Happy Birthday Sun Ra

Happy Birthday Sun Ra
"America, the Devil don't even want you--you not even suitable for hell!"--Sun Ra









Happy Birthday Sun Ra

Herman Poole Blount was born on May 22, 1914 in Birmingham, Alabama, Planet Earth. Sun Ra was interested in music from an early age and by the time he was eleven he was able to sight read and compose music on piano. Growing up in Birmingham allowed him to catch famous Jazz musicians traveling through including Flecther Henderson, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller. In his teens Sun Ra was able to listen to a big band perform and go home and write full transcriptions of the performance by ear and also began playing professionally as a teen. At the age of ten Sun Ra joined the Knights of Pythias and would remain with the group through high school. This Masonic Lodge provided him to unlimited access to books and their books on Freemasonry and other subjects of the like influenced him heavily. In high school Ra studied with music teacher John T "Fess" Whatley who had a reputation for producing many great musicians. In 1934 Sun Ra began playing professionally full time with a former teacher named Ethel Harper and after she left the group Sun took over and called it the Sonny Blount Orchestra. In 1936 Ra was awarded a scholarship to attend Alabama Agriculture and Mechanical University and studied music for one year before having an experience that would change the course of his life.

In 1937 during deep meditation Sun Ra briefly left this planet and traveled to Saturn and received important information about his path. In his own words, "… my whole body changed into something else. I could see through myself. And I went up … I wasn't in human form … I landed on a planet that I identified as Saturn … they teleported me and I was down on [a] stage with them. They wanted to talk with me. They had one little antenna on each ear. A little antenna over each eye. They talked to me. They told me to stop [attending college] because there was going to be great trouble in schools … the world was going into complete chaos … I would speak [through music], and the world would listen. That's what they told me." Following this experience Sun Ra returned to Birmingham and worked frantically within music and reformed the Sonny Blount Orchestra which was well received in the area. In the early 1940s Sun Ra was drafted in U.S. Military but was very much against war and killing which led to him being placed in jail for his beliefs. After being released in 1943 Ra returned home before moving north to Chicago.

In Chicago Ra began working with singer Wynonie Harris and made his recording debut in 1946 on the singles 'Dig This Boogie/Lightning Struck the Poorhouse' and 'My Baby's Barrelhouse/Drinking By Myself'. In 1946 Ra was hired by Fletcher Henderson to play piano and arrange music for the band and in 1948 performed in a trio with Coleman Hawkins and Stuff Smith. Living in Chicago also influenced Ra and he was very interested in the city's many Egyptian style buildings and continued educating himself with books like "Stolen Legacy" written by George G.M. James. In 1952 Sun Ra formed the Space Trio with Tommy Hunter and Pat Patrick and also legally changed him name to Le Sony'r Ra. Soon John Gilmore and Marshall Allen would join the band and some other members during this period in Chicago would include James Spaulding, Von Freeman and Julian Priester. Also in the 1950s Ra met Alton Abraham who would become his good friend, business manager and shared similar interests and beliefs as Ra. Sun Ra and Abraham also printed pamphlets and would hand them on the street about their beliefs and many of these can be read in the book "The Wisdom of Sun Ra: Sun Ra's Polemical Broadsheets and Streetcorner Leaflets" published in 2006. Some of the Arkestra's recordings from the 1950s include 'Sound Sun Pleasure', 'Sun Song', 'Sound of Joy', 'Angels and Demons at Play' and 'We Travel the Spaceways'.

In 1961 the Arkestra moved to New York City and was able to find a regular gig at Slug's Saloon. This helped spread Sun Ra's popularity and for the most part he was well received. Though Ra would still experience hecklers from time but did receive support and encouragement from some very notable Jazz musicians including Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. The building the band lived in New York was sold in 1968 and a result they relocated to the Germantown section of Philadelphia and that would be their home base till the end and were known as very good neighbors due to their friendliness and drug free living. Also in '68 Sun Ra toured the West Coast for the first time and even followers of the Greatful Dead would have altering experiences listening to Sun Ra. This tour led to Ra being featured on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine in 1969. The Arkestra began touring Europe in 1970 and was very well received and in 1971 Ra fulfilled one of his dreams by performing with his band at the pyramids in Egypt. Also in 1971 Sun Ra was hired became the artist-in-residence at University of California, Berkeley and taught a course called "The Black Man In the Cosmos." Some of the required reading for this course included the Book of the Dead, Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons and The Book of Oahspe and the works of Madame Blavatsky and Henry Dumas. In the mid and late '70s the Arkestra would perform locally in Philadelphia giving free concerts in a local park on the weekends and also had a stint as the house band at the Squat Theater in New York City in 1979.

