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From Messenger Muhammad:
OPEN LETTER TO NON-WHITES
Right To Peaceful Assembly Denied Black Americans
By Elijah Muhammad
Dear Brother in the Nation of Islam, and especially my people here in America
where live the worst enemies of Islam and the peace of the world:
It should now be clear
to you, after the attacks that have been made upon us and are still being made by the brutal American police forces with the
FBI's harassment and persecution, that Allah has manifest the white race of America to be nothing but a race of devils.
We are forbidden
by Allah to carry weapons.
It is well known
that this is our rule: no armed person is to sit in our meeting, and because of this rule, we have been successful in enjoying
a peaceful assemblage wherever we have gone.
But it has again been made clear by
the hostile act of the Flint, Michigan police department against our peaceful assemblage, that the devils do not respect anyone's
peace.
Because of
this we shall never again permit white people to sit in our meeting--armed or unarmed. This does not include the Turkish people,
Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, those of Pakistan; Arabs, Latin Americans, Egyptians and those of other Asiatic Muslims and
non-Muslim nations.
All
black Americans or non-whites are welcomed to our mass meetings. We will soon make a try at converting and uniting all
the originals of this Western Hemisphere.
All of us, even those that have a few drops of black blood in them, must unite under the crescent to try and
save ourselves from the doom of the enemies who have ruled and killed us for the past 400 years.
For they have covered the earth and sea with their death-dealing rule over the aboriginals of the earth since they left the
confines of Europe.
And now to their latest outrage in Flint, Michigan. There, on October
27, the police department harassed us for three hours in order to enter our meeting, fully armed inside an auditorium
filled with peaceful, unarmed people.
This proves beyond a shadow of doubt that there is no justice, nor peace for our black people
in America, whether they be Christians or Muslims.
We had rented this public auditorium in Flint to teach the so-called Negro of the presence of Allah,
of the judgment of the devils and the separation of the two peoples (black and white).
Approximately 6,000 people, including 200 to 300 devils had submitted to the searched for arms and other possessions that
might be against the peaceful assembly. A black policeman had entered, but had surrendered his arms.
Later on, however,
two white officials appeared, claiming that their law compels them to go into all public meetings armed and that their
weapons were not to be given up.
They insisted on coming in with their arms, and upon
the right to those who would oppose their entering. I left in the midst of my lecture (which I should not have done, and called
their bluff. But there were too many women and children in the audience.)
I went to the
door to speak with the haters of so-called Negroes. I told them, that if they wanted to come in, do as their white brothers
had done: that is, give up their weapons until dismissal. And if any one acts other than peaceful in our meeting, we
would surely let them know and they could arrest them.
" But this was not enough.
They continued to demand entrance without being disarmed. " I, therefore, dismissed the meeting. I could have
called their bluff, but there were too many women and children in the audience."
A law suit was filed: The suit charged that the Muslims
were deprived of privileges and immunities guaranteed them by the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States
Constitution because the officers named in the suit violated the religious group's policy of permitting only unarmed persons
to attend its meetings.
A similar suit, filed earlier in Genesee County Circuit
Court, seeks $27,097 against the Industrial Mutual Association (IMA), owners of the auditorium where the rally was held.
The suit marked the first time a non-white group had protest against the invasion of
a meeting by white policeman.
THE HONORABLE ELIJAH MUHAMMAD REMOVED THE FEAR TO STAND UP AND BE HEARD, SINCE THEY SAY
WE ARE CITIZENS AND WE MUST PAY TAXES.
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