The Final Call

Critical, pressing issues brought to light on heels of Justice Or Else

By Starla Muhammad -Assistant Editor- | Last updated: Oct 20, 2015 - 11:11:46 AM

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CHICAGO (FinalCall.com) - Powerful speakers had the capacity crowd at Mosque Maryam on its feet cheering at some points, nodding heads in agreement or sitting in reflective silence at others by making emotional and compelling points about the struggle for justice and America’s dismal record of hypocritical and dangerous failures at home.

These presenters were scheduled to speak the week before at the Justice Or Else! gathering in Washington, D.C., but time constraints and last minute juggling of the program either meant cutting remarks short or not speaking at all at the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March.

Time was not a concern Oct. 18 as the plight of Native Americans and veterans, the need for proper education, demands for reparations, worries about vaccine safety, a call for continued organizing, expressions of international solidarity and calls for unity-building reverberated throughout the Nation of Islam’s flagship mosque and national headquarters.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan invited those speakers to Mosque Maryam for “Justice Or Else Part 2: The Way Forward” and an opportunity to make major presentations.

These topics were very germane and important to our demand for justice, Ishmael R. Muhammad, national assistant minister to Min. Farrakhan told the standing room only crowd.

The international cry for justice and global respect for Min. Farrakhan was evident as A. Akbar Muhammad, international representative of the Nation of Islam, shared well-wishes and greetings from leaders of several nations, including some in the Caribbean and Africa who tuned in via Internet webcast and watched the live program.

(L-R) Student Minister Nuri Muhammad, Yo’NasDa Lonewolf, Jay Winter Nightwolf and Student Minister Abel Muhammad. This is the face of America’s future, said Mr. Nightwolf.

Nigeria, the Gambia, Burkina Faso, South Africa and Senegal were just a few of the places tuned in from the Motherland, said A. Akbar Muhammad.

Regards were extended from a daughter of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi, President of Guyana David Grainger sent a letter of congratulations that was read to the audience and a videotaped message of greetings and solidarity from Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines was played. Mr. Gonsalves has been a vocal proponent of reparations for the descendants of Black slaves in the African Diaspora.

Sel Dunlap, a Christian who leads the Lawndale AMACHI Mentoring Program, displayed emotion as he delivered his message. He works with military veterans

Dr. Charles Steele, president and CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights organization co-founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was still fired up from 10.10.15. He recounted how Min. Farrakhan’s $10,000 donation to SCLC in 2004—when the group was on the verge of shutting down—kept its doors open and allowed SCLC to continue fighting for Black people. The Minister refused to accept repayment of the loan and SCLC has seen a rebirth, said Dr. Steele.

Dr. Wayne Watson, outgoing president of Chicago State University situated on the city’s South Side, said two decades ago, Black men were called to D.C. in the spirit of atonement and reconciliation. 

“Twenty years later we have to ask America what she has done to atone for her contributions to the social, economic, education, environmental realities embedded in the DNA of the American system that have continued to deny and underserve our communities?” Dr. Watson said to thunderous applause.

A diverse crowd listened closely to the speakers.

He began reading glaring statistics on infant mortality, illiteracy and unemployment that showed Blacks leading in American society’s negative indicators.

Violence and social dysfunction in the Black community is the direct result of what these communities have been deprived of, said Dr. Watson who brought 50 young men to Justice Or Else! the week before.

Everyone in the community is an educator and Black people must be willing to reinvest in themselves, he said.

One of the key issues Min. Farrakhan brought to the forefront in several stops during his multi-city Justice Or Else! tour leading up to 10.10.15 was the plight of men and women of America’s armed services, many of whom were deployed overseas to take part in wars based on lies or inaccurate information. After fighting on behalf of their country, they return to little to no support system. Many veterans are homeless, suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, can’t find adequate housing and have trouble assimilating back into civilian society.

Rochelle Crump of National Women’s Veterans United and Sel Dunlap of the Lawndale AMACHI Mentoring Program, both U.S. military veterans, shared initially feeling disappointed at not speaking as scheduled on 10.10.15. They were, however, neither angry nor bitter. Both thanked Min. Farrakhan for the opportunity and platform for the world to hear what veterans continue to endure.

Black women focused and paying attention at Mosque Maryam Oct. 18.

“I am a proud Army veteran and for decades we have served in the armed forces, veterans in general of all ages, races and gender. And we answered the call to the nation, to serve a country that did not always embrace all of us who served,” said Ms. Crump.

“Many African American men and those who served received unfair treatment. This was the beginning of homelessness as the Vietnam veterans came home, skilled with the knowledge of how to kill and a generous G.I. Bill that many could not use because of their dual diagnosis with mental health and substance abuse,” she added.

Decades later veterans still struggle with these issues and are forced to sleep under bridges, on the streets or wherever they can find a place, explained Ms. Crump.

Many are denied benefits or services are delayed due to budget cuts by the same politicians who claim to support men and women in uniform, she continued. 

Mr. Dunlap recalled a chance encounter at O’Hare Airport where he briefly met and shook hands with Dr. King in 1967. Mr. Dunlap was on his way to Vietnam. In April of the next year, listening to the radio in South Asia, he discovered Dr. King had been assassinated and lamented that he had not done anything to help the civil rights leader. 

