From The Final Call Newspaper

‘Profiting off crime on every level’ The exploitation of incarcerated people and their families generates $80B for private corporations
By Nisa Islam Muhammad, Staff Writer
- September 26, 2023

Prison guards oversee prisoners working in one of the gardens at C.Paul Phelps Correctional Center in DeQuincy, LA. Over 30 acres are farmed at Phelps growing vegetables for the 942 inmates. (AP Photo/Karen Wink)


Crime pays, especially if you’re a for-profit contractor providing services at correctional institutions. From medical and mental health care to pharmaceutical services to transportation to food services and communications services, these services cost the incarcerated a “pretty penny.” Imagine working for $1.25 an hour or receiving only $20 a month for full-time work. Adding insult to injury are the high costs people locked up behind bars pay for essentials.

Joseph Keller was arrested when he was 14 years old. From that time until he was 29, he was in and out of correctional facilities in the D.C. area. He told The Final Call, “I didn’t have anybody to take care of me. I received monthly what they called the food stamp bag where if you didn’t have any money, they give you envelopes, peanut butter crackers, a pencil, an ink pen, some deodorant and some toothpaste.

When I got a job working as a barber, I could put money on my books, so I was able to buy good deodorant that didn’t burn my underarms. The free deodorant burns. I got paid $19 a month.”

According to the African American Coalition Committee Black and Brown people make up roughly 60 percent of the prison and jail population in the state of Massachusetts. Graphic: The Final Call

“We had to pay prices similar to the prices in the stores outside. Deodorant inside is like maybe $4 or $5. You have to make sure that when you buy something, you buy what you need not what you want because with only $19 a month, that’s really almost half of your salary,” Mr. Keller explained.

Mr. Keller’s experience is typical. Inmates must pay for simple things like phone/video visits/email services, things people in free society take for granted. These costs add up, but more importantly, the profits add up.

Each year a mix of private corporations generate $80 billion in revenue by capitalizing on the needs of incarcerated people and their families. This exploitation, powered by more than 4,000 corporations engaged in a web of public–private partnerships, disproportionately targets and steals resources from Black communities, according to Worth Rises, the nation’s leading organization working to dismantle the prison industry.

“Prisons and jails are a business—one that is threatening our families, communities, and public safety,” said Bianca Tylek, executive director of Worth Rises. In conjunction with Color Of Change, they recently released a new policy blueprint calling for the end of carceral (prison) profiteering. “Over the last 40 years, the carceral system has grown into a vast network of corporations that use public-private partnerships to profit from the incarceration of our grandparents, parents, siblings, children, and other loved ones,” she continued.

“They have created a carceral crisis and collected the windfalls on the taxpayers’ dime while the rest of us suffered. This policy blueprint provides the clearest roadmap for fulfilling the promise of justice that the Biden-Harris administration made and many expect it to meet.”

A new report states that private corporations generate billions of dollars by exploiting incarcerated people and their families. Graphic: Worth Rises/Color of Change

“The Policy Blueprint for Ending Carceral Profiteering” details system-wide policy changes and administration actions within the following carceral sectors: healthcare, food and commissary, telecommunications, financial services, electronic monitoring, and labor.

Demands include:

• Eliminate the use of private profiteers from Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities and the federal immigration detention system;

• Issue guidance to states to end profiteering at the state and local level and publicly support relevant legislation that eliminates private profiteering within the prison system;

“Every year, politicians choose to protect corporations as they gouge, fleece and scam incarcerated people and their families,” said Rashad Robinson, president of Color Of Change. “Government policies protect blatantly abusive profiteering instead of helping to end it, which enables corporations like Securus, Aramark, Corizon, and JPAY to use the criminal justice system as a cash cow, stealing billions of dollars from our communities.”

“People ask what structural racism is. This is it. Our blueprint provides a clear path of action for President Biden and all public officials who believe these financial attacks on our communities must end. We outline a clear set of steps for eliminating superfluous and inflated fees, revising the terms of government contracts with corporations to prevent gouging, and more.”

He added, “The incarcerated people and families that corporations have targeted with these profiteering practices know all their tricks, inside and out. This Blueprint reflects their unique knowledge about what is happening and how to stop it.”

Worth Rises and Color of Change, released a new policy blueprint calling for the end of carceral (prison) profiteering. Graphic: Worth Rises/Color of Change

The Policy Blueprint details how on a daily basis, families are faced with impossible decisions: pay rent and purchase groceries and life-saving medications, or make a phone call to speak with their incarcerated loved one this week? Many times these families have already lost a wage earner and can least afford to pay the high costs and fees that federal, state, and local agencies neglect to protect them from.

These costs are overwhelmingly borne by women, especially Black, Latino, and Indigenous women. The policy blueprint tells the plight of Maria Marshall, who, after spending $120 in just two weeks to maintain contact with both her teenage son and her ex-husband behind bars, was forced to make the difficult choice between the two, as she struggled to pay exorbitant phone rates and could only afford one of their accounts.

States are starting to take notice of these high costs that affect millions of families. In August, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed the FY24 budget with a provision that requires state prisons and jails to offer free phone calls, video calls, and e-messaging to those incarcerated.

