What A Good Leader Should Be: More Memories Of Don Muhammad

By Jehron Muhammad -Contributing Writer- | Last updated: Sep 29, 2016 - 10:02:11 AM

Minister Don Muhammad addresses media concerning crime and social issues in Boston. Photo: Getty images

‘Min. Don represents vigorously the interest of the people in the community. He has high character, so he is always respected and believed and supported.’
–Melvin Miller, Publisher, Bay State Banner

BOSTON — “The Don and Shirley Show” was what Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan labeled the work of Don Muhammad, head of Boston’s Mosque Number 11 and now minister emeritus and national consultant to the Nation of Islam, during a recent tribute. The Minister paid tribute to Shirley Muhammad and her husband as a powerful couple devoted to one another, their family, their community and their Nation.

Longtime friend and publisher of the Bay State Banner Melvin Miller shared how Shirley Muhammad, unlike Blacks from the South under the boot of an oppressive slave master, and her family as well, were descendants of Blacks who migrated to Nova Scotia, an eastern province of Canada, rather than live under a slave system.

Mr. Miller, who received his law degree after attending Boston University the same year with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., also grew up in Boston with Min. Farrakhan.

“I am a great admirer of Min. Don,” Mr. Miller said. “We’ve over the years worked very closely. He is everything a good leader is supposed to be. First of all, he is very modest and clearly not doing what he does for personal gain.”

Min. Don “represents vigorously the interest of the people in the community. He has high character, so he is always respected and believed and supported,” added Mr. Miller.

Sister Shirley Muhammad, wife of Minister Don Muhammad. Photos: Hassan Muhammad

He talked about how Min. Don and the Boston mosque of the Nation of Islam fought to stem Boston’s “extraordinary high crime.” “The Nation of Islam organized to reduce it and was very effective,” said the 82 year old. “No one, no organization in the city had greater contacts, and worked so heavily with (other) people, including those that had been incarcerated, and came out (of prison).”

“Some years ago a group from New York decided that they were going to come over and create a market for the sale of drugs. Min. Don and the Nation told them that their presence was not appreciated, or accepted.

They thought they were going to get a little rough, but without being armed trust me, the Nation of Islam removed them and they were happy to leave,” Mr. Miller said. Min. Don’s daughter, Cheryl Straughter, works with youth and adults interested in going into the culinary arts and enjoyed the tribute. “I think the program was reflective of my mother and my father’s work. I was happy to hear Minister Farrakhan call it the Don and Shirley Show because the two are inséparable.”

“I bumped into Believers from Atlanta, Chicago, North Carolina, that I had not seen in years,” she added, speaking of the Sept. 10 sold out banquet. The attendance truly reflected the many lives my parents impacted, and the many extended family members our “family inherited,” she said.

Speaking of what she inherited growing up under her father and mother, she said, “if I could capture it in one word, it’s probably selling it short, it would probably be resilient.”

“I have been an entrepreneur. I’ve gone into business. Both of my parents, when you heard the Minister talk about the cleaners, we (brothers and sisters) were in there. We could barely see over the machines. So we have the fortitude, the energy and the drive to go into business, and also to be very compassionate,” she said. She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and a Delta volunteer at Pond Street Inn, a shelter in Boston.

Don Muhammad and Shirley Muhammad with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

She also talked about the history of “Mecca Mall,” in the Grove Hall section of Boston, where Muhammad Mosque No. 11 is located. “My father was instrumental in developing the properties that laid dormant for years. And thanks to the work of her father, there now sits a bank, a CVS, and other small businesses,” she said. She took over one of those properties and built a restaurant business from the ground up and ran it for 10 years. She still owns the building and now leases out the restaurant.

Daughter-in-law Heather Straughter was pleased with the “honor” bestowed upon Min. Don. “I have the utmost respect for him. He’s such a fantastic person and I’m so pleased he’s being honored.” The former school teacher said, “Many years ago I was a teacher in Boston’s public schools in Roxbury, and when Brian (Don’s son) and I got together, he drilled me pretty hard about the work I did and why I thought I could teach in Boston public schools,” she said. She loves the way Min. Don “held everyone to such a high standard. He made me a better teacher. He made me a better mother. He’s contagious. He’s amazing.”

Mwalim Peters, a musician and also a professor of Black Studies at the University of Massachusetts said, “It was an absolutely wonderful program. It was an opening tribute because of the amazing work Min. Don Muhammad has done for the city of Boston and East Coast, in general, is beyond description. You could not fit inside of a three-hour presentation. The number of lives Min. Don touched, whether they are members of the Nation or not are beyond count.”

“I’m one of them. I’m a young man, now a grown man. The lessons and example of Min. Don Muhammad has really contributed to my development,” Professor Peters said.

Richard O’ Bryant, advisory board member, Humanities Center and director of the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute at North Eastern University, attended the tribute.

He praised the work of Min. Don saying that he was one of the principle supporters of his father, John D. O’Bryant, who the institute is named for.

“Min. Don was a strong supporter of my father when he was on the Boston School Committee in difficult times in the ’70s, when Boston had the riots. Min. Don was a supporter, and growing up and seeing all of the difficulty that Boston suffered with the racial tension, Min. Don was always there to support my dad. He always had the Nation brothers there to support my dad, to watch his back and keep him safe,” Mr. O’Bryant said.

“I think Min. Don’s influence will be recognized many years (later), as we move forward. He was the kind of person that wasn’t always out front. He was always making a difference behind the scenes. He always made sure that the brothers were there in the back supporting anybody Black that had to step out there and fight for the community.”

Mark Muhammad and his brother John Muhammad soldiered under Min. Don and credited his training and example for helping to develop them as Muslims and members of the Fruit of Islam. John Muhammad did an impersonation of Bro. Don during the tribute.

“Because of the kind of event it is, I had a little trepidation,” he confessed. The bit, laced with references to sports and current events was a big hit. “I felt that Minister Don is a master at dealing with contemporary issues and making them relevant to the immediate community; that’s his strength. So in character I wanted to make sure that I didn’t go back into the archives into history and present him as somebody from the past. I wanted to make sure that I presented him as somebody in the present and somebody looking forward to the future.

“I have been knowing Bro. Don before the Nation even began to get rebuilt because Bro. Rodney (Muhammad) and I were going around calling ourselves followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. In 1976 and 1977 it was no Nation. It was just He and I and we were getting a lot of threats from the other community. They even threatened to kill us when they saw us with the ‘Message To The Blackman.’ We knew that Minister Don was still a follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad but we didn’t know what he was doing,”

When Minister Farrakhan came into the city and recruited and appointed Min. Don to lead the local mosque, “our work expanded exponentially and we did three times to four times as much in two or three years than what we accomplished in the previous two years,” he said. “Because of his experience, his ability to navigate and make sure that we go around the potholes and not fall in them. His ability to negotiate with people on a high level who had positions of authority. And his ability to open doors not only in the community but open a lot of the doors that particularly would be closed to followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad; he was a master at doing that. And the way Minister Don taught we had no problem with getting people. He would get information that the average person couldn’t get. So he would know about things going on in the court system, he would know about things going on in the police stations. He would know about all these different things.”

His blood brother Mark described Min. Don as a true leader, servant and a father figure. But, he added, the biggest tribute may have been respect enjoyed outside of the Boston mosque. Even while living in Washington, D.C., he was known as “Brother Mark from Boston.” The expectation was that if you were from Boston, you were welltrained and disciplined because of the tutelage of Min. Don, he said.

(Final Call staff contributed to this report.)

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