Accepting Responsibility to Build Our Community

By the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: Jan 24, 2017 - 5:46:37 PM

(The following is an excerpt from an important address delivered by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in Memphis, Tenn., on October 18, 2009 to mark the 14 anniversary of the Million Man March and Holy Day of Atonement. Click here to order Webcast, CD and/or DVD of this message.)

In the Name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful.

As a student of the most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, I could never thank Allah enough for his intervention in our affairs in the person of Master Fard Muhammad the Great Mahdi, who came among us and raised from among us His Messenger, whom all will soon know as the promised Messiah, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

I greet you all in the greeting words of peace. As-Salaam Alaikum.

When Jesus knew that the hour had approached, he was in the garden praying until sweat fell from his brow like blood and when he got up from his prayer he went out and the disciples had fallen asleep. He raised a very important question. Could ye not watch with me one brief hour? This is a very dark and dangerous hour for any of us to fall asleep and sometimes, there are things that you can take that if you are tired they wake you up or if you are tired and you want to go to sleep, you are put to sleep.

Babies sometimes need the breast or the bottle and if the breast or the bottle is not present, a pacifier will do. Usually the baby will fall asleep. This is a very dangerous time and we have to be very careful that the masses of the people are not being pacified by the fact that the first Black President sits in the White House. This can pacify you and lull you to sleep in a dangerous time, making you to think that we live in a post-racial America when the opposite is true.

Fourteen years ago, on the 16th of October in Washington, D.C., we had the historic Million Man March. Some of you in this audience were very young, but those in their 40's, 50's, 60's and 30's know that there never was a gathering like that in the United States nor anywhere in the world. Now you might wonder how that happened. But on September 17, 1985 in a little village called Tepotzlan in Mexico I had a vision like experience that was more than a vision. Where I on the top of a mountain, was taken up in one of these small what you call UFO's and brought to a huge human built planet that is in the sky over our heads as we speak—a half-a-mile by a half-a-mile. It is the fulfillment of what Ezekiel saw when he wrote in the Book of Ezekiel, the Wheel in the middle of the Wheel way up in the middle of the sky. A cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and there were eyes all around it, meaning there were people inside it and this world is upset because a superior knowledge and technology is in the world that makes the science and technology of this present world look like babies. The arrogance of the scientists of this world is that they do not wish to admit that there is intelligence beyond this world.

On that Wheel the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, whom the world thinks is dead, spoke to me as you hear me and I may hear you if you speak. His voice spoke to me telling me about the President of the United States meeting with his Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan a war. This happened in 1985 of September. Shortly, thereafter Ronald Reagan bombed Libya. But he was the first of a succession of Presidents that would get into war or battle or conflict with some member of the Islamic world. From that time, Islam has been in the news every day, every week, every month and names that the American public is not familiar with they are learning to say Muslim names. The libraries are filled with books on Islam; you can go and the books are off the shelves, people are desirous of knowing about the religion of Islam.

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You have no idea of the wickedness of government when you become a problem. I want you to hear me today, if you never hear me again, and it's getting that way. You never know when it's the last time so put on your ears. Our youth in the movies “Colors”, “Boyz in the Hood,” “Menace 2 Society.” They never said who Menace 1 was but we were Menace 2. When you look at Newsweek, Time magazine and saw the image of Black youth that was being sent all over the world; these movies that have a life of their own, they were portraying us as a toxic element in the fabric of American society. So if there was a move against us there would be no outcry because America was getting rid of something in her midst that was dragging America down.

You preachers of the Bible, you spiritual teachers what did Paul mean when he said, “We war not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world and spiritual wickedness in high places.” It is not White flesh that we are at war against, it's not Black flesh that we are at war against, we are at war against principalities and powers and rulers who have created a mindset in the ignorant of all races. So I embarked on a tour of America “Stop the Killing” and as fast as that tour was over I embarked on another tour speaking strictly to Black men. I thank the Christian pastors who opened the doors of their churches and allowed Brother Farrakhan to stand in their pulpits to talk to Black men and to give Black men some sense of pride in themselves. To lift them up from the degradation, self-negation, self-hatred that American society from the religious, the political, the economic and the system of jurisprudence. …

We were opposed on all sides. But on the morning of the Million Man March, the brothers came to my room. The night before my son said, “Daddy, there are over 100,000 people on the Mall right now.” By the time the sun rose and Ahmed Tejani Ben Omar said the Islamic call to prayer there were hundreds of thousands of Black men on that Mall. The media from all over the world was there because they expected Black men to act foolishly. But they did not know Louis Farrakhan had gone to them and taught them well. How can they know except they have a teacher and how can they have a teacher unless God send you one because your enemy is not going to send you a teacher to relieve you from his oppression.

