time for God Himself to intervene?
Let us not be emotional; let us reason together. Look around us at the
condition of the world. Never before has man had in his hands the power
to destroy human life on such a vast scale. Never before has there
been such propaganda, mass lies, mass suspicion, mass confusion, mass
dissatisfaction, mass unrest, mass hatreds ... and the ingredients for
such mass bloodshed.
Never before has America made so many crucial blunders, one after
another, and suffered such great loss of prestige in the eyes of the
world, despite the advice of her expert advisors.
The U-2 spy plane incident caused the President of the strongest
country on earth to be tricked, trapped and exposed before the whole
world as a liar ... despite the advice of expert advisors.
At the Paris Summit Conference, the same President was cursed,
ridiculed, and humiliated again before the eyes of the entire world ...
despite the advice of his expert advisors.
In Korea, students, mere children, toppled the government of Syngman
Rhee, the best friend America had in the Far East, despite the advice
of her expert advisors.
In Turkey, children toppled the government of Menderes, America’s best
friend in the Middle East ... despite the advice of expert advisors.
In Tokyo, students, mere children again, defied the President to come
to Japan, and blocked him from entering after he had traveled thousands
of miles from home and had arrived at their back door ... a most
humiliating insult ... despite the advice of his expert advisors.
And Cuba, a little midget island-government in the Caribbean, is
challenging Giant America, accusing her of economic aggression,
confiscating all of her investments, and getting unexpected support
from Mexico and other strategically located Latin American countries
... and all of this, despite the advice of her expert advisors.
My friends, if the expert politicians, the expert theologians, the
expert diplomats and other scientists, professors and scholars have
failed to devise a solution to these grave world problems, surely
you will agree that it is now time for God to send us someone with a
solution from Himself.
Is Mr. Muhammad from God? Is he on time? Does his divine solution fit
the events of today?
Look at the racial volcano that has erupted in the Congo, with the
ingredients present for an even greater racial explosion building up
into what could easily touch off the dreaded 3rd World War ... and once
again the diplomats in the UN are whispering that Western Civilization
is tottering on the brink of disaster.
Why are the Africans in the Congo rising against the white Belgian
oppressors? Why are the Africans in Kenya rising against their white
British oppressors? Why are the Africans in Angola rising against their
white Portuguese oppressors? Why are the Africans in Algeria rising
against their white French oppressors? In short: Why is the black man
today all over Africa rising up against his white European overlords?
In the Congo, Central Africa, the black man is saying, “We must have
our own land.” In Kenya, East Africa, the black man is saying, “We must
have our own land.” In Angola, West Africa, the black man is saying,
“We must have our own land.” In Algeria, North Africa, the black man is
saying, “We must have our own land.” Even deep into South Africa, all
over the entire African continent, the only solution in the minds of
the awakening black man is: “We must have our own land.”
The cry of the black man in Africa for the return of his own land is so
widespread, so unrelenting, so uncompromising ... it stands to reason
that only God Himself is inspiring him and driving him onward in this
spirit of freedom. If God has made the black man in Africa realize he
cannot rest until he has some land of his own ... surely that same God
will look westward toward America and see 20 million black people here,
SECOND-CLASS CITIZENS, who are also in dire need of some land that we
can call our own.
If Mr. Muhammad says “some land of our own” is God’s solution to this
grave race problem, why land? Why is land so important to everyone
today?
The white man in Great Britain could once boast that his control
extended over so much of the black man’s land that the sun never set on
the British Empire. Today, when the sun rises, we can hardly find the
British Empire.
How important is land? Well, look what happened to the British Empire
when she lost the lands she had colonized in Asia: lands like India,
China, Burma, Malaya, etc. ... her inability to continue robbing Asia
of the natural resources produced by the land almost wrecked the
British economy, decreased her military strength and her political
prestige so low she could no longer use “force” to hold her African
colonies.
As her grip on the black man’s land loosened, Britain dwindled. Loss of
land meant loss of Empire ... loss of wealth, power, and of prestige.
As the black men in Africa and Asia regain control over their lands,
the French, Belgians, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, and all other
European Empires also begin to crumble and topple downward....
As we face these facts, we are forced to agree that the economy of
white Europe, the military power of white Europe, and the political
prestige of white Europe was based upon the lands in Africa and Asia
which they had taken from the BLACK MAN.
The combined powers of white Europe have not been able to stem this
black tide in Africa that is sweeping aside the shackles of colonial
slavery. The Africans have become militant and are marching toward
freedom. Africa is the only continent where a new nation is being born
every day ... and these new nations are taking their seats in the
family of other independent nations symbolized by the United Nations.