The provision, which goes into effect December 1, 2023, is estimated to save Massachusetts families more than $25 million annually. This win marks the culmination of over three years of tireless advocacy by incarcerated people, families, and allied advocates.

The provision makes Massachusetts the third state this year and fifth state overall to make prison calls free, following Minnesota and Colorado. California made prison calls free in 2022 and Connecticut in 2021. The new Massachusetts law is unique in that it applies to state prisons and jails.

Further, it requires video calls and e-messaging, where available, to be free in addition to phone calls, which only Connecticut had done previously. The law also prohibits the state from taking kickbacks from its prison telecom vendor and protects in-person visits for Massachusetts residents with incarcerated loved ones.

“It’s been an uphill battle to say the least, but one worth fighting for,” said William “7even” Ragland, chairman of the African American Coalition Committee (AACC), a coalition of men incarcerated at MCI-Norfolk focused on reforming the criminal legal system. “Black and Brown people—many in poverty—make up 21 percent of the Massachusetts population but roughly 60 percent of its prison and jail population. It is a monstrosity and repugnant.”

“It’s not surprising then that Black and Brown people spend the most on phone calls, video calls, and e-messages with their incarcerated loved ones, to the tune of $25 million annually. Given our low prison wages, our families are often left with the bill, deciding whether to put money on their loved ones’ phone accounts or pay their rent, put gas in their cars, or put food on their tables.”

Cedric 3X Cal represents the Nation of Islam Prison Ministry in Illinois. “In the Illinois prison system, the average cost for an inmate is $1,000 a year for commissary expenses. That’s like $100 a month. The sad thing is most have no salary. Salaried jobs are very limited and those with jobs may get 35 cents an hour, or $30 a month for a job.

A higher-paying industry job may get $100 a month. Poor people in prison have to rely on the charity of people on the outside that care for you in order to survive in prison,” he told The Final Call.

“The food has little if any nutritional value. You’re depending on processed food at the commissary to balance out what you’re getting from the cafeteria. That’s where the costs come in. We get the same brand name things in free society at many of the same costs as free society,” said Cedric 3X.

“It’s all about profit for prisons. That’s what Minister Farrakhan spoke about when he revealed the conspiracy (of) putting prisons on Wall Street for investment,” he said, referring to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. “It’s not just about putting bodies in the prisons. It’s also about the industries connected to the prisons that generate so much profit. They are profiting off crime on every level,” Cedric 3X added.

During an #AskFarrakhan Social Media Town Hall held in 2012, Minister Farrakhan explained that prison is “big business.”

“You know, the prison industrial complex is now on the Stock Market, and the “privatizing” of the prison industry is going on as we speak! Therefore, just as people don’t build hotels if you don’t expect occupancy: People don’t build prisons unless you expect people to fill those prisons,” said Minister Farrakhan.

From The Final Call Newspaper

More Than A Vision: Black America’s Saving Grace
By Anisah Muhammad, Contributing Writer
- September 19, 2023





Social networks have been aflame with jokes, memes and reels about “unidentified flying objects” (UFOs) ever since the U.S. government’s admission of their existence. Black people, in particular, have taken to social media to question, “What does that have to do with me? I have bills.”

The existence of the objects has everything to do with Black people, according to the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam. The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad started teaching on the reality of the objects as early as the 1930s, before they were ever on the government’s radar. He identified a “Mother Plane” or “Mother Wheel” that carried within her 1,500 smaller wheels, or “baby planes.”

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, has since given in-depth accounts and descriptions of the Mother Plane and her smaller baby planes.

The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad

On September 17, 1985, he was directly brought aboard the Mother Plane in a Vision-Like Experience in Tepoztlán, Mexico. The 38-year anniversary of his experience has now come to pass. Following his September 17 experience, Minister Farrakhan delivered a detailed press conference at the JW Marriott hotel in Washington, D.C., on October 24, 1989, titled, “The Announcement: A Final Warning to the U.S.-Government,” where he exposed the plans of the U.S. government based on the words he received from the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad during his experience.

“It is perhaps more significant today than ever before,” Memphis-based Student Minister Ilia Rashad Muhammad said to The Final Call, in reference to Minister Farrakhan’s experience. “This experience that the Minister underwent would not just affect him, but would ultimately affect the Nation of Islam, our critics, our enemies, and eventually the world.”

The Great Announcement

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan opened his Announcement with words from the Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 3, verses 18 and 19: “When I say unto the wicked, ‘Thou shalt surely die,’ and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way to save his life, the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.”

Pyramid built on peak of the Sierra de Tepoztlan, Mexico.

“It is in this spirit that I make this Announcement,” Minister Farrakhan said.

He then detailed his experience. It started with him being carried up a mountain with a few friends. As they reached the top of the mountain, which lies the ruins of a temple dedicated to Quetzalcoatl, the Christ-figure of Central and South America, a Wheel appeared at the side of the mountain. A beam of light came from the Wheel and carried the Minister up into it.

“As the Wheel lifted off from the side of the mountain, moving at a terrific speed, I knew I was being transported to The Mother Wheel, or The Mother Plane, which is a human-built planet, a half-mile by a half-mile, which the Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us of for over 60 years,” he said.