Sun Ra and his Arkestra continued playing and recording in the 1980s and 1990s and Ra was well known as a part of Philadelphia by this time. He would often be a guest on local radio and give lectures locally as well. In 1990 Ra suffered a stroke but still continued to compose and perform until leaving this planet in 1993. Sun Ra leaves a legacy on this planet as a visionary artist dedicated beyond all else to convince mankind to face the fact they need to change their destructive and greedy ways as well as repair the self worth of African-Americans after the unimaginable abuse they have been through. Musically, Ra pushed any boundaries into oblivion as his musical imagination could not fit into any type of category or box. Sun Ra was one of the first in Jazz to use electronics and introduce the idea of collective free form improvisation. Ra's music and mythology has inspired so many people to not only develop themselves mentally and physically, but to explore the unknown and evolve spiritually.



Click Here to watch Sun Ra's full length film "Space Is The Place" made in 1974.



"It's better to deal with the people who have intuition now. You see, they don't know what they're doing. The ones who do know what they're doing, haven't proven anything."

"Because everything that's unknown is part of the myth. And I'm sure that the myth can do more for humanity than anything they ever dreamed possible." - Sun Ra

The Differences
Sometimes in the amazing ignorance
I hear things and see things
I never knew I saw and heard before
Sometimes in the ignorance
I feel the meaning
Invincible invisible wisdom,
And I commune with intuitive instinct
With the force that made life be
And since it made life be
It is greater than life
And since it let extinction be
It is greater than extinction.
I commune with feelings more than
prayer
For there is nothing else to ask for
That companionship is
And it is superior to any other is.
Sometimes in my amazing ignorance
Others see me only as they care to see
I am to them as they think
According the standard I should not be
And that is the difference between I and them
Because I see them as they are to is
And not the seeming isness of the was.
Sun Ra

Marvin X on Sun Ra

Happy earth day, Sun Ra, no matter where you are in the spirit world of the universe.
You are the Supreme Prophet of our First Poet's Church. RA! RA! RA! We forever love you and praise you for teaching us how to submit to leadership or what is also known as discipline. This is the most crucial lesson for North American Africans, learning to submit and thus respect leadership. But of course the leader must be highly disciplined himself, above his carnal nature and focused on his/her spiritual mission, in service of the Creator God.

All artists, poets, writers, musicians, theatre persons, must learn the Sun Ra method of creative discipline, a holistic approach to life in the arts, how to bring all the genres together into a whole mythological order through creative ritual. And this includes a melting of art and audience, what we called Ritual Theatre. Sun Ra taught us all how to ritualize theatre by breaking down that wall and destroying the comfort of the audience, yet making them one with the myth/ritual moment in time and space.

Sun Ra demonstrated the eternity of time, beyond the finite into the everlastingness of it all. And so we are indeed the Latter Day Egyptian Revisionists, updating our ancestors for the present time and eternity.
--Marvin X
Prime Minister
First Poet's Church of the Latter Day Egyptian Revisionists
5/22/11
www.firstpoetschurch.blogspot.com

A Poem Every African Must Know

For My People
BY MARGARET WALKER

For my people everywhere singing their slave songs
     repeatedly: their dirges and their ditties and their blues
     and jubilees, praying their prayers nightly to an
     unknown god, bending their knees humbly to an
     unseen power;

For my people lending their strength to the years, to the
    gone years and the now years and the maybe years,
    washing ironing cooking scrubbing sewing mending
    hoeing plowing digging planting pruning patching
    dragging along never gaining never reaping never
    knowing and never understanding;

