who your enemy is, he can no longer keep you divided, and fighting, one brother against the
other! Because when you recognize who your enemy is, he can no longer use trickery, promises,
lies, hypocrisy, and his evil acts to keep you deaf, dumb, and blinded!
"When you recognize who your enemy is, he can no longer brainwash you, he can no longer
pull wool over your eyes so that you never stop to see that you are living in pure hell on this
earth, while he lives in pure heaven right on this same earth!-This enemy who tells you that you
are both supposed to be worshiping the same white Christian God that-you are told-stands for the
same things for all men!
"Oh, yes, that devil is our enemy. I'll prove it! Pick up any daily newspaper! Read the false
charges leveled against our beloved religious leader. It only points up the fact that the Caucasian
race never wants any black man who is not their puppet or parrot to speak for our people. This
Caucasian devil slavemaster does not want or trust us to leave him-yet when we stay here
among him, he continues to keep us at the very lowest level of his society!
"The white man has always loved it when he could keep us black men tucked away
somewhere, always out of sight, around the comer! The white man has always loved the kind
of black leaders whom he could ask, 'Well, how's things with your people up there?' But because
Mr. Elijah Muhammad takes an uncompromising stand with the white man, the white man
hates him! When you hear the white man hate him, you, too, because you don't understand
Biblical prophecy, wrongly label Mr. Muhammad-as a racist, a hate-teacher, or of being anti-white
and teaching black supremacy-"
The audience suddenly would begin a rustling of turning....
Mr. Muhammad would be rapidly moving along up a center aisle from the rear-as once he had
entered our humble little mosques-this man whom we regarded as Islam's gentle, meek, brown-
skinned Lamb. Stalwart, striding, close-cropped, hand-picked Fruit of Islam guards were a circle
surrounding him. He carried his Holy Bible, his holy Quran. The small, dark pillbox atophis head
was gold-embroidered with Islam's flag, the sun, moon, and stars. The Muslims were crying out
their adoration and their welcome. "Little Lamb!" "As-Salaikum-Salaam!" "Praise be to Allah!"
Tears would be in more eyes than mine. He had rescued me when I was a convict; Mr.
Muhammad had trained me in his home, as if I was his son. I think that my life's peaks of
emotion, until recently, at least, were when, suddenly, the Fruit of Islam guards would stop stiffly
at attention, and the platform's several steps would be mounted alone by Mr. Muhammad, and his
ministers, including me, sprang around him, embracing him, wringing both his hands....
I would turn right back to the microphone, not to keep waiting those world's biggest black
audiences who had come to hear him.
"My black brothers and sisters-no one will know who we are... until we know who we
are! We never will be able to go anywhere until we know where we are! The Honorable
Elijah Muhammad is giving us a true identity, and a true position-the first time they have ever
been known to the American black man!
"You can be around this man and never dream from his actions the power and the authority he
has-" (Behind me, believe me when I tell you, I could feel Mr. Muhammad's power.)
"He does not display, and parade, his power! But no other black leader in America has
followers who will lay down their lives if he says so! And I don't mean all of this non-violent,
begging-the-white-man kind of dying... all of this sitting-in, sliding-in, wading-in, eating-in,
diving-in, and all the rest-
"My black brothers and sisters, you have come from your homes to hear-now you are going to
hear-America's wisest black man! America's _boldest_black man! America's most fearless