‘The Godfather of Harlem’ and the Corruption of Black History

By Demetric Muhammad-Guest Columnist- | Last updated: Dec 31, 2019 - 9:22:40 AM

‘The Black community should be morally outraged that many of those who opposed our leaders during their lifetimes are now in charge of their history and legacy!This reminds me of the experience of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan with certain Jewish rabbis with whom he had a dinner meeting. They told Minister Farrakhan that “no one who is not deemed a friend of the Jewish people is ever written of well in history." '

According to the divine words of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, there is an extraordinary power and value that results from the study of history. He noted in the very early years of his ministry, as he was giving guidance to those within his ministry class, the following:

First: History is above all our studies. The most attractive and best qualified to reward our research. As it develops the springs and motives of human actions and displays the consequence of circumstances which operates most powerfully on the destinies of the human being …

I cite these powerful words of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, as Minister Malcolm X frequently did, because these words emphasize several important aspects of the value of history to the liberation struggle of Black people in America. And it is within the context of history’s extreme importance to the Black community that I must look critically at the Epix TV program series called “The Godfather of Harlem,” and categorize it as another manifestation of a wicked and evil strategy known as The Corruption of Black History.

This admittedly fictional series has chosen several legends from the history of Black people’s struggle for liberation in America for the purpose of creating a drama about Harlem gangsters. However, the series portrays Black History luminaries Malcolm X, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Adam Clayton Powell in such a negative light that it threatens to completely alter the positive and noble image of these men for many years to come.

This series demonstrates how under the guise of creative license and artistic expression, the entertainment industry is able to corrupt the history of Black people in America. Completely false and artificial narratives are created and presented through the powerful delivery systems of film, music and television. What we are witnessing is the feeding of lies to the youth of the Black community, all in the name of “harmless entertainment.”

The Black community should be morally outraged that many of those who opposed our leaders during their lifetimes are now in charge of their history and legacy!

This reminds me of the experience of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan with certain Jewish rabbis with whom he had a dinner meeting. They told Minister Farrakhan that “no one who is not deemed a friend of the Jewish people is ever written of well in history.”

Is this the reason why the three Black leaders being negatively portrayed in “The Godfather of Harlem” are receiving such an ugly historical makeover? Is this revisionist history being done through cinema to tarnish three heroes of Black America who were at various times accused of anti-Semitism? It is no coincidence that three men who angered the Jewish community are now being repackaged as flawed, troubled and uninspiring.

(Left to right): Bumpy Johnson, actor Forrest Whitiker, Malcolm X. Images: Youtube

The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad was blamed for the problems in the Black-Jewish relationship:

Another potent generator of anti-Jewish attitudes is the new Negro Moslem or Negro nationalist movement. This movement is essentially a nationalist drive emphasizing the African background of the Negro and repudiating Christianity as the white man’s religion. The cult does not stop here. It has become pro-Arab and openly anti- Jewish. Elijah Muhammed himself was given a weekly column in the Pittsburgh Courier to display his hatred of the white man, of Christianity and of Jews.

-Negro-Jewish Relations by Will Maslow

Malcolm X was considered an anti- Semite even up until the end of his life:

Along with this newer, sanitized version of Malcolm X has come a whitewashing of his attitudes toward Jews. And whitewashing it is: the man currently portrayed as a fighter for racial justice was an anti-Semite who promoted virtually every anti-Semitic stereotype and whose legacy as a Jew-hater continues to be felt in the form of Black youth who justify their own bigotry toward Jews because even ‘Malcolm’ denounced them.

-Malcolm X and the Jews by Alan Shelton

Today the title of leading Black anti- Semite has been draped on Min. Farrakhan as the enemy continues to lie and defame those who are devoted to Black liberation and independence. These mischaracterizations are not accidents but purposeful and designed to destroy and discredit bold Black leaders. None is bolder than Min. Farrakhan today.

Adam Clayton Powell was accused of making inflammatory anti-Semitic speeches:

Rev. Powell said, “There are no Negroes in the American Jewish Congress or in the national organizations of Italians—and show me a black Irishman, if you will. The NAACP has white people in high positions. We should boycott it.” The inflammatory speeches by a Black Muslim or by a man like Powell get the widest attention among Negro masses.