For my playmates in the clay and dust and sand of Alabama
    backyards playing baptizing and preaching and doctor
    and jail and soldier and school and mama and cooking
    and playhouse and concert and store and hair and
    Miss Choomby and company;

For the cramped bewildered years we went to school to learn
    to know the reasons why and the answers to and the
    people who and the places where and the days when, in
    memory of the bitter hours when we discovered we
    were black and poor and small and different and nobody
    cared and nobody wondered and nobody understood;

For the boys and girls who grew in spite of these things to
    be man and woman, to laugh and dance and sing and
    play and drink their wine and religion and success, to
    marry their playmates and bear children and then die
    of consumption and anemia and lynching;

For my people thronging 47th Street in Chicago and Lenox
    Avenue in New York and Rampart Street in New
    Orleans, lost disinherited dispossessed and happy
    people filling the cabarets and taverns and other
    people’s pockets and needing bread and shoes and milk and
    land and money and something—something all our own;

For my people walking blindly spreading joy, losing time
     being lazy, sleeping when hungry, shouting when
     burdened, drinking when hopeless, tied, and shackled
     and tangled among ourselves by the unseen creatures
     who tower over us omnisciently and laugh;

For my people blundering and groping and floundering in
     the dark of churches and schools and clubs
     and societies, associations and councils and committees and
     conventions, distressed and disturbed and deceived and
     devoured by money-hungry glory-craving leeches,
     preyed on by facile force of state and fad and novelty, by
     false prophet and holy believer;

For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way
    from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding,
    trying to fashion a world that will hold all the people,
    all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless generations;

Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a
    bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second
    generation full of courage issue forth; let a people
    loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of
    healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing
    in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs
    be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now
    rise and take control.

Ancestor Poet Reginald Lockett

Poet Reginald Lockett is one of our Saints. Reggie

participated in the West Coast Black Arts Movement at Black House, San Francisco, 1967. One of his last performances is with Marvin X at Anna's Jazz Island, Berkeley, backed by Brother Ghasem's band. See Youtube What If. We love you and miss you Reggie.

Sun Ra - Space is the place (1974)

