Chapter - To Help Fight Against Poverty and Want!
I appeal to all Muslims, and to all the members of the original Black Nation in America, to sacrifice at least five cents from each day's pay to create an "Economic Savings Program" to help fight unemployment, abominable housing, hunger, and nakedness of the 22 million black people here in America who continue to face these problems.
This will not interfere with, the government's program for better housing conditions at all; it will only aid those who have never known anything in the way of help and those who do not even know that there is a government housing act to help dependent people. There are thousands of our people living in worse conditions than dogs and pigs. At least dogs are not bothered with too many rats and roaches in their houses because they kill them to keep out the uncleanliness and filth which dominate and create bad housing conditions.
We hope to set up a committee to teach and force our people to be clean: The Committee of Cleanliness. We already have such a committee in effect among the Muslims. It compels our people to clean their bodies as well as their houses. If you have only one suit of clothing, you should wash it and press it each night so that you can wear it the next day. If you are not able to have your hair trimmed at the barbershop, you should take turns and trim each other's hair. You must shave yourselves and look like men.
And our women should clean up. You do not have to have a dozen dresses. Just keep the one you have clean and pressed. Until we enforce cleanliness among the people of our Nation and get them into the spirit of self-respect and the spirit of making themselves the equal of other civilized nations of the earth we will never be recognized as being fit members of any decent society of those nations.
Send your quarters every week to Muhammad's Mosque No. 2 in Chicago, Illinois. These quarters will be banked until we have a million dollars to begin building a banking system.
We have wasted too much money trying to be the equal of the millionaires of America. We like sport and play, but we suffer the pains of hunger because of the millions of dollars lost paying notes for luxuries we could do without -- such as fine automobiles, fine clothes, whiskey, beer, wine, cigarettes, tobacco and drugs.
Let the entire nation sacrifice for three years. Confine ourselves to buy not more than three suits of clothes a year, never exceeding $65 in cost. Buy the minimum amount of shoes, never paying over $16 a pair, as long as current prices for the above-mentioned merchandise remain the same. (Of course, inflation can run prices up until money has no value.) We should cut down on waste in high-priced food. Eat pure and wholesome food without being extravagant. Let us cut our extravagances.
As soon as we have enough money in our banks to purchase lands sufficient to feed the 22 million black people, we will build storage warehouses to store our supplies of the necessities of life for our people.
I believe that if we make these sacrifices throughout the nation for three years, as all our nations are doing or have done, we will soon rid our people of poverty and want. Russia did it on a five-year plan. Pakistan and other nations did it and are today on top. We must sacrifice for three years. I will not ask you to try a five-year plan: I am afraid that you, with your short patience, will not agree. But try three years on an "Economic Savings Program" to fight against poverty among our people here in America. I know you will become a happier and more recognized people and have the spirit of independence which is the glory of any nation.
Please respond and help yourself. Each and every one of you will be sent a receipt which will be recorded in our books for the Muslims' Three-Year Economic Program for the Black Nation in America. You will get a receipt for every penny you send to this office, which you will keep as your record.
You can mail the money directly to the Muslims' Three Year Economic Program Department, Muhammad's Mosque No. 2, 5335 So. Greenwood Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60615. You can send 25 cents each week or $1 per month. Send postal or personal money orders. No personal checks will be accepted unless your financial savings are verified by the bank.
We, the Muslims, will support this program and hope that every member of the working class of our people throughout the country will join us. We will show the world that we can build an independent nation out of those who have been a dependent people for 400 years.
We are asking you to help us enlarge our educational system so that our people can be educated. This we refer to as re-education into the knowledge of self, our history and the knowledge of the good things of life, of which we have been deprived. You can also aid us by subscribing to the Muhammad Speaks Newspaper.
May Allah bless our poor dependent people in America with better homes more money and better friendships among the nations of the earth.