“The pilot, knowing that I was fearful of seeing this great, mechanical object in the sky, maneuvered his craft in such a way that I would not see The Mother Plane and then backed quickly into it and docked in a tunnel. I was escorted by the pilot to a door and admitted into a room.”

While in the room, Minister Farrakhan heard the voice of his teacher, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, from a speaker on the ceiling.

“He spoke in short cryptic sentences; and as he spoke, a scroll full of cursive writing rolled down in front of my eyes—but it was a projection of what was being written in my mind. As I attempted to read the cursive writing, which was in English, the scroll disappeared and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

 began to speak to me again,” Minister Farrakhan said. Photo taken in October of 1989 with the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington, D.C., delivering a press conference on his Vision-like Experience on the Wheel. Photo: Final Call archive

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to him: “President Reagan has met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan a war. I want you to hold a press conference in Washington, D.C., and announce their plan—and say to the world that you got the information from me, Elijah Muhammad, on The Wheel.”

After the experience, events unfolded from September 1985 into February 1986 that caused Minister Farrakhan to slowly realize that the war mentioned by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was against Muammar Gadhafi and the people of Libya.

While in Tripoli, Libya, on March 16, 1986, Minister Farrakhan repeated his vision publicly to representatives of approximately 80 nations, and he warned President Reagan and then-Secretary of State George Shultz.

“During the confrontation in the Gulf of Sidra between the United States Air Force and the Libyan Air Force, it was reported in the press that a bright orange object was seen over the Mediterranean. The Wheel was, in fact, present and it interfered with the highly sensitive electronic equipment of the aircraft carrier that was in the Gulf of Sidra, forcing it to return to Florida for repairs,” Minister Farrakhan said during his Announcement.

In 1987, a year after Minister Farrakhan publicly announced President Reagan’s plans in Libya, the truth of his Vision-Like Experience was verified in the news. The news that President Reagan and his Joint Chiefs of Staff had secretly planned a war made the front pages and the headlines of The New York Times Sunday magazine and the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

“In the article which followed, the exact words that the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad spoke to me from The Wheel were found, that the president had met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and planned a war against Libya in the early part of September 1985,” Minister Farrakhan said.

That war, he said, only served as a sign of “an even more significant and consequential event, which was to come several years later:” that President George H.W. Bush had met with his Joint Chiefs of Staff, under the direction of General Colin Powell, “to plan a war against Black people of America, the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan with particular emphasis on our Black youth under the guise of a war against drug sellers, drug users, gangs and violence.”

After announcing President Bush’s plans, Minister Farrakhan then laid out the operations of the FBI, including the campaign to destroy Black leadership, the dirty tactics used against those who fight for justice, the agents planted in Black organizations, including the Nation of Islam, and the counterintelligence program under FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. He also talked about how the media fed the American public negative portrayals of Black youth and how police instigated gang warfare to justify the government’s plans of slaughter.

Minister Farrakhan closed his Announcement with a warning to the president, the government and the people of America to leave the Nation of Islam alone and to cease and desist from planning against the future of Black people in America and the world.

“I warn you that I am backed by the Power of Allah and His Christ and the Power of that Wheel in which I received this Announcement. And the moment you attempt to lay your hands on me, the fullness of Allah’s Wrath will descend upon you and upon America.

And before you will be able to establish your mockery of me, if that is what you wish to do for what was revealed to me in The Wheel, you will see these Wheels, or what you call ‘UFOs’, in abundance over the major cities of America,” he said.

“And the calamities that America is presently experiencing will increase in number and in intensity, that you might humble yourselves to the Warning contained in this Announcement, or be totally destroyed from the face of the Earth.”

“This is a final warning to you. The ball is now in your court. You may do with it, with me, and with us as you see fit,” he concluded.

Controversy and the Night Journey

Shortly before Minister Farrakhan’s Vision-Like Experience, he found himself in a controversy with members of the Jewish community due to his defense of Rev. Jesse Jackson during the reverend’s 1984 presidential campaign.

Student Minister Ilia Rashad Muhammad, author of the book, “UFOs And The Nation Of Islam: The Source, Proof, And Reality Of The Wheels,” shared that just before Minister Farrakhan left for Tepoztlán, he spoke at a forum in Los Angeles, where members of the Jewish community were chanting, “Who do you want? Farrakhan. How do you want him? Dead.”

“It was these members of the Jewish community that were calling and urging on the Minister’s assassination. So it was under that pretense, if you will, under those conditions, that the Minister left Los Angeles and went to Tepoztlán where he received this Vision,” Student Minister Ilia Rashad Muhammad said.

The atmosphere of hostility concerning Minister Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam was still present when Minister Farrakhan delivered his Announcement. Two weeks before George H.W. Bush was elected president, he delivered a speech at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and promised that he would lead the fight “against those whom he and certain leading members of the Jewish community determined to be anti-Semites,” Minister Farrakhan said.

“He indirectly referred to me as ‘the villain.’ Evidence is now mounting that those were not empty words of the president, but those words, as in the past, have been translated into a program, a policy and a war that has been designed to destroy the Nation of Islam and Minister Farrakhan with a particular focus on the growing strength of Black youth,” he added.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s Vision-Like Experience, which occurred amidst controversy and hostility, is both biblical and Quranic.

Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) received a similar experience amidst a hostile environment. When the Prophet (PBUH) visited the city, Ta’if, shortly after the passing of his uncle and wife, he was met with mockery and ridicule. The people threw rocks at him, causing him to be wounded and covered in blood.

After the Prophet (PBUH) recovered from the attack and re-entered Mecca, he experienced his Night Journey and Ascension, where he traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem in the span of one night. Though the Prophet (PBUH) was called a madman, similar to the labels placed on Minister Farrakhan, like the Minister, he was able to describe in detail his experience.

“Allah blessed him to experience what became known as the Night Journey, wherein he received revelation and was taken into the inner sanctum of Allah. Well, that is a foreshadowing and a prefigurement of the Honorable Minister Farrakhan’s More-Than-A-Vision Experience, where he, too, was taken up into the inner sanctum of Allah where one Mighty of Power had taught him, the Lord of Strength,”

Student Minister Ilia Rashad Muhammad said. “And it is this experience that we read about in the Qur’an and that we read about in the history of the Prophet, and we are actually living the fulfillment of it right now as we speak, and the point person in all of this is that messianic figure among us, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.”

Student Minister Ilia Rashad Muhammad described that the Prophet (PBUH), just like Minister Farrakhan, has human qualities and that the Night Journey solidified certainty from Allah.

“Nobody wants to be rejected. Nobody seeks that type of controversy, that dangerous controversy,” he said. “So this experience came at a time that offered the Minister a level of certainty from Allah, and it is that certainty that has allowed him to withstand the most powerful Satanic forces of this world.”

He shared that everything of significance Minister Farrakhan has done can be traced back to that Vision-Like Experience, from the “Stop the Killing” and “Men Only” tours in the early ’90s to the historic Million Man March on October 16, 1995, which was attended by almost two million Black men.

“The Minister knew the plots and plans that were afoot from the highest echelons of government because he had received divine revelation in the Vision-Like Experience, and that revelation has proven to be a saving grace for Black America,” Student Minister Ilia Rashad Muhammad said.

The government’s continued activity

In 2023 just a few weeks shy of the Minister’s anniversary of his Vision-Like experience, the Pentagon unveiled a new website for the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, the office charged with investigating what the government has dubbed, “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP). Via the website, the office has shared “UAP reporting trends,” information gathered on the objects via congressional reports and briefings and press material from the Department of Defense.

Min. Louis Farrakhan, shown above with the late Liby-an leader Muammar Gadhafi, in Africa. Photo: Final Call archive

The office will soon be accepting reports from current or former U.S. government employees, service members or contractors with direct knowledge of government programs or activities related to UAP dating back to 1945. It will announce when a reporting mechanism for the general public will be available.

Though the government “has finally expressed that they are and have been concerned over the presence of these planes,” Student Minister Ilia Rashad Muhammad said he doesn’t “expect the government to be fully truthful in their efforts, because if they are truly honest and sincere about UFO disclosure, then they would come to those who disclosed this information in the first place, which is the Nation of Islam.”

“But since they have not done so but instead have done just the opposite by trying to censor us and run from the truth that we have that answers these phenomena, then we find most of their efforts hypocritical,” he added.

As for Black people jokingly questioning on social media what UFOs have to do with their everyday livelihood, “if we knew better, Black people would understand that the presence of these so-called UFOs is proof and evidence that a superior power is here on our behalf,” Student Minister Ilia Rashad Muhammad said. “And it is extremely important that we take heed to this reality, because our salvation, our physical salvation, our salvation as a people and our future is directly connected to this reality.”

“Black people should be the first and foremost to be standing and shouting over the fact that there’s a power in the world that is greater and far superior than our oppressor’s power. So only a fool would mock such a reality that governments and militaries have been spending countless billions, even trillions of dollars trying to study,” he added.

“If it’s that important to the most powerful governments and militaries of the world, we would look like a fool trying to mock this phenomena in this day and time when all the evidence proves it to be true. But more importantly, we should be thankful, and we should understand that that power is represented by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.”

Earlier this year, Student Minister Ilia Rashad Muhammad released the first episode of a documentary film series titled, “Answered.” Though the episode is just a prelude that gives an introductory overview of the reality of the wheels, it has received great feedback.

“Every review that we’ve had has been nothing short of spectacular. So, there’s a great anticipation for part two, and that episode of ‘Answered’ will involve the Coming of God,” Student Minister Ilia Rashad Muhammad said. “And fortunately, we hope in the coming weeks to have that available for viewing as well, so get ready.”

The prelude episode can be found on media.noi.org, under the category, “The Wheel.”

From The Final Call Newspaper

HAPPY 70TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY TO THE HONORABLE MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN AND MOTHER KHADIJAH FARRAKHAN
By The Final Call
- September 12, 2023





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

“He it is Who created you from a single soul, and of the same did He make his mate, that he might find comfort in her. So when he covers her she bears a light burden, then moves about with it. Then when it grows heavy, they both call upon Allah, their Lord: If You give us a good one, we shall certainly be grateful.”

~Holy Qur’an, Surah 7, Verse 189

And of His signs is this, that He created mates for you from yourselves that you might find quiet of mind in them, and He put between you love and compassion. Surely there are signs in this for a people who reflect.