Minister of Poetry Ayodele Nzinga

In the Bosom


in the bosom
smelling like milk
knowing this is as close
to the honey
as they gonna let you get
it’s bitter to the taste
inside
the house
walking on the bones
somebody write this story
tell what it cost
brown eyed dreamers
crossing continents
with spoons
instead of knives
hungry
everything that was
gone
nothing means
what it meant
nobility turned savagery
by ethnographer’s pen strokes
untounged and stripped of gods
culture
worldview & geography
history became a piece of fire
weighing more than it meant
in the land of locust
writ in running ink
the testament
tested on the backs
on which it rested
unrepented sins
confessed by invested priest
rewritten by academics
exploited by bankers
polytricksters
& other stripes of thieves
best go with it down the river
milk & honey on the other side
someone must play cartographer
like clever clarinet
sit near the door
know the language
leave the signs
sacrificed
to sit in the bosom
of these united snakes
holding the door ajar
for nappy heretics
to dismantle master’s house
from the inside of the machine
where they grind the bones
of scholars
feeding them lies
to feed to others
yeah though they have seen the inside of the valley
they help to manufacture shadow
trying get an inside track
to the inside
jocking for position
praying tenure
dreaming of being
lead sheep
content
to eat well until the slaughter
where they too are delicious morsels
cuz wolves don’t care to know the difference
between the new white and real dark meat
even a café au lait with a Harvard degree
a card that lets him caddy skull n bones stylee
is on the buffet
after
selling off
his brothers
that truth in theology preacher
& African nations
to answer
the call
never mind whose on the phone
this is the room
your forefathers died to get in
can they see us now
Porsches Jaguars and triple malts
our metaphoric
tattoo tears proclaiming
we are Abel to be Cain
& the sets we used to bless
now mean less than
corner offices & glass covered degrees of separation
from grandma’s hands, Ebonics & collard greens
sometimes it gets hard to remember to remember
playing the insider to outsider game
sitting in the bosom
far from where the hunger lives
walks the street
got a nickname
you forget how easy it is to forget
easier than carrying a banner for a army that got lost
it’s warm inside
ain’t this where we sent ‘em?
integrated them to?
deeper into the beast
ain’t this where we wanted to be?
deep in the bosom
ain’t this where they aimed us?
grans & parents w/survival on their breath
bidding us go further
sent us looking for milk & honey
prismatic dreams of integration
rising from the nation
within the nation
why we surprised they forgot to remember
what got wrote down crooked
we were confused
but persistent
in sending them to schools that
taught them to be ashamed of
tales of tongues of fire
invisible stars
country grammar
& the worldview contained there in
along with our most blatant sin
the color of our skin
we done marched & died
trying to find a way into
living like conscripted slaves
intent on arriving
at suspect destinations
hooked on the hooks
from the inside out
trading the smell of pragmatic optimism
for a lobster sandwich
a time share on the shore
& college education
for children who don’t look like us
success is my tribal scar of separation
from the funk piss and grime
suffocating
the nation
twisted
in the nation
the cost is the death of my negritude
discarded
like a ceremonial garment
which I have risen above
it cost too much too carry
as jackals circle
dreams are drained of liquidity
post race
seems a good room to stand in
as ghettos are reclaimed by urban explorers
greening occupied territories
without regard for the natives
someday this may weigh more
but if you ain’t got an army
it don’t matter
teaspoons or pounds its all the same
they write the code
& sheep they do follow
cause it’s warm inside
best go with it down the river
milk & honey on the other side
someone must
sit near the door
know the language
leave the signs
someone must sacrifice
themselves to sit in the bosom
of these united snakes
holding the door ajar
for nappy heretics
to dismantle master’s house
from the inside of the machine
where they make their bones
grinding bones
its hard to remember what you came for
when everything is for sale
& nothing means what you thought it meant
when you began
the distance back to grandma’s porch is greater than
geography
& in real reality
you remember
it’s not home you’re ashamed of
its you
the runaway
still a slave
resting in the bosom
smelling like milk
manifesting
mama & daddy dreams
of brown babies rising
everybody wanna be someone
only God can judge me
run your broken tongue
across the scars
become him before
this story
could you carry it
all the dreams
backed up in your bowels
no stage to shine
the joy running out
reality rushing in
the crooked deck
being born with a dead man’s hand
a ticket to the merry go round in your pocket
even Mama’s hand can’t
soothe the pain
that pushes out your pores
the road is uphill
covered in broken glass
will someone write
how much it cost
to escape
hide from the whirlwind
to rest in the bosom
smelling of milk
up nights
burning oil and turning scripture
while ghosts march
ask Collin Powell
about the price of sleep
once you cross over
even if you wake up
& come back home to the nightmare
you wrote
ask how much it cost to
pretend you Mike
hard as you can
till you think you are
if you can remember
to remember
Mama didn’t raise no fool
& this weighs more than it used to
could you carry it
if it was invisible
but it still bent your forehead to the ground
hurt in your back like old age
from the moment you were born
if it weighed more than you
would you carry it
or fall apart into ragged pieces that smell of
ill conceived dreams
water colors in a storm
& the wrong conversations
mama said rise
daddy died
sorrow drowning in his eyes
a working man
wearing pride like a suit
so you could be you
stand up straight honey
look ‘em in the eyes
do what you need
get inside
the bosom
of the machine
get us some of that milk
honey bring that honey home
we waiting for you to
arrive
who knew that
the destination itself
would be the cruelest cut
most suspect for a boy
whose mother dreamed
a mighty man from the womb
he still the usual suspect
even when he do what they want him to do
what else can a thinking man do
not to wash away
he is not invisible
can you see him now
with his pockets bulging with
needs and promise
do you see him
reading Dred Scott & Ralph Ellison
seeing himself
seeing
how he would make it be
if he could
he has a map
of the road he took
the one that was open
toll free
can you translate
what that cost
do you see him
past looking for an exit
can you see him
bleeding in the margins
it used to weigh less
it couldn’t have cost more
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Under a Red Sky

Street Spirit

(For Marvin X)

under a red sky

you have roamed the streets of San Francisco

rapping about homeless blues

in your poetry

in your life

in your spirit

under a red sky

i saw you once selling the Poetry Flash

to rich tourists and wondered whether you would become the next Bob Kaufman

under a red sky

you have roamed the beaches

of the Golden State

praying here and there

remembering your sweet Sherley

confessing your sins and mistakes

under a red sky

you have remembered that a poet is full of great feelings

of love for God

for self

for others

whether the poet is homeless

or not

under a red sky

you have helped me to embrace the street spirits

and the rays of a red sun with your poetry

with your life

with your spirit.