-Jewish Groups Accentuate Positive In Fight Against Negro Anti-Semitism by Saul Carson

With clear eyes, we see how “The Godfather of Harlem” and the phenomenon of the corruption of Black History exposes “the springs and motives of human actions and displays the consequence of circumstances which operates most powerfully on the destinies of the human being.”

‘Along with this newer, sanitized version of Malcolm X has come a whitewashing of his attitudes toward Jews. And whitewashing it is: the man currently portrayed as a fighter for racial justice was an anti-Semite who promoted virtually every anti-Semitic stereotype and whose legacy as a Jew-hater continues to be felt in the form of Black youth who justify their own bigotry toward Jews because even ‘Malcolm’ denounced them.’
—Malcolm X and the Jews by Alan Shelton

The motive of the entertainment industry today is to use entertainment as a weapon against the rise in youth activism that followed the killing of Mike Brown, Eric Garner and others, that ultimately gave birth to groups like Black Lives Matter. The desire is to disconnect today’s activists and leaders from those of the past to destroy the continuity of the movement for liberation. It is to break the chain of intergenerational knowledge sharing that would result and give the power of the elder generation’s wisdom to go along with the younger generation’s energy and vitality. On this aspect, Russian leader Vladimir Lenin observed:

What in the course of history has happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation? During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons … robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it.

The Corruption of Black History witnessed within “The Godfather of Harlem” comes at the same time that we learn of a major movie production on the life of Harriet Tubman involved producers making recommendations that the role of our great heroine be played by the popular White actress Julia Roberts. What an outrage!

The Corruption of Black History witnessed within “The Godfather of Harlem” comes at the same period of time when we are witnessing the Black Holocaust, also known as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, undergo major revisions on the pages of high school history textbooks. According to Rachel Higson of The Prindle Post:

In McGraw-Hill’s “World Geography” textbook, a caption, overlapping a map of the United States, points generally to South Carolina and reads: “The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.” The page is titled: “Patterns of Immigration.” There is no mention of the violent removal of Africans from their homes and families. The caption uses the verb “brought,” a euphemism that atrociously misrepresents the inhumane and deadly transportation of Africans across the Atlantic. The caption does not even present the existence of slave owners or traders; rather it converts slavery’s malicious pillage, cruel exploitation, and inhumane treatment of Africans into an opportunity for employment on plantations.

The entire premise of The Godfather of Harlem is an outright lie. Malcolm X and Bumpy Johnson were not friends and close associates. According to Bumpy Johnson’s wife, the two men met in 1963 near the end of Malcolm’s life, due to Bumpy’s admiration for Black militants. She writes:

In 1965, it was Bumpy who went around to all of the businesses, sporting men, and the East Side Italians to pay for the funeral of a man whom he’d just met but he truly admired. Bumpy was in prison in 1943 when this man, who then called himself “Detroit Red,” moved to Harlem. Red was a fast talker who sported flashy zoot suits, flaming red conked hair, and ran numbers for West Indian Archie. By the time Bumpy got out of Dannemora in 1947, Detroit Red had fled Harlem for Boston. But when Bumpy came out of federal prison in 1963 the two finally met … Bumpy was impressed with Malcolm, and one of those who supported Malcolm’s new organization after he left the Nation of Islam in 1964. When he was assassinated while giving a lecture at the Audubon Ballroom in 1965, Bumpy was devastated. After delivering the funeral money he raised along with his own contribution to Malcolm’s widow, Betty Shabazz, he bitterly told Junie, “I offered him protection, and he turned it down. Said he didn’t want men with guns around him because it would be like he was trying to provoke something. He shoulda listened to me.”

-Mayme Hatcher Johnson and Karen E. Quinones Miller, Harlem Godfather: The Rap on my Husband, Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson

This phenomenon represents a “wickedly wise” and shrewd way of “ideological birth control.” Destroy the image of those who have fought for justice among Black people, and you ensure that their revolutionary ideas won’t be reborn among the youth. That this wicked plan is ever-unfolding is a call to action for scholars, teachers, preachers, parents and students. We must fight to take back control of our own people’s history and legacy. The future of the Black community depends on it!

Demetric Muhammad is in the student ministry class of Muhammad Mosque No. 55 in Memphis, an author and member of the NOI Research Group. He can be reached at www.researchminister.com.

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