~Holy Qur’an, Surah 30, Verse 21

Happy 70th Blessed Wedding Anniversary to

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and Mother Khadijah Farrakhan,

who were married on September 12, 1953.

May Allah continue to bless you and your family.

We Love You!

From The Final Call Newspaper

Latest racist attack on Blacks is further proof we must ‘separate and be saved’
By J.S. Adams, Contributing Writer
- September 5, 2023





Black America added yet another deadly racist attack to the growing tally when recently a 21-year-old White man used his assault-style rifle to kill three Black people at a Jacksonville, Fla., Dollar Store.

Incidents such as these are a stark and brutal reminder of the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., where a White man slaughtered 10 Black people in a mass shooting; the Charleston, S.C., mass shooting, where a White man targeted a Black church, killing nine worshippers, and more.

The growing number of deadly attacks leaves no room for doubt, that White people are disagreeable to live with in peace, and that Black people must establish independence in order to survive.

Sabrina Rozier, center, holds her granddaughter, Je Asia Gallion, during an Aug. 28 news conference with attorney Ben Crump, far right, regarding the Aug. 26 racially motivated mass shooting in Jacksonville, Fla. Je Asia is the 4-year-old daughter of Jerrald Gallion, one of three people killed in the attack. Rozier is the girl’s maternal grandmother, and Gallion was once engaged to her daughter. Photo: AP Photo/Russ Bynum


Horror in Jacksonville



The U.S. Justice Department is investigating the Jacksonville shooting, which happened August 26, as a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. The gunman, identified as Ryan Christopher Palmeter, shot and killed Anolt Joseph “AJ” Laguerre Jr., 19; Jerrald Gallion, 29; and Angela Michelle Carr, 52, before he killed himself.

Prior to targeting the store, authorities say Mr. Palmeter stopped by Edward Waters University, a historically Black college in Jacksonville, but was deterred after students reportedly saw him putting on a tactical vest, then notified security. Mr. Palmeter had left racist writings and used racial slurs before his rampage, according to Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters.

Diallo-Sekou Seabrooks, a Jacksonville-based activist, says he was disturbed and saddened upon hearing about the shooting. However, he’s not surprised.

“We have to always look at the systemic and long, long, deep-rooted issues of Jacksonville, Florida, which is rooted in racism and rooted all the way into the power structure that’s here,” he said.

Jacksonville is a city located in northeastern Florida, near the Georgia state border.

“People may think, through television and promotion, that [Florida] is just a retirement state but this isn’t,” he said. “This is Jim Crow South.”

Rodney L. Hurst Sr., a civil rights activist, historian and Jacksonville native, writes about the city’s racist roots. In 1960, he was Jacksonville’s NAACP Youth Council president and witnessed “Ax Handle Saturday.” He, along with other protesters, had staged sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. In August of that year, 200 Whites had armed themselves with ax handles and baseball bats and attacked them across the city.

The Civil Rights Movement Archive has a snippet of Mr. Hurst’s book titled, “It Was Never About a Hotdog and a Coke!” He writes, “Here is a country based on the Christian ethic of loving your fellow man and embracing Jesus Christ. … Yet, here is a country throwing those very teachings and its accompanying love out the window, violently attacking young Blacks for pursuing their God-given and constitutionally assured rights.”

He further writes, “Blacks in Jacksonville endured an enormous amount of racism, discrimination, pain, and suffering in the fight for civil rights. They endeavored to leave a legacy and heritage from which we can benefit and of which we all can be proud.”

“In the wake of Charleston, Buffalo, and now our hometown here in Jacksonville, there seems to be a pattern that folks want to see how far they can go,” said Anthony Brown, co-founder of the Red Alliance for Justice, an organization dedicated to the revitalization of Black communities. “And if there’s not going to be any pushback or any resistance or retaliation, then you will continue to see these tragedies take place.”

Student Minister Nolan X of the Nation of Islam’s Mosque No. 66 in Jacksonville, says attacks like the one in Jacksonville are related to Black people attacking one another.

“The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan pointed out in the scriptures where God will send fiery serpents and he mentioned fiery serpents just simply means angry White people,” Student Minister Nolan X said. “So, we keep killing each other, we keep doing harm to each other, hating each other. … The more we keep harming each other, the enemy, by God’s permission, is going to turn it up.”

A climate of violent racism and grounds for separation

On April 13, Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager, was shot in the head by an 84-year-old White man in Kansas City, Missouri. Ralph, who’s now 17, was trying to pick up his younger brothers but went to the wrong home. He survived the shooting. Now a judge has ruled the gunman, Andrew Lester, must stand trial. He was charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action and previously pleaded not guilty.

Ralph Paul Yarl, in the hospital in serious condition on April 2023. Photo: MGN Online

D’Monterrio Gibson, a 25-year-old Black man, says he was fired from his job at FedEx on July 26, after two White men chased and shot at him in Mississippi in 2022. A judge recently declared a mistrial for the father and son charged in the attack, citing police errors.

In Amherst, Penn., a White man armed with a shotgun was accused of threatening two women before attempting to enter a predominantly Black church on Aug. 31. According to the Associated Press, investigators say they have no evidence the man was motivated by racial hate, to the dismay of the members of that church.