--J. Vern Cromartie © 2005

Another One for Marvin X

start out in Fowler

go to Fresno

fall in love forever with a deep chocolate woman

who loves you and your poetry

you know she loves you

forever like the waves rolling in the dock of the bay

she loved you

this woman loved you when she breathed her last breath

sometimes you see her in your sleep

and you wonder about what could have been

about what should have been

about what was your flight to love forever

the power of love is holy

Jimi Hendix knew this holiness in his dreams

when he sang deep into the night

about the power of love

if you want to follow on the mantle of Jeremiah

let the power of love drench your soul forever.

--J. Vern Cromartie © 2006

Dr. J. Vern Cromartie is a poet and chair of the Sociology Department atContra Costa College. He is a former student of Marvin X when he taught drama at Laney College. Dr. Cromartie recently delivered a researchpaper on Marvin X's brief tenure at UC Berkeley.

If We Must Die

If We Must Die
Claude McKay

In this classic poem from the Harlem Renaissance, we see the power of poetry. This poem has been used for generations of people to stand tall in the face of oppression. Not only did North American African use this poem in the 20s to signal resistence to American oppression, but European Sir Winston Churchill used it to rally his people to oppose Hitler's Nazism during WWII. In the 1960s, Black revolutionaries made it our National anthem in the Black Arts/Black Liberation movement. And surely the people of North Africa and the Middle East express the spirit of this poem.

--m

If We Must Die

by Claude McKay
If we must die—let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
Oh, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe;
Though far outnumbered, let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Claude McKay is regarded as one of the first significant writers of the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Jamaica, he arrived in the United States in 1912 at the age of 21 and had already gained recognition as a poet with his book Songs of Jamaica, published in 1911. He attended Tuskegee Institute and Kansas State University, then traveled to New York and participated in the literary movements there, both in Harlem and in Greenwich Village. His sonnet, "If We Must Die," is his most popular poem. He earned his living as a porter on the railroad and was a resident of Harlem.

His book of poems, Harlem Shadows, published in 1922, was a precursor to the Harlem Renaissance. He also became associate editor of The Liberator, a socialist magazine of art and literature. Working closely with Max Eastman, he traveled to Moscow in 1923 in sympathy with the Bolshevik Revolution and became a sort of national hero there. Other books by Claude McKay include Banjo, Harlem: Negro Metropolis, and his autobiography, A Long Way From Home. Home to Harlem, published in the spring of 1928, became the first novel by a Harlem writer to reach the bestseller list.

Noble Drew Ali, one of our Saints of the First Poet's Church

Saturday's meeting of the First Poet's Chruch morphed into a dialogue on the Moorish Science Temple of Noble Drew Ali. The dialogue by a group of young Mo's lasted til 2:40 am.

Marvin X was interviewed on his relationship with the Mo's for a documentary. He stated that during his Canadian exile he lived in Toronoto with Salome Bey, sister of singer Andy Bey. And of course he learned about the Mo's in Newark, NJ from Amiri Baraka. His longtime friend and associate is Elliot Bey of Philadelphia. See the Movie Get Yo Mind Right (Pam Pam production) on Youtube.

Yes, Renaldo, it was good to see a group of young men in serious dialogue. We may need to establish the Noble Drew Ali group as part of the First Poet's Church, a time and space for young people to gather to debate critical issues.