And, this fast-growing black block formed by these newly born African
nations, united with our Darker Brothers in Asia, can already easily
out-vote the white colonial powers in the UN who had formerly enslaved
them. These newly born independent black nations can also take a firm
stand in behalf of other black people all over the world who are still
enslaved, persecuted, exploited ... or deprived of their basic rights.
As the rise of these newly independent black nations collapses the
economic, military, and political strength of America’s allies in white
Europe, what effect does this have upon white America?
Does white America face the same black web in which the colonial powers
of white Europe find themselves entangled? And, if so, how will this
affect America’s attitude toward the black people of Africa? How will
this affect America’s attitude toward the 20 million black people who
are yet suffering the bondage of so-called second-class citizenship
right here in America ... 20 million so-called Negroes who have
also been deprived of freedom, justice, and equality ... 20 million
so-called Negroes who not only have been deprived of their civil
rights, but who have even been deprived of their HUMAN RIGHTS ... the
right to hold their heads up, and to live in dignity like other human
beings.
Let us not be emotional, but let us face these facts. Let us reason
together. This has become a serious problem for America, and for the
entire world.
Will the Divine Solution that God has given Mr. Elijah Muhammad help
white America avert the racial dilemma in which the awakening dark
nations of Africa and Asia have already placed America’s allies in
white Europe?
Before we can intelligently decide to accept or reject Mr. Muhammad’s
solution, let us take a closer look at America itself:
America is the richest and most powerful nation on this earth. Her
President is almost like a “god,” for he has in his hands almost every
other country on this earth. Therefore, every four years, when a new
President, or “god,” is about to be selected, the eyes of even the
foreign nations are turned toward the American elections ... for they
too are wondering who, what type of man, will be the next “god.”
Yet, at the two great political conventions in which the two candidates
are selected, despite America’s need to impress, and favorably
influence the foreign nations, foreign policy is never the great
controversial issue ... the controversial issue is always over domestic
policy ... the CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE ... in which the so-called American
Negro is the primary figure ... the STAR on the world stage ... for it
is he who holds the balance of power in all elections ... it is he who
can easily determine “who” will be the next “god.”
Therefore, this great political drama not only stars the Negro, but all
the political schemes are designed primarily to woo him, to please him,
to tempt him, ensnare him, to get his allegiance and capitalize upon
his political support.
The Negro’s position is most strategic, but his mental condition is too
pathetic for him to take intelligent advantage of this vital position
“fate” has placed him in. The American Negro is suffering from a
mental sickness. His mind has been “tampered” with by his slave master.
The Western World is sick. America is sick ... but the Negro in America
is the sickest of them all. The sickening condition of the Negro in
America is infecting Uncle Sam’s entire body and endangering the
security and future of the whole Western World.
Mr. Muhammad says that only after the American Negro’s condition is
“corrected” will Uncle Sam’s health improve ... for only then will
Uncle Sam look “healthy” in the inquiring eyes of the fast-awakening
dark world.
Since we see the vital necessity of correcting the miserable condition
of the American Negro, and we must also agree that all other efforts to
solve this problem have failed, will Mr. Muhammad’s “prescription” cure
the ailments of these 20 million second-class citizens?
Many of you will say: “No! Muhammad is a Black Supremist. He is an
extremist. He stresses race too much. He is a racist.”
My friends: If you were to see a man attired in white, with a sharp
instrument in his hands, bending over someone who is prostrate on a
table, your lack of understanding might compel you to shout, “murderer!”
But when you know the place is a hospital, the sleeping man is
a patient, the man attired in white is a surgeon, and the sharp
instrument must be used to perform some surgery that is necessary to
save the patient’s life ... you can then accept the fact that although
the operation is very painful, it must be performed.
Uncle Sam is sick, because he has a black “lump” growing in his white
body that doesn’t belong there, and this black “growth” is getting
larger every day, and increasing Uncle Sam’s internal pains. God
Himself has ordained that this surgery must be performed, for if the
20 million rapidly increasing so-called Negroes are not separated
from the white parts of the body, it will soon cause the death and
destruction of Uncle Sam.
God has given Mr. Muhammad some sharp truth. It is like a two-edged
sword. It cuts into you. It causes you great pain, but if you can take
it, it will cure you and save you from what otherwise would be CERTAIN
DEATH.
In your mental anguish many of you will emotionally insist that Mr.
Muhammad is not teaching the real religion of Islam. You will still
insist that he is teaching a racial, economic, and political philosophy.