And the list goes on.

Krystal Muhammad, the national chair of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, says she receives messages describing racial attacks on a daily and weekly basis.

“There are tons and tons of local reports of racial attacks and the exaggerated energy of racism that’s being displayed openly,” Ms. Muhammad told The Final Call. She says these reports don’t always reach the national media.

“We’re living in a time where we just formerly were under the presidency of a well-known racist, who came out on a platform to basically be the opposite of what (President Barack) Obama was to Black people, for the Whites in this country, which would be, Donald Trump.”

She says these attacks have never slowed down, but the advent of social media has made them more visible.

Dr. Jared Ball, a professor of communications at Morgan State University, says, “At the end of the day, these random acts of violence, as horrific as they are…to paraphrase what [Martin Luther King Jr.] says, they are the derivative crimes of an already criminal arrangement that we have with this society. They are themselves extensions of a society’s public policy of a national material and immaterial will against Black people.”

Church members at the St. Paul A.M.E. Church pray with four Edward Waters University students, center, who attended a prayer service for the victims of a mass shooting, Aug. 27, in Jacksonville, Fla. Photo: AP Photo/John Raoux

Ms. Muhammad points to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s solution to these issues, which is separation. The Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam’s program which includes separation is found in the Muslim Program, “What The Muslims Want” and “What The Muslims Believe.” The program was printed in every edition of Muhammad Speaks newspaper and is also on the inside back page of The Final Call.

The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad stated, “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 their own—either on this continent or elsewhere.”

He further states, “Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality, after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced upon us by White America, justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own.”

As long as Black people are under the rulership of the slave masters’ children this pattern of violence and attacks by Whites will continue, explained Ms. Muhammad. “You can’t get a scorpion to change their ways. You can’t get a rattlesnake to not be a rattlesnake.”

On page 204 of His monumental book titled “Message to the Black Man in America,” The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad writes, “We, once slaves, have grown to be a nation of twenty million or more in a nation that enslaved our fathers and to this day has deprived us of equal justice under their own laws.

No equal civil rights–most of us are treated by White citizens of America as animals. It is common to see and hear of White mobs attacking, beating, and shooting down poor Blacks whose fathers’ and mothers’ labor, sweat and blood helped make America the richest government on earth; nevertheless, we are yet the most hated and mistreated people.”

“Allah (God) wants to make a great nation out of us (so-called Negroes). But if we desire to remain the slave of servants for our slave-masters, it is all right with Allah. Do we love ourselves and our children? If so, why not build a future for ourselves rather than beg the same slave-masters for jobs and equal shares in whatever they have even to equal membership in their society and families (intermarriage).”

Krystal Muhammad says an honest dialogue must be had within the Black community about the current reality, and Black children must be told about the kind of people they are dealing with.

“We are going to have to be honest and stop trying to just stay assimilated into a system that is stacked against us,” she said. “But what we have not done and have yet to do and it’s gonna be the only solution is to make the decision to separate and operate as a separate nation and to be self-governed.”

Mr. Brown believes there are legislators who “represent (the community) in rhetoric but don’t represent them in practice. And until that improves, you’re not going to see the type of legislation that you need in order for us to have that protection.”

But he also believes Blacks need to start taking matters into their own hands.

“I think these communities need to be a little bit more proactive in creating a neighborhood watch or a group of individuals that kind of patrol their own community and make sure that nothing irregular is taking place, make sure that someone who looks suspicious that they can kind of do what they need to do because if you’re waiting on the government to come at this particular time, you might be waiting a long time,” he said.

As Jacksonville begins its journey toward healing, Mr. Brown and Student Minister Nolan X plan to participate in a September 6 town hall that will enable local organizations to plan strategically and offer resources to the community.

“Allah (God) is showing us who the true enemy of self is,” Student Minister Nolan X said. “This is going to continue to escalate and get worse and worse and worse, so teaches the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, if we continue to do what we have been brainwashed to do. But the Teachings (of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad) have washed our brains and we have to be acquainted with the God that saves and the true reality of ourselves.”

 

People gather at a rally to support Ralph Yarl, April 18, in Kansas City, Mo. Yarl, a Black teenager, was shot by a White homeowner when he mistakenly went to the wrong address to pick up his younger brothers. Photo: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

A May 2022 Time magazine article titled “Anti-Black Violence Has Long Been the Most Common American Hate Crime—And We Still Don’t Know the Full Extent” reported that as the country publicly declared itself to be in the midst of a racial reckoning, “it turns out Black Americans were being hunted and hurt at a level unmatched since 2008—the year that saw the election of the first Black president and an attendant, hate-fueled backlash.”

In 2020, the most recent year for which the FBI has gathered and reported nationwide hate crime data, 2,871 Black Americans became victims of hate crimes, the article noted.

In a message titled, “Can Black and White Live Together in Peace,” from part 39 of the 2013 online lecture series, “The Time and What Must Be Done,” Minister Farrakhan stated:

“The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us that one of the things that must be done, in this time, is that we must be separated from our former slave masters and their children—because time will prove that they will become more and more disagreeable to live with in peace.