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Leadership should not take privilege to live lives of ease and then put themselves to sleep on the urgent needs and suffering of a people. You should live comfortable so you can think to make the people that you serve more comfortable. But if you take wool from the sheep to make a garment for yourself and won't lead the sheep to green pasture then the Bible says “woe to the shepherd who feeds himself and not the flock.”

After the Million Man March the crime and murder rate went down. Many young men voted for the first time making a difference in the next mid-term election. Thousands of children were adopted. Black men joined organizations that are involved in the liberation of our people, they joined churches, they joined mosques, and they joined the synagogue. …

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The vision of 1985 was the driving force behind the actions that we took. But fourteen years later as we meet here in Memphis Tennessee, we are at the same crossroads again where now the killings have gone back up. The crime rate that went down after the Million Man March has gone back up. All the little babies that are being killed in Chicago and while the mayor of the city was over in Copenhagen trying to get the Olympics to come to Chicago a sixteen-year-old honor student was beaten to death in the streets. This was shown all over the world. When people see our young Black men they recoil. They are afraid now. The violence in the inner cities has gotten out of control. …

Now the killings have increased in all the major cities of America and leading Black thinkers are now calling for the National Guard. Some people say, “Farrakhan you need to have another March.” No that is over, I will never go back to Washington like that ever again, in fact, we do not have time. If you do not get your act together you will see blood in the streets and you will fulfill what is written in the scripture that there will be blood up to the horse's bridle. …. I want you to hear me because the chastisement of God has entered America. One calamity after another as fast as one goes another one is coming. Let me tell you if you think Farrakhan is some nut; you think that my teacher Elijah Muhammad was some crazy man. But every one of you will have to bear witness before long that God did indeed visit America and indeed he raised up a Messenger from among us who is the promised Messiah. …

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Now the government has literally failed to satisfy the needs of the people and there is no government on earth that is looking out for the needs, rights and interests of all of the people that they are governing. To govern means to direct, to guide, to exercise authority over, to rule, to administer and to influence the actions of and to check, restrain or curb those activities by means of law that would bring the system of government to a halt. The most important thing in government is guidance. …

Years ago Secretary of State Henry Kissinger talked about the work of the new century was culling; culling billions of people from our planet. In the Talmud, the people are called Goyim who are useless eaters; they eat but they are useless. Culling is another word for getting rid of billions of people because they say things are shrinking in terms of what people need. There are too many people for too few resources, so wise people at the top, or the most foolish at the top, the Satanic mind at the top says kill them all.

Now Jesus told us that we would face famine, pestilence, earthquakes in diverse places and nation would rise against nation that is going on now and he said “this is just the beginning of sorrows.” We are living in a time of trouble like there never was since there was a nation and a time. Could this be why the Prophets spoke about the coming of God? Please hear me. All the governments of the earth are failing their people. So the Bible says, “For unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given and a government shall be upon his shoulders. And he shall be called wonderful, counselor the mighty god, the everlasting father, the prince of peace.” The whole world of religion is looking for the coming of God and the coming of a man. Now let's reason together. The Jewish people are looking for the Messiah, a human being. The Christians are looking for the return of Christ, a human being. The Muslims are looking for the Mahida or the Mahdi, a human being. I want you to pay attention.

The one that comes in His person has a government to answer the needs of the whole of humanity. He is so powerful from the Islamic tradition that he sits down all tyrants and sets justice in the earth. The Christians are looking for Christ to come. You think he is coming back to teach you? He already taught; what did you do with it? The Christ that I read about, he comes in a cloud … that's interesting and he has a sword in his hand and it is dripping with blood. Governments of the world have to be sat down and tyrants of the world have to be sat down and a government from God has to be established so that the suffering of humanity will end.

The Final Call