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We Were a Dead People . . . but When we Heard Messenger Muhammad . . .
WE AROSE FROM THE DEAD!

By Mr. Malcolm X., New York City

(in printing this article we have maintained the author's writing style. - Ed.)

"He it is who raised among the illiterates a Messenger from among themselves, who recites to them His messages and purifies them, and teaches them the Book and the Wisdom - though they were before certainly in manifest error" (62:2)

Before we heard the Teachings of Messenger Muhammad, we American so-called Negroes were in the GRAVE of IGNORANCE. We had been taught by our Christian Slavemasters, as well as by our own ignorant religious leaders, that God had cursed us black and had sentenced us to a lifetime on earth of servitude to the Christian white race - and, our Slavemaster's Christian religion taught us (a promise) that we would sprout wings after death and mount into the sky where God had a place especially prepared for us. Since we poor "cursed" slaves weren't to get anything on earth, we soon learned to expect it only after-death, up in the sky. The earth and all its vast riches which we ourselves originally owned was left to the Christian white race, to build for themselves a heaven on earth while they live. 

Such teaching made us feel inferior to the white Christian Slavemaster . . . and soon had us fearing him, obeying him, and worshipping him instead of the God of our own foreparents, Almighty Allah. 

MESSENGER MUHAMMAD has taught us how we soon became like the Beggar Lazarus of the Bible: our condition became sickening (very sore). We sat at the rich white Christian's table, BEGGING . . . and received from the Christian Slavemaster (whom our foreparents had made rich by giving him freely of their slave labor) only the roughest jobs at the lowest wages, the poorest houses in the slum areas for the highest rent, and the worst food and clothing at the highest prices. Our schools were like shacks, and were staffed by teachers who knew and could teach only what the Slavemasters dictated to them. 

MESSENGER MUHAMMAD has taught us how we were kidnapped [[italicized]] from the EAST [[/italicized]], brought here and robbed of our language, our culture, our religion, our God, our flag and our NATIONality . . , and then taught by our Slavemasters to call ourselves 'negroes,' because "he brought us from the Niger River." But MESSENGER MUHAMMAD says since when does one receive one's NATIONality from a river? The Slavemaster says it means black in Spanish. Then why don't all the dark, Spanish-speaking people of Spain, South and Central America accept it as their NATIONality too? MESSENGER MUHAMMAD says that we too should get our NATION(ality) from the NATION which our foreparents originated from (as do all other recognized peoples).

He says that we were purposely robbed of our identity and cut off from our own kind (Ezekiel 37:11) (Psalm 83:4) by the Christian

24     MOSLEM WORLD & THE U.S.A.

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Slavemaster. He says the Slavemaster took our names, language, and religion from us so that we would have to accept his, obey him and worship him. (Daniel 1: 6,7) MESSENGER MUHAMMAD has given us many scriptures to prove his teachings to us are true. He says we were robbed, deaf, dumb, and blind to the Knowledge of Our God and Ourselves, and today we are like Dry Bones in the Valley (spiritually dead, in the Grave of IGNORANCE). We now speak only the Slavemaster's language, and are called by his names (Jones, Smith, Bunche, Powell, Diggs, Dawson etc.) because the names TAKEN from our foreparents were CUT OFF from us, and we know them not. 

All other peoples have their own religion and believe in a God whom they can associate themselves with, a God who looks like one of their own kind. But [[italicized]]we[[/italicized]] picture God with the same blond hair and blue eyes as our murderous Slavemaster. The Christian religion teaches us that black is a curse, thus we love everything except black, and can picture God as being anything else but black. We'd rather say God is INVISIBLE, before we'll say He is black. How grossly misled and deceived we have been.

MESSENGER MUHAMMAD says that the teachers and religious leaders of our own kind here in America were as blind to the real Truth as we, and therefore they were not qualified to lead us beyond what our Slavemasters would allow them. HOW CAN THE BLIND LEAD THE BLIND? Thus we remained in THE DITCH (the GRAVE of spiritual ignorance and mental bondage) dug for us by our Christian Slavemaster. Not only did our educators and preachers here fail to give us Truth, even our Brothers who were BORN in the East came here and NEGLECTED to convert us back to the religion (Islam) of our foreparents. Our Brothers from the East failed to recognize us as their long-lost Brother who had been kidnapped from the Nation of Islam 400 years ago by the white race. They ignored us, and instead tried to lecture to our Slavemaster and make him a righteous Moslem Brother . . . knowing all the time that he was guilty of having kidnapped, robbed, enslaved and lynched their long-lost TRUE Brother. Our Brothers from the East seemed to be apologizing to the white man for Islam instead of defending it from his insults. 

MESSENGER MUHAMMAD says Almighty Allah is All-Powerful and Independent. He needs no one to apologize for Him. Islam is not a religion of compromise. Islam is TRUTH, Life itself. For 400 years we were deprived of Islam (LIFE) by the White Man, and like the Bible Lazarus we soon became so dead mentally and spiritually that out 'Disposition' STUNK in the nostrils of the intelligent and civilized world. Our Own Kind in the East refused to recognize us. They forgot us and we forgot them.

BUT ALMIGHTY ALLAH FORGETS NOT. As He predicted in the Torah (Mal 4:5) that He would send ELIJAH in the "last days" (of the white man's world) to teach us the TRUTH, turning our hearts back to our Own Kind in the East, and turning their hearts toward us. We who have been RAISED FROM THE WHITE MAN'S GRAVE bear witness that this man ELIJAH has indeed been raised in our midst today in the person of the Honorable ELIJAH MUHAMMAD, raised up by Almighty Allah Himself. Examine his WORKS among us, for his WORKS testify to his identity. Only an Envious One, or a fool

AUGUST-SEPT. 1956     25