My friends, Islam is the religion taught by all of the prophets: Noah,
Lot, Abraham, Moses, and even Jesus. Islam is the true name of the
religion God gave to the prophets in the past to cure their people of
whatever moral or spiritual ailments that were afflicting them in that
day.
Since we have examined the ailments of the crumbling Western World, and
the ills that are infecting America ... let us look more closely at the
miserable condition of the American Negro:
Here are 20 million people who have lost their original identity; they
cannot even speak their own mother tongue. How can 20 million people
lose their language? What happened to it? What was it? Why don’t they
at least know what it was?
Why don’t the educated Negroes know something about their own history,
their own culture, the last names of their forefathers, their own
nationality, their own country, their own flag, their own religion, and
their own God?
My friends, surely you will agree that no other people in history,
biblical or otherwise, have been so completely stripped and robbed by
their slave master of all knowledge concerning their own kind ... and
because of this, no other people in history, biblical or otherwise,
have ever presented such a problem to their former slave masters or to
the world ... as the problem created by the presence of the 20 million
so-called Negroes here in America today.
The New York _Tribune_, in an editorial (Feb. 5, 1960), pointed out
that out of 11 million qualified Negro voters, only 2,700,000 actually
took time to vote. This means that, roughly speaking, only 3 million of
the 11 million Negroes who are qualified to vote take an active part
... and the remaining 8 million remain voluntarily inactive, and yet it
it is this small minority of Negro voters who help determine who will
be the next President.
If who will be the next President can be influenced by 3 million
Negro voters, it is easy to see why the presidential candidates of
both political parties put on such a false show with the civil rights
bill, and with promises of integration. They must woo or impress the 3
million voting Negroes who are the actual “integration seekers.”
If so much fuss is made over these 3 million “integration seekers,”
what would the presidential candidates have to do to appease the 8
million non-voting Negroes if they ever decided to become politically
active in this election year?
Who are the 8 million non-voting Negroes, what do they want, and why
don’t they vote?
The 3 million voters are the so-called middle- (or high-) class
Negroes, referred to by Howard University Sociology Professor E.
Franklin Frazier, as the “BLACK BOURGEOISIE,” who have been educated
to think as patriotic individualists, with no racial pride ... who
believe in, and look forward to, the future “integrated-intermarried”
society promised them by the Negro politicians ... and therefore,
this “integration-minded” 3 million remain an active part of the
white-controlled political parties. But it must never be overlooked,
that these 3 million integration seekers are only a small minority of
the 11 million qualified voters.
The 8 million non-voting Negroes are the majority, the downtrodden
black masses. They have refused to vote, or to take part in politics,
because they reject the Uncle Tom approach of the “clergy-politician”
leadership that has been hand-picked for the American Negroes by the
white man himself.
The clergy-politician leadership does not speak for the Negro majority;
they don’t speak for the black masses. They speak for the “BLACK
BOURGEOISIE,” the “brainwashed” (white-minded) middle-class minority
... who, because they are ashamed of black, and don’t want to be
identified with black or as being black, are seeking to lose this
“identity” by mingling, mixing, intermarrying, and integration with the
white man.
The race problem cannot be solved by listening to this white-minded
(brainwashed) minority. The white man must try to learn what does
the majority want. The next President would be wise to try and learn
what the black masses want. And, the only way to find this out is by
listening to the man who speaks for the black masses of America.
I declare to you and to the entire world, that the man here in America
who speaks for the majority, the downtrodden, dissatisfied black masses
... is this same man whom so many thousands of our people are flocking
toward to see and hear ... this same Mr. Muhammad who is labeled by you
as a Black Supremist, and as a Racist!
If the 3 million middle-class Negroes are casting their ballots for
integration and intermarriage ... what do the non-voting black masses
who are in the minority want? Find out what the black masses want, and
then perhaps America’s grave race problem can be solved.
The black masses are tired of following these hand-picked Negro
“leaders” who sound like professional beggars, as they cry year after
year for white America to accept us as first-class citizens.
Since this clergy-politician “leadership,” which was carefully
hand-picked for us by the white man, has failed to solve the problem
for the downtrodden black masses ... God Himself has stepped into the
picture, and has made Messenger Elijah Muhammad a wise, fearless,
and uncompromising spokesman for the 20 million black people here in
America, who, behind the Divine Leadership of this man of God, will now
never be satisfied until we have a home in a land that we can proudly
call our own.
We have accepted your invitation to come here to Yale University
Law School this evening to let you know first hand why 20 million
so-called Negroes cannot integrate with white America ... why white
America, after 100 years of religious hypocrisy and political trickery
will never accept us as first-class citizens here ... and why we must
therefore seek some separate territory of our own.
