Chapter - Right to Peaceful Assembly Denied To So-Called American Negroes
Dear Brothers in the Nation of Islam, and especially my people here in America, where live the worst enemies of Islam and of 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 FBI harassment and persecution, that Allah has manifested 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 meetings 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, 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 black Americans, even those who 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 4,000 years and especially during the last 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, 1963, 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 of the separation of the two peoples (black and white).
Approximately 6,000 people, including 200 or 300 devils, had submitted to being 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 overrule those who would oppose their entering, I left in the midst of my lecture; I went to the door to speak with the haters of so-called Negroes. I told them, that if they wanted to come in, to do as their white brothers had done. That is, give up their weapons until dismissal. And if anyone acted other than peacefully 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.
Their record of unprovoked, evil attacks against our people is a long and vicious one. The attacks began in Detroit, Michigan, in 1932, 33 and 34 and from there to Chicago, Illinois, April, 1935, and down to the attack on and murder of the Muslims in Los Angeles, California, April 27, 1962.
Even under the laws of America brutal police forces beat black people and deprive them of simple justice, including those who are in prison at the present time and those who are being sent to prison throughout the country. Untold thousands are being held in prison unjustly.
Muslim prisoners are making court appeals against false charges in Monroe, Rochester, New Orleans, Attica, Dannamora and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and against unjust court rulings. In upper-state New York and Massachusetts, the Muslims, unjustly charged with attacking the police department in a peaceful assemblage, have appealed.