“Unfortunately, race relations will continue to get worse because the government just cannot provide enough food, clothing, shelter and jobs, or justice, for us. And as we sit around, waiting for somebody else to do this for us—and demanding what we feel are our basic rights as so-called citizens—

We are making our former slave masters and their children more angry with us; and thus, they are becoming more disagreeable to live with in peace. That’s why the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, ‘We must be separated if we don’t want to continue to suffer great loss.’”

Final Call staff contributed to this report.

From The Final Call Newspaper

Black Business Conference unites Black businesses and professionals under one agenda

By Anisah Muhammad, Contributing Writer
- August 29, 2023





ATLANTA—When traveling down the lobby escalators of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Black people from all over the country and the world were presented with a visual display of African art and culture. The display was a welcoming introduction to the 123rd National Black Business Conference that took place in Atlanta on August 24-26.

The National Business League, the National Black Chamber of Commerce and The World Conference of Mayors unified to host the conference. More than 1,000 Black businesses and professionals registered.

“This conversation about Black business, that’s what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, as well as Minister Farrakhan, they believe in. Black people supporting their own businesses, Black people governing their own businesses, Black people turning over the dollar in the Black community. We hope to accomplish all of that as a result of a conference like this,” said former Tuskegee, Alabama, mayor and president and founder of The World Conference, Johnny Ford said, to The Final Call.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, listed the science of business as one of the three sciences never taught to the Black slave, the other two being the science of mating and the science of warfare.

On page 40 of His book “Message to the Blackman in America,” Mr. Muhammad recalled a congressional debate in the early 1920s concerning the appropriation of funds for Howard University. During the debate, a senator voiced that they would not teach Black people those much-needed sciences.

“He knew these were things free people must know in order to protect, preserve and advance themselves,” the Honorable Elijah Muhammad writes.

“Inspiring Black people to go back, go into business. Start their own businesses. But the point is, we have to come to a conference like this to learn where the money is. And many times, we can generate the money ourselves. That’s what Minister Farrakhan believes in, Black people spending money with themselves ,” said Mayor Ford.

The conference is important because it brings together institutions with resources that Black people can take advantage of, he added.

The conference came on the heels of a recent partnership between the National Business League and the National Black Chamber of Commerce. The two organizations partnered in September 2022 to create the National Alliance for Black Business, to develop a unified Black business agenda.

“This is the foundational nucleus for us to mobilize the entire country. Every Black chamber in the country, every business league in the country, in connection with all of our historic Black towns and settlements, and the endorsement of all the Black mayors not just here in the United States of America, but throughout the world,” Dr. Ken Harris, president and CEO of the National Business League, said during the conference’s opening ceremony on Aug. 2

The organizers noted the importance of a unified alliance to create an economic destiny.

“This is the beginning of the enactment of a unified global economic empowerment by way of entrepreneurs,” said Chuck Debow, president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. “It’s been our mission. It’s been something that we theoretically and philosophically had espoused. But what you are a part of is the actuality of it.”

The conference stands on the shoulders of Booker T. Washington, founder of the historic Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama. Booker T. Washington founded the National Negro Business League 123 years ago, in Boston, Massachusetts. On August 23, 1900, the league held its first national conference.

“It was Booker T. Washington who brought together Black business leaders as well as Black political leaders, Black educators, Black nonprofit organizations, organizations from throughout the nation and the world to organize a national business league,” Mayor Ford said during the opening program.

A pre-conference took place at Tuskegee University on Aug. 23, which included a tour of the university, a news conference and ribbon-cutting ceremony and a reception. The university is the national headquarters of the National Business League.

Conference organizers recognized the presence of representatives from Amazon, Comerica, Prosper Africa and the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Representatives from several African countries were also present, including Senegal, Uganda, Kenya, Barbados, Gambia, the Ivory Coast, Mali and Tanzania, along with a representative from New Delhi, India.

The in-person conference was accompanied by an event app, Whova, where Black business owners and professionals scheduled their own meetups on different subjects, linked with fellow conference attendees and posted on the community discussion board.

Attendees also had the opportunity to directly support Black businesses via a Black business expo that took place on Aug. 26. Products and services ranged from food, clothing and books to personal care products and investment and consulting services.

Panel discussions

Conference panel discussions on Aug. 25 included “Re-Building Black Wallstreet,” “Pan-African Diaspora Global Business,” “Black Women in Business” and “Access to Capital for Black Business.” The National Black Chamber of Commerce held a “30th Anniversary Dinner” in the evening, which included a red-carpet international fashion show.

“Re-Building Black Wallstreet” panelists acknowledged the detrimental effects of integration, namely, how Black-owned and operated businesses began to decline.

When Alberta McCrory was growing up in Hobson City, Alabama, the first established Black city, everything was Black-owned and operated, from the service station to the grocery store. She is now the mayor of Hobson City and is encouraging the pooling of resources and for young Black entrepreneurs to return to their communities.

Dr. Tyrene Wright commented that though Black people “integrated our dollars,” White people didn’t integrate their dollars.

Jay Bailey, the president and CEO of the Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs, noted how GDP (gross domestic product) is lost every year simply due to Black people residing in the parts of town that lack access to resources and opportunity.