--Dr. M, Prime Minister, First Poet's Church


Noble Drew Ali

Noble Drew Ali told the Moorish Americans, “To you, I am an Angel of Allah sent to bring you the everlasting Gospel of Allah.” Indeed, the Angel was born amongst the very nation He was sent to redeem. Noble Drew Ali was full ordained by The Great God to be their Prophet. The status of 'Prophet' is the highest station most religious scholars can understand. Especially when their recorded history shows divinity has appeared into human form which men may comprehend.

But Noble Drew Ali was five times greater than the last Prophets before him; he is the last Avatar sent to warn the nations of the earth. It is only natural, yet a weakness found among human failings for the very nation Drew Ali was born unto would be the last to recognize the saving powers this Angel had brought to fallen humanity through them.

Some may say, “He doesn’t look like any angel I have seen.” Most western psychics would not know an Angel if they were to kiss them in the mouth. However, if someone make this statement it is probably because they speak more from what they do not know than what they know e.g. all Biblical Angels were Messengers of God, Sun-kissed People in human forms and rich in melanin. They were not little pale skin European infants with bird-wings on their backs. Truth is, Europe has never produced Prophets or Angels. Drew Ali is an Angel.

Pictured above (upper right) is The Illustrious Noble Drew Ali, Holding the Flags of Morocco and United States while Registering The Moorish Americans, as a New Nation and Sovereign power, at the 1928 Pan American Conference For Indigenous Nations.

Also make careful notice of the above picture at the upper left: Is a reflection of Moorish Secretary Juanita Richardson Bey at the Home Office with her Prophet, Noble Drew Ali. Equally important is the national 'hand writtings on the wall.' Study the flags on the wall of Drew Ali office. The above black and white photos are a few of many displaying Noble Drew Ali's vexillology of the flags of Morocco and Corporate UNITED STATES.

Whenever he displayed either of these flags they were always 'Upside Downward' and / or 'backward.' Pictured at the right; notice Drew Ali's upright posture is that of an Ancient Kemetian Adept Master. Although he has the flags of two governments in his hands, He has his legs crossed left over right. This denotes both Governments are now recognized as being in dire adversity by those who know law.

The importance of this science was Drew Ali's warning to the Moorish Americans showing neither government had the will nor strength to free them or save themselves. Still, to this day, many half-awake Moorish hoist the flags of Morocco and Corporate USA declaring these flags represent the free national name "Moorish American." Meanwhile the flag of Morocco is not Moorish but Moroccan. And the flag of the United States is not American but of America.

This is to say, the free national name "Moorish American" have never been represented or supported by the Governments of Africa which sold them into slavery or the European Governments that enslaved them. It appears someone did not follow Prophet Noble Drew Ali ...oh well, back to Cuba...

The international affair was hosted by Cuba in its City of Havana. Bro. Charles Kirkman-Bey, Master Polyglot (speaking 92 languages), was the Chief Interpreter for The Holy Prophet and His national cabinet. Also in attendance was several Tribal Chiefs of Continental Nations and the United States were represented by Secretary of State Hughes who was in awe of the well-established Constitution of the Moorish American Delegates. There were Free National Delegates from Central and South Americas and other Islands. During the Conference Noble Drew Ali was given The Mandate for the Land, which the United States had been occupying on an expired Mandate since 1871.

After this Pan American Conference of Human Nations the United States refusal to yield hallowed soil would result in a severe warning by The Holy Prophet: "Until my Moors are free in their own home the worst is yet to come. The United States owe the Moors a great debt, they must pay in compound interest. The United States have one more war to win". The next year Drew Ali left the body saying, "I can better fight the rest of this battle on the soul plane".

Within twelve years of this warning the Stock Market had Crashed, Illuminati's Federal Reserve Bank had taken over the sovereign powers of the now 'Corporate United States of America' and an economical drought called "The Great Depression" was felt by every Citizen except the elite few. As if it was not enough to soften her harden heart, the US Corporation would be functioning under perpetual Maritime Law that went into effect in 1933 and has not won another War since World War II.

The Prophet showed the Mandate to many Officials of the Adept Chamber of The MST of A that He founded in 1920. Still, by the year 2007, the Moors had not freed themselves from the wrath of feigned Citizenry held in the iron-hand of the oppressive USA's 14th and 15th Amendment. While the United States has never been without her staple of African Slaves, the Manumission of the Moorish is infinitely inevitable; at the end of time and the fulfilling of the prophecies.

