Minister Louis Farrakhan

Come out of her my people -Part 2

By The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: Aug 23, 2016 - 10:47:04 PM

What's your opinion on this article?

farrakhan_come-out-of-her-my-people.jpg

[Editor’s note: The following is the final installation of excerpts from the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s address on the occasion of the 12th Anniversary of the Historic Million Man March, delivered from the Atlanta Civic Center on Tuesday, October 16, 2007. Click here to order the full address on CD/DVD.]

In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

God Intends to Free Us

In the Book of Isaiah, it asks the question, “Should the prey be taken from the mighty and the lawful captive delivered?” This is the big question. God intends to take us from our former slave masters and their children, even if we don’t want to go, because He’s closing down any avenue by which any sustenance can come to your slave master.

The founding fathers of what is called the United States of America, demanded separation. They demanded separation from their tyrannical masters. They and their leaders had irreconcilable perceptions of justice that made co-existence with their former colonial master impossible. In their Declaration of Independence, they charge King George with harassing their people, putting a brutal army among them, with cutting off their trade with all parts of the world, with unfair taxation, with setting up unfair courts and jails and trumping up criminal charges, with causing death, desolation and tyranny. They charged that the King had been deaf to the voice of justice. We can charge the government of the United States of America with all of these afflictions and then some today!

hmlf_file1.jpg

We’re not interested in abolishing your government. We’re not interested in destroying your government. This is yours. You could have made us feel accepted if you wanted to. But we are interested now in setting up a government and coming out from under you. This is what we are interested in, because we know with the wisdom and intelligence that is among us, we can make a better government than what you have given us, not only for us but we can make a better government for the American people themselves.

We’ll have our own, in a separate state or territory of our own. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, “We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of our own, either on this continent or elsewhere. We believe that our former slave-masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave-masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years, until we are able to produce and supply our own needs. Don’t tell us you can’t do that for us. We built your country. We fought, bled and died in every war to keep you free! You’ve been taking care of Israel for nearly 60 years and they have never done for you what we have done!

Injustice brings its Response

The tragedies of the world are mounting. The slaughter of our people is increasing. I wept as I read about my sister’s rape and torture in West Virginia. I see the intransigence of the Louisiana officials in the case of the Jena 6. I read an article by a Caucasian writer who said, “You can go into any time and look and you’ll find similar cases to the Jena 6 to these in every city and in any city.”

In Mississippi in 1959, a 23-year-old Black man named Mack Parker was falsely accused of raping a pregnant White woman. When he was arrested, the State Trooper offered the woman’s husband a pistol to shoot him. Three days before the so-called trial, Mack Parker was dragged from his jail cell, beaten and shot, and his body was later found in a river bound in chains. Even though some Whites later confessed to the crime, the White authorities refused to indict anyone.

So, when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad learned of this, he was incensed and when he spoke at the Uline Arena in Washington, D.C. on May 29, 1959, he threatened to call for retaliation for the lynching of Mack Parker. In that speech, Elijah Muhammad said, “We have come to the point wherein we must find justice for ourselves or commit suicide. What value is your life and my life if it has no protection?” Elijah Muhammad said, “If I were a Black woman and I was such that we would not protect her and the children that she produced for you and me, I would get a shotgun and kill my husband! This is nothing but right, because this thing has come to the point of explosion!” He said, “I am your Brother. Your hurt is my hurt. It doesn’t make any difference to me what religion you believe in. As long as you are a Black man or a member of the darker people, you and I are Brothers and your hurt is my hurt. How many years have you been frightened into keeping your mouth? ‘Well, don’t say that. It is not time.’ Well, when is it going to be time for you to speak up for yourself? You can’t blame this government for not giving you anything. You’re not asking for anything. The only thing you’re pleading for is a job.”

Injustice creates a climate for Retaliation

Brothers and Sisters, this peaceful coexistence with the murder of our people has to stop. It is alright for us to march against injustice, but the time may soon come, or maybe has come, for us to retaliate for injustice. Why don’t you step up to the plate Justice Department, and fight for the rights of those whose rights are being trampled upon by the force and power of the army of police, FBI, ATF and sheriffs? What are you trying to force us to do?

It is written in the Holy Qur’an, let me quote to you what God said, “O you who believe, retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the slain; the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the female for the female. But if remission is made to one by his (aggrieved) Brother, prosecution (for blood money) should be according to usage, and payment to him in a good manner. This is an alleviation from your Lord and a mercy. Whoever exceeds the limits after this will have a painful chastisement.”