In your blind emotion, again many of you will cry out that this is
wrong, that this is not religion, that this is not Islam ... that this
is just another economic-political philosophy.
I must remind you to keep an open mind. Let your own Christian bible be
the judge:
You credit Moses with being a religious man, a man of God, doing God’s
work. Yet, what did Moses actually do? What did Moses teach? Moses
freed his people from their slave master. Moses told the oppressor of
his people: “Let my people go.” Moses separated his people from their
masters, and then led them into a separate territory of their own.
You admit Moses was a man of God, yet you will have to agree Moses did
not teach integration. Moses taught separation. Moses didn’t take time
to dwell on religious practices. He just let his people know that he
represented the God of their forefathers, whose desire it was for them
to be separated from their slave master and placed in a land that they
could call their own. Mr. Muhammad’s message and mission today is the
same as that of the biblical Moses. Mr. Muhammad is a modern Moses in
this modern-day house of bondage.
Many of you will cry out that you don’t go by what Moses said or did,
but rather by what Jesus said. You claim that Jesus taught love and
that Mr. Muhammad teaches hate.
But, my friends, have you really read the bible? Are you familiar with
Luke 14:26 where Jesus taught: “If any man come to me, and hate not his
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,
yes, and even his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”
In other words, Jesus taught that you must hate everyone in your
family, even your own self ... and Muhammad teaches us to love our
brothers and sisters ... yet you say Muhammad teaches hate and that
Jesus taught love.
Many of you will say that Jesus was no respecter of persons, that he
came to all the world. You say Muhammad bars white people, therefore he
can’t be from God.
My friends, Jesus told his followers to go not the way of the Gentiles,
go only to the “lost sheep.” He definitely advised his followers to
discriminate and make a distinction between the Gentiles and the “lost
sheep.”
But you still cry out that Jesus is coming back at the end of the world
to make us all the same, make us one people ... integrate us.
No, my friends, Jesus himself did not even advocate integration. He
referred to the end of this world as that great “HARVEST TIME.” He
likened the people of today as “wheat and tares,” who would be allowed
to “grow together,” or integrated, until God comes at the end of this
world and separates the people Himself ... then He would cause one to
be burned in a Lake of Fire, and those whom He chooses for Himself He
would save.
Jesus also spoke of the people of today as being like “sheep and
goats,” whom God would separate at the end of the world ... some for
salvation and some for destruction.
Jesus did not advocate integration; he advocated SEPARATION!
Noah’s solution was not integration; in his day it was also a message
of separation. Lot’s solution was separation. And, remember, my
friends, Jesus warned that “as it was in the days of Noah and Lot,
so shall it be these last days” ... not integration, but complete
separation of the two races ... or DESTRUCTION!
Surely you can now see that Mr. Muhammad’s message, or solution, is the
same as that of Noah, Lot, Moses, and Jesus. How can you still doubt if
Mr. Muhammad is from God? What you really should be concerned about is
has Mr. Muhammad come in time to save you; and what must you do now to
save yourselves.
When Mr. Muhammad says that we must have some of these states, before
you flinch and hold up your hands in “mock shock,” let us look and see
if 20 million so-called Negroes deserve such a solution.
If I were to collect the combined wages of everyone in this Yale
University Law School auditorium tonight for just one week, I would
have plenty of money. If I could work all of you for nothing for just
one year I would be extremely rich. Well, what about the millions of
black people who worked here in America as your slaves for over 300
years without one payday? What happened to their wages? Who collected
the profits, or amassed the fortunes received from their free labor?
Facing these unpleasant facts, surely you can easily see now how
America became so rich so fast.
How will 20 million so-called Negroes today receive a “just
compensation”? We have hundreds of years’ “back pay” that is long
overdue, and must be paid sooner or later ... or is there to be no such
things as JUSTICE for your faithful ex-slaves?
The American government has appropriated billions of dollars to pay the
Indians for lands taken from their foreparents by your foreparents.
Again I say, my friends, let us reason together: surely you will agree
that God is more just than your government ... yet your government has
felt morally and legally obligated to pay billions of dollars to the
Indians for the crime committed against them.
What about the 20 million so-called Negroes! If the Indians must be
paid for land taken from them, what about the free labor and lives of
our foreparents that were taken from us for over 300 years?
If the white politicians have agreed that the Indians should be paid
for their lands ... what price or payment will the GOD OF JUSTICE
demand for 20 million black people who were robbed of our labor, lives,
identity, culture, history ... and even our human dignity?