The above picture was taken during the first National Conference Representation of the Ex-Slaves, not as Members of his Moorish Science Temple Organization but by their one free National Name of "Moorish Americans." This marks the first time the ex-slaves' proper status has been truely represented since the abolishment of U. S. Slavery.

This event is a reflection of one of the many miracles illustrated by Prophet Noble Drew Ali during his brief 16-year Ministry. This reflection was taken in Havana Cuba, with the gift of a "Panama" on the head of Drew Ali which was presented to him by the Cuban Government. This great national representation occurred about one year before He left His body.

This is how "He began to uplift the Moorish Americans by teaching them to be themselves." This event marked the first and last time the so-called Negro was duly recognized as being a new nation, according to their one true free national name, of Moorish Americans. Noble Drew Ali declared, "This is a new era of time now and all men now must proclaim their free national name to be recognized by the government and the nations of the earth." With this international proclamation of Independence, Drew Ali paved the way which would demonstrate the inevitability of freedom for the Moorish Americans, etc. But they must finish freeing themselves in order to assure the immutableness which rest in true freedom.

For any man to perform the divine miracle of breaking the Old Masonic Roman Seal, that has declared all Negroes, Colored Folks and Blacks into perpetual mental slavery, now, into one clean and pure nation of people, thus reattaching them to the human family of nations, has proved beyond all reasonable doubts, Ali is a Holy Prophet ordained by the great God.

Still, there are those who denounce the Prophethood of Noble Drew Ali. Even though His duties and saving Powers of salvation are clearly in the line genealogy of all Major and Minor Prophets sent before him.

Needfultosay, this unholy onslaught is lead by those who call themselves 'Sunni' or 'Shiite' Muslims under the Post-Mohammed Arab-version of Islam. Pleese. Aren't these the same pagans who's GNP has been The African Slave Trade for centuries before the advent of Prophet Mohammed? Albeit the truth, Allah did raise a Holy Prophet from amongst those infidels of Havilah, but it did little good to deter the Arabian lust for African Slaves (see: Who Are The Siddis Of India?).

To this day they will not admit that man’s enslavement of man is merely the will of man and not The Will Of The Great Universal God, Allah! What does anyone really expect a Muslim to say when it comes to the same God, according to His Word, ordaining another Holy Prophet to the Negro heathens they sold to the west? Didn’t the Arabs know the true origin of the West African nationals before they stole and sold them into European slavery? Why ask a Muslim for the worthiness of those they enslaved, "In the name of Allah"? Isn’t that like asking the criminal to describe the crime? Mohammed's being the 'Seal of the prophets' does not conflict with "Noble Drew Ali is the last Prophet in these days." The Great God, Allah, has kept his covenant to always raise one from amongst those who have gone astray.

As for those who think like Arabia ... surely Allah knows what man knows not. Just because a former slave learns to speak Arabic, the language of his Slave Traders, does not interpret into their freedom. No, not any more than one can make a 1st Class Citizen from Negroes, Blacks or Colored Folks. Drew Ali has done the same for these Sinners as Confucious for the Chinese, Yehoshua for the Israelites and Mohammed for the Arabians (PBUT). In all the world, of all the 'People of the Book', who other from among them has brought the truth to free the Moorish??? Who has fulfilled the divine duties of a Prophet except the Great Prophet of Ali in America???