Now, if it’s a prescription, then if the Justice Department doesn’t rein in these police that are killing us like this; if the local authorities don’t see that injustice is stopped ... You killed an old, Black woman here in Atlanta and you said she shot at you. You killed her, but where’s the penalty? You’re killing our people every day, and your own Brothers call it justifiable. It may be justified in your eyes, but we’ve got eyes too. What are you trying to force us to do?

I ask the Justice Department, do you want us to go to that point? Even if that would be committing suicide. It would be better to commit suicide than to continue to live under the very shadow of death from your evil hand. Do you want me, as the voice of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and really, a voice of God, to ask our people to retaliate in matters of the slain, a life for a life? Is that what you’re driving us to? Do you want your country to go up in smoke? Do you want us to call for our 400,000 Black men and women that are serving in the Armed Forces of America to come out and come home, for our fight is in America with the evil forces of racism?

I think that the government of America would be wise to give justice to those that are crying out for justice from you. You don’t have a lot of time left, but let me say this: You see, I’m backed up by a God. I’m not a preacher that does not have backup, and as you call for your backup, I’ll call for my backup! And you don’t want to meet my backup! What we are saying to you now is that injustice brings its response.

Allah (God) has already entered into the fight. The plagues are already here and they will get worse. And as you plan to kill our people, watch what God does. He will bring more wind and in some places, more rain and floods and drought. He’ll start killing off your animals. Fire on the West Coast, water on the East Coast. And as the waters of the ocean rise, curtailing America on her sides, He will push the people in from all the coastlines to the center of the country. What do you want? I can warn you in the name of Almighty (God), Allah that He will take one of your cities and destroy it completely with an earthquake just to show you His anger. You better leave the people of God alone! I have heard the Honorable Elijah Muhammad say, “They won’t kill no more than 300 of us and God will kill all of them!” I’ve got 300 in here right now, ready to die to bring it on!

Are we citizens under the Constitution?

God is willing to take up the fight for us, but if it is forced on us, we too have to fight. We cannot afford to lose another generation. Since the ’60s we’ve lost two. We should say like the members of the Jewish community after the Holocaust, “Never again.” I think we should let the world know that we’re tired. We’re not going to go out and do something stupid. I didn’t give the order yet. A person who is being attacked has the right to use that degree of force commensurate with the force that is coming against him or her to repel that force. If it is deadly force, we are allowed to respond with deadly force. This is not man talking. This is what God has said! So, if you break into someone’s house, you’re allowed to literally kill the person that breaks into your home. That is a right, even the responsibility of every citizen. But the real question that has to be asked is, are we citizens? Are these Constitutional guarantees there for the Black or Hispanic or Native American or even poor White people? We have come to the position now, to question this government. Let’s stop a minute. Don’t give them any more service until they answer the question. Don’t ask me to fight in a war. I’m asking you now, are we citizens, and if we are, why do we have to fight for the right to vote when no White person has to do that?

If I’m not a citizen, then don’t lie to me and make me think that I have these Constitutional guarantees when in fact, I don’t have them at all. You put a little trick in your 13th Amendment. You gave us citizenship and then you said if we’re convicted of a crime we lose our rights of citizenship. You’re making it easy to convict Black people with crimes to rob them of whatever guarantees you deceitfully, demonically said you gave us. Every time we try to exercise the rights that you say we have, you find a way to destroy it. America, if you don’t want to correct yourself, it’s alright. Then we, with God on our side, will have to fight for our own freedom, justice and equality and our own liberation in any way that we can.

Gang Retaliation: The Cheapest Principle

To my gang-banging family: You make it very difficult for me. In the ’60s we knew who the enemy was, but in 2007, you are the enemy. It is Black people killing Black people, Black people robbing Black people, Black people raping Black people. You gang-bangers know the principle of retaliation, but you are retaliating on the cheapest of principles. You are not retaliating because of oppression or injustice. You are retaliating because you don’t like the color your Brother is wearing, or you don’t like the gang he is a part of. You don’t like the area of the city that he comes from and he may be encroaching upon your drug market, so you retaliate. We’re not talking about that! I cannot call for retaliation in matters of the slain when you have become the number one slayers of yourself and your own people! The ’60s were different. Fifty years later, the context is different. God is retaliating in His own way. This murder that is going on in our own community makes it difficult for me to make the right and necessary call for your justice.