“I thank God for this opportunity to be right here today. I came back and I wanted to do something to help us,” said Mr. Dunlap, an advocate for veterans in Chicago. He thanked Min. Farrakhan for strengthening his faith as a Christian as he fights for services and fair treatment for those America has used and discarded.

Kennedy Jr. delivers a pre-recorded message on the dangers associated with toxins in vaccines and how Black babies are being affected. Photos: Tim 6X

In a videotaped sobering and alarming message, Attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., son of the late Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of late President John F. Kennedy, spoke of the dangers of mercury-contaminated vaccines making their way into Black communities. He linked a spike in autism, particularly in Black boys, to contaminated vaccines and a cover-up a whistleblower at the Centers for Disease Control is trying to expose.

Mercury is 1,000 more toxic than lead, observed Atty. Kennedy in his message.

Although the mercury has been removed from most vaccines, it still remains in flu vaccines and is hundreds, even thousands more toxic than a developing child’s brain can take, he said.

The audience gasped several times as Atty. Kennedy revealed the disturbing information, charging major pharmaceutical companies have bought off politicians, skewed CDC research and engaged in profiteering—making money off of vaccine injections at the cost of lives and public safety.

“The problem with African Americans is the vaccines that have the mercury in them tend to end up in your communities,” said Atty. Kennedy. This is similar to the infamous and wicked Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment exposed by my uncle in the 1970s, said Mr. Kennedy, who urged listeners to join an Oct. 24 protest march on the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

During one of the most compelling portions of the program, Jay Winter Nightwolf, an activist and broadcaster, and Phyliss Young of the American Indian Movement spoke of the genocide perpetrated by the U.S. government against Native Americans and Indigenous people and reminded the audience of the shared struggle and kinship between the Black, Red and Brown nations.

Poverty, alcoholism and abuses of the Native American people remain and a united effort is needed between two people bound by blood and history, they said.

Mr. Nightwolf, host of Indian  American Truths, which airs on WPFW-AM in Washington, D.C., and over the internet, was greeted with a standing ovation and was moved to tears. “The tears I cry are the tears of my ancestors,” he said. “Before the White man came to the Western Hemisphere, there were 112 million of us, just in North America. By the time 1934 rolled around there was less than a million. How do you kill 112 million people on their land, in a few hundred years?” he asked.

Several moments during their presentations, Mr. Nightwolf and Ms. Young spoke of the need for unity between the Black and the Red.

During one point in the program, Mr. Nightwolf asked those in the audience with Native American ancestry to stand and nearly everyone present stood up.

Mr. Nightwolf urged critics of his short time to speak the week before to join the movement or be quiet. If you did not join the gathering on Oct. 10 in Washington, D.C., you have nothing to say, he said. Mr. Nightwolf conducted an important interview on Native American issues and Red and Black unity with Min. Farrakhan during the Minister’s tour leading up to 10.10.15 at the U.S. Capitol.

Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and leader of the Unity Labour Party offered greetings via video.

Ms. Young, who brought up her grandson who is of Nigerian and Native American descent, spoke of the 500-year-old war on native peoples sanctioned by the Pope. Papal decrees opened the way for slavery and the destruction of the original inhabitants of this nation, she said. The war has been non-stop with native languages outlawed by Whites and treaties and agreements broken over and over again, said the respected leader of the Lakota nation.

Native American youth suffer the highest suicide rates in the country and are disproportionate victims of police brutality and police killings, she said. The U.S. government continues to try to take sacred Indian land in the Dakotas but we are here and we will fight, she vowed. Her tribe is the only group to defeat the U.S. army and the great Native American leader Sitting Bull was killed in an encounter with 40 policemen, she added. The history of police killings of American Indians is long, she said.

The display of unity resonated with Kitten Gray, who traveled from Hammond, Ind.

“I really loved the fact that we’re connecting the indigenous people of the earth,” she said. “This really excites me because in my spirit, I’ve always known that the indigenous people have to come together, especially with the Asiatic Black man at the lead of the program so this is very exciting to me. I cried and I laughed and I rejoiced in everything that I heard,” said Ms. Gray who said she could not wait to get home and share her experience with her family.

Khalil Malik Muhammad, an educator and member of the Nation of Islam who lives in South Africa, said the program and messages reflected the universality in the teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, patriarch of the Nation of Islam.

“With us living in South Africa, ‘we’re not a part of the 17 million plus two million Indians,’ we’re part of the four billion, four hundred million,” said Khalil Malik Muhammad, referring to a portion of the Supreme Wisdom Lessons of the Nation of Islam. The Lessons, given in the 1930s, speak to the divine connection between the Black and Native American people in North America and original people all over the planet earth.

In conversations, Muslims in South Africa are very receptive to the messages of Min. Farrakhan, he said.

Kareem Muhajir of Chicago’s West Side enjoyed the entire program but said the portion dealing with vaccines was troubling. “I say that because of my granddaughter. That’s my only grandchild and I’m extremely close with her and she was not long ago vaccinated so it scares the hell out of me that she could possibly have been injected with some type of poison in her system,” said Mr. Muhajir.

“It’s outrageous what the United States government would do just to reduce population. That’s what I believe it is, population control.”

To obtain a copy of “Justice Or Else, Part 2: The Way Forward” visit store.finalcall.com.