Broken Systems, broken minds

Broken Systems, Broken Minds
What we perceive as reality is most often a reflection of imagination, of mythology and ritual, or simply the mind of man is the macrocosm, reality the microcosm. Systems thus reflect the mind of man--did not someone say creations only reflect the mind of the creator. Broken systems, therefore, originate in broken minds. Yet we wonder why systems are broken, e.g., school system, political system, economic system, religious and moral systems.
But systems are not the problem, rather it is the minds of men that are broken irreparably, suffering a mental atrophy, an anorexia, a paralysis of imagination. The causation is simple greed, selfishness and lust for power. It is augmented by the quest for the acquisition of things, the wanton addiction to materialism or the world of make believe, the illusion that the microcosm can satisfy the macrocosm, when the real deal holyfield is the inner rather than the outer. Yet men fear to go there, deep down into the metaphysical realm where the darkest mysteries lie seeking edification and recognition. Thus, we find ourselves at the precipice, about to be consumed by the wonder of life.
Elijah told us, "The wisdom of this world is exhausted." And so it is--spent, obsolete, retarded, and yet we wonder why we are immobile, transfixed--stuck on stupid! Why no systems work.How is it possible for the great Toyota to need recalling, a consummate machine suddenly dysfunctional. What caused this sudden breakdown-- some internal defect in the machine or in the mind of man?
Look at the educational system, confounded by the ideological foundation of white supremacy capitalism that continues to prepare students for a world of work when there is none, especially with living wages in an economic system that demands cheap labor and resources, a socalled free market system that will transcend the national needs for the wants and desires of global finance gangs, connected with, supported and defended by the military, i.e., the Christian Crusaders, soon to be supplanted by Communists from China, India and Russia.
The teachers were long ago taught to teach a new way--back in Egypt they were told to teach with compassion and love. Yet what we see today is the pedagogy of hate. It is a system that rewards ignorance and punishes wisdom and creativity, especially of the thinking variety. Any original thought is suppressed or deemed antisocial thought and behavior, often resulting in the student diagnosed to require psycho drugs that turn him into the zombie required by the society of the walking dead.
The religious system is the same. It is in full blown denial about the meaning of the cross and the lynching tree, about the mission of the prince of peace. For the most part, the religious community is Silent Night about the trillion dollar military budget that allows mass murder to take place across the planet. Along with Silent Night, it sings Onward Christian Soldiers as its sons and daughters crisscross the planet to secure labor and natural resources for the pleasure of the walking dead, and most especially the miserable few who enjoy the high life.
It is all about the glorification of Pharaoh and his magicians. God, in the minds of men, is a business, big business. There is no desire for spirituality, only prosperity, minus compassion for the poor, homeless, jobless and broken hearted, crushed to earth like the pot in the hands of Jeremiah ' expendable.
The lips of politicians do not say let us reason together for the sake of the people, for the love of the people, for the consent of the governed. These men and women of the political realm only know the language of no, no, no. As the people starve, become homeless, jobless, we yet hear the mantra of no, no, no, late into the night. No compromise, no reconciliation, only recalcitrance and niggardliness. They are fast to reward the robber barons, the blood suckers of the poor. Eventually, a few crumbs, kibble and bits reach the poor, if ever, unless there is revolt. And then Pharaoh sees the light, suddenly, but he will send his magicians to placate the poor with more crumbs, kibbles and bits.
Between good and evil, evil is the choice, with greed the foundation stone in the minds of men. Amazingly, the people see clearly. They feel change in the wind, not the change in the educational system or the political or religious, but in the wind. They smell the rotten hearts of men who lead into nothingness and dread, with their pitiful strut of the peacock, the one legged dance of the flamingo.
Pharaoh magicians gather in dens of iniquity to share blood money. Teachers, preachers, politicians, all there to party on the backs of the poor. The military stand post at the door of the den, ready to club the wretched into submission, even death, if they dare enter the den of thieves, robbers, murderers, and those who perpetuate the world of make believe.
Inside the den we hear a symphony of sick sounds, giggles, wails, grunts emanating from putrid minds exhausted from wickedness. The result is systematic gridlock--it is 5pm and the freeway is jammed with drivers full of road rage, ready to kill in an instant. It is thus a destruction of self by self, internal combustion.
Unlike the car, there is no forward motion or backward, or perhaps it goes both ways simultaneously, if such is possible in the world of physics, but after all, the minds of men defy all laws, except the law of the jungle and the devil.
But there shall be no forward motion with the present mind-set. Jack must jump out the box of his own making. He must take wings and fly away into a world beyond his imagination.This is the only way out the morass of his mind. All the technology is to no avail, for he talks, but more often says nothing, he listens but hears nothing, deaf, dumb and blind.--Marvin X2/17/10