From left, Mayor Jimmie Gardner of Pritchard, Alabama; Sherman Copelin, pres- ident of Alexander’s Inc.; Mayor Johnny Ford of Tuskegee, Alabama, and Frank Jackson, the vice president of The World Conference of Mayors pose for a photo at the conference.

Panelists also discussed the importance of the intentionality of spending money, how spending is a form of protest and strategies of resistance. They said White acceptance, assurance and capital are not needed for Black people to create their own economies.

“You spend your money where your people are. You can transform your people, which transforms your community,” Dr. Lakeysha Hallmon, CEO of the Atlanta-based Village Market and Our Village United, said. Her organization has spent $8.3 million in direct sales on Black people.

“Everything started with a single idea of inspiring people to move, to mobilize where you are, to use those smartphones; to make sure your shopping cart was Black, make sure your dentist, your doctor is Black, make sure the guy that’s working on your roof is Black,” she said.

Dr. Tyrene Wright of City University of New York (CUNY) commented that “Whatever we consume, we should produce.”

Black women in business spoke to a majority-women audience on the importance of mentorship, finding a tribe, having partnerships and collaborations and social media and influencer marketing. They also answered questions from the audience.

The “Access to Capital for Black Business” panel covered key barriers such as financial education and the willingness of financial institutions to share the rules of the game and to discuss underwriting.

“Your idea upon which you create your business will become your value,” Joe Cecala, founder and CEO of Dream Exchange, said. “A lot of great ideas can start in a garage,” he added.

Panelists mentioned the importance of finding an accountant, a financial adviser and a lawyer and staying in constant communication with them. They also talked about the importance of education and sacrifice for a successful business.

“The secret is education. The secret is sacrifice. The secret is being on a path with goals and objectives and executing the goals and objectives to achieve success,” Frederick L. Daniels Jr., of the Black-owned Citizens Trust Bank, said.

Workshops

The next day’s agenda consisted of Black business workshops. Topics included trusting yourself, the transformative power of wellness, institutions of change, the athletic mindset in business, the U.S. Census Bureau, intellectual property ownership, the international trade association, mastering content creation, legal advice for start-ups, trade-marking, doing business internationally and globally, business plans and models, business planning and development, mental health of business, mastering public relations, getting your business legit, obtaining federal contracts and grants, where to start when owning a business and emerging markets and industries.

Tiffiney Ward from Atlanta attended the conference to see what other people in the business world were doing and to learn from their mistakes and successes. She was interested in attending the session on business plans and models, to help her company, Wordflux Solutions.

“Everyone has a business plan, but a business plan is always being tweaked so that you have a stronger business plan,” she said to The Final Call. “I’m hoping to glean some new ideas and new tools that I can use to make a business plan stronger.”

During a workshop on making your business legitimate, Racheal Allen, the CEO of Operations School, testified on how she left her job and started running a successful business within the span of a year. She outlined five steps people should take to have a legitimate business: getting legal, getting branded, getting operational, getting profitable and getting noticed.

Getting legal includes having an EIN, articles of organization and an annual statement, an operating agreement, licensing and permits, insurances, service, contractor and non-disclosure agreements, commercial savings, tax and payroll accounts, tradelines and a paydex score.

Getting branded includes having a domain name, branded email, evoice phone number, lifestyle and headshot photos, a brand archetype, a style guide, a logo and a website.

Ms. Allen talked through five needed systems to get operational: lead conversion such as subscription websites, project management such as Monday or Asana, operations such as Google Workspace, customer service and financials. She concluded that the main system needed is customer relationship management.

To get profitable, she voiced the importance of developing your customer avatar, creating a value spectrum, utilizing multiple payment systems, knowing your numbers and becoming oversubscribed.

To get noticed, she advised attendees to tell their stories, to create something newsworthy, to write their own press releases, to leverage digital marketing and to go where their customers are.

In another workshop, Diane Palmer, founder and managing director of B3 Elevation, shared five things every Black-owned business needs to succeed: a finance team, a legal team, digital presence, certification and elevation of the mind.

A concurrent session of workshops was held via a “Pan-African Diaspora Black Business Summit,” presented by Prosper Africa. Those workshops included fostering trust and collaboration between the African diaspora and Africa, defining and exploring the African diaspora and its role, Africa’s place in the global economy and supporting African self-reliance and diasporan independence.

A film titled, “Hapi,” was shown, presenting a snapshot of economic history and the flow of money and information over time.

The day concluded with the “Booker T. Washington Black-Tie Awards Gala,” which included a keynote speech from civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump.

Dr. Royelle Comer from Montgomery, Alabama, attended the conference to learn more about access to capital. “You want to be around people that are like-minded. You want to understand what’s going on in the business world and how we can make our business grow and flourish,” he said to The Final Call.

“Build relationships, take that back to our companies and grow them, and hopefully become part of this network as these conferences happen over the years.”

Forrest Carter, the national director for the National Black Supplier Development Program of the National Business League, listed closing the wealth gap as one of the objectives of the conference.

“This many coming together of Black excellence from across the country, it’s important to be able to scale. The same agenda, same objective, but it is only when we come together collectively en masse that we’re able to accumulate the resources and the gravitas that could bring our objectives into fruition,” he said to The Final Call.