On any given Saturday night in cities across this nation, it’s we who are killing each other. You make it easy for racist police to kill you because you are busy killing yourselves. We must become a community that respects the life of each other and will protect the life of each other, and will protect our women and our girls if an enemy of that peace comes in among us. How can I do what is right by you, while I watch what you are doing wrong by one another? Half of all murder victims in America are Black men, and 9 out of 10 of those that are murdered are murdered by their own Brother or Sister. But I warn the government, that at a certain time, if you don’t do justice by us, God will retaliate in a way that He has never retaliated on any nation that has existed in the past. If you go and read your scriptures and see the plagues that God brought in the days of Noah, in the days of Lot, to the people of Ad and Thamud, to the people of Salih, to the people of Moses, to the Roman Empire, to the Babylonian city, all that God has brought on them, He will bring on America. As it is written in the scripture, He will bring the blood of the righteous from Abel to Zachariah, even to this very day, on one generation. I don’t want to see that happen. I would like to see America avoid that. I would really like to see us avoid such a call that would be suicidal.

We are not terrorists

I want to say, before the media says it, we are not any terrorist group. We will not let any terrorists kill innocent people for political purposes. Not on our watch. If we catch you planting a bomb under a bridge, you’ll wish you never had been under the bridge. We can stop that kind of terrorism. But when God chooses to terrorize by sending a tornado in, a fierce violent wind and hail and unusual rain and snow and floods, we can’t stop that. The Holy Qur’an says, “Beware of the chastisement that may not harm those of you exclusively who are unjust.” Whatever God does, it’s alright with His people.

How do we come out of her?

How do we come out? First, it says come out of her. She’s like a mother to us, this mystery Babylon. She’s a golden chalice on the outside but filth and abomination of every kind on the inside. But God says, “Come out of her.” First, we have to come out of the thinking of a slave and start thinking and acting like free men and women. This is what Paul meant when he said, “Be ye not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Second, we have to realize that this educational system is designed to keep us tied to our former slave-masters and their children in the mode of a free slave. Third, we have to realize that they have already let us go and they’re not going to help us, as you have already seen by Katrina. We must now start thinking about doing, uniting, pooling the resources of the great ones among us and the poor among us to do something for ourselves.

Millions More Movement

This is why I asked at the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March, that we form ministries, organs of service for our people and others. A Ministry of Education that calls the learned of our people together to plan a curriculum that would raise our people up to be nation builders, world builders; building the cities, the wasted cities as Isaiah the prophet said.

We need a Ministry of Justice and our legal minds to settle the disputes in the community among ourselves; a little house for conflict resolution so we don’t always have to go before our former slave masters and their children to judge our affairs. Let’s solve some of these problems among ourselves.

We need a Ministry of Science and Technology. All our people, our babies are right on the computer. They’ve got that thing down at 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 years old. We’ve got to come up to the science and technology of our time.

We need a Ministry of Art and Culture. We love our rappers. We love our dancers, our singers of song, but it must be a new song, it must be a better song, it must be a better rap. In a Ministry of Art and Culture we free the talent of our people and we manage it so that the money that they make goes into their hands and they are not robbed by unscrupulous thieves, who are Black on the outside.

We need a Ministry of Defense. Take these young people that love to fight. Teach them, train them. Instead of making your community and the people in your community afraid to walk the streets—the elderly afraid, the babies can’t play—we become protectors of our community in a Ministry of Defense. 

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs: America makes policies but they’re not for us. Why shouldn’t we make policies, that will allow us to work with our people in the Caribbean, in Central and South America, in Africa, in the Isles of the Pacific? We are an international people. Why don’t we begin to act like it? A Ministry of Trade and Commerce; A Ministry of Agriculture. A Ministry of Health and Human Services to look out for the critical needs of our people. And last, a Spiritual Ministry, where we take the men and women of God and we sit down with the Bible, the Torah, the Holy Qur’an, the Gospel and plan the spiritual rise of our people….

A Mixed Multitude

“Come out of her my people,” the voice from heaven said, “that you be not partakers of her sins and her plagues, for her sins have reached unto heaven.” Go home with this question in mind: Are you willing to come out of this and come under the guidance of God? Jesus said, “I am the door.” A doorway is for coming out of something and going into something. Jesus, the Messiah, the Mahdi, they want us to come out of the mind that produced the condition that we are in. He’s the doorway out, but He’s also the doorway into a better world that represents the Kingdom of God. Is this just for Blacks? Are only Blacks suffering? Is this for our Latino family? Is this for Asians? Is this for Whites? Yes it is, because when the Children of Israel went out, it was a mixed multitude that went out. So, those Whites that want to come out from under this, (Satan’s World) take the door. Let’s come out, unite and build a better world.

Thank you for listening and may God bless you as I greet you in peace, As-Salaam Alaikum!