Minister Louis Farrakhan
Farrakhan’s Message to the Gang Leaders
By The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
Updated May 31, 2005, 12:18 pm

[Editor’s note: The following text is taken from a Feb. 12, 2002 message by Minister Louis Farrakhan to male and female street organization (gang) leaders and activists in Watts, California during Saviours’ Day 2002 activities.]

In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.

Peace is a gift from Allah (God) that comes when we submit ourselves to do the Will of Allah (God) and not our will. When you are at peace with Allah (God), Who is your Sovereign Lord and Creator, then you can make peace with others. But if you are not at peace with your Creator, how then can you make peace with somebody who is not your Creator, but is your brother or your sister who came to this earth from the same Source that we have not made peace with.

A Muslim is one who submits his or her will to do the Will of Allah (God) and, by so doing, enters into peace and is granted security. No man or woman can have peace unless he or she feels secure—safe from harm or danger. Our communities don’t have peace because they are not safe; they are not secure. Our hands, our tongues, our hearts are troubled. We break the peace after we make peace because we have not made our peace with our Creator. Peace does not start with somebody else. The change has to start with us. Until we can see the enemy of self within ourselves and get rid of that enemy, then you will be like the person that Jesus talked about who was trying to remove the mote out of his brother’s eye while he had a big beam in his own eye.

Allah (God) says in the Qur’an, “I created you from a single essence and I created your mate from that same essence. And from these two I spread many men and women.” If you look at your own creation, your mother had an egg. Your father produced a sperm. Neither one of them could produce life by themselves. One needed the other in order to express Allah (God). When the egg is met by the sperm, one cell of life begins. You started from one cell; then that cell divided; then that cell multiplied. Now you have billions of cells that started from one cell. What is that lesson to teach you? There are nearly six billion people on this earth, like the cells of your body, but it started from one. And Who is the single essence from which all of us got started? That’s Allah (God) Himself.

The Bible says we are created in the image and the likeness of Allah (God). What does that mean? If the single essence from which I came is Allah (God) Himself, then He made the mate of the same essence, then she and I, we, together, represent that Creator. Then (we) spread into many men and women. Then Allah (God) says, “I created you into tribes and families that you may know one another.” What have we known of each other? My sister said that there are stone cold killers, there are snakes, there are liars in this room. That’s pretty rough, but that is what she has seen of what Allah (God) created to look like Him.

You are the people of Allah (God) and it grieves Him for you to kill your brother that He came to save. But He permits it to happen. Do you know why? It is because darkness preceded light; chaos preceded order. So evil has to precede good. You have got to be so fed up with evil and your doing of evil that you are ready now to make a change. When you are on drugs, you have to hit ground zero before you decide you don’t like that life. It appears to me that you all have decided you don’t like this. You want to see it end. I’m soon to be 70 years old. I don’t know how much time I have left, but I ask myself every day, what kind of legacy am I going to leave for the children and the grandchildren and the great grandchildren? We are passing away, brothers. The babies that our women produced for us are dying and the enemy appears to be winning. But he has not won and he will not win because God’s Will is going to be done. He will force you to do right because the only way we can get out of this is we’ve got to make a commitment to be better than what we are.

Martin Luther King Jr. said on the night before he was assassinated, “I have been to the mountain top and I have seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but we as a people will get to,” not the promised sky, but “the Promised Land.” When Allah (God) decreed that the Children of Israel, who had suffered 400 years under a wicked taskmaster, would go into a land that would be their own, a problem was that the land was filled with giants. Allah (God) wanted the Children of Israel to go in and deal with the giants. The Children of Israel said, “Well, they are giants; we can’t move them. You go in, you and Moses, and take care of those Giants, then we will go in. But don’t ask us to go in and take care of business with the giants.” And Allah (God) told those elders, “I’ll let you go into the wilderness and die out, but I will take your children and they will inhabit the Promised Land.”

Our children today are the best generation that we have ever produced. They are strong, they are gifted and they are fearless. They don’t fear death because they live with it every day of their lives. The enemy knows if he allows that generation to live, America will be the Promised Land for the Black, the Brown and the Red. And the Whites that survive will survive under new terms created by the strength of the peacemakers. You don’t know that is your destiny, but they know it. They know prophecy; they study it.

Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” And a Warner came and said, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” If the Kingdom of Allah (God) is within you, that means that when Allah (God) created us of that single essence, He put Himself in us. So I am a god—not The God— and so are you. David the Psalmist said, “Ye are all gods, children of the Most High God.” Do you believe that? Then how should I act when I meet God? How would you act if you met God? Would you say, “Yo, God, what’s up?” Or would you show respect to God and bow? You should start doing this for one another. When you meet a fellow god, sister or brother, you bow with respect to each other. Even if you don’t bow your head, you bow in your heart. That’s the way I feel about each one of you. I know that in every one of you is my superior. Your gift in your way is as great as my gift in my way. We are all gifted, but we have to discover the gift, uncover the gift, nurture and develop the gift and use it for the Glory of God and for the liberation struggle of our people.

How do you get the Kingdom up out of us? You must recognize that the way to get the good out of your brother and your sister is not to return evil for evil. Not returning evil for evil makes the person who does the evil think about the evil that they have done. Those around me have seen me sit at a table and feed those who one day thought to kill me. They have seen me give them money to help them out of negative situations. My enemies got Black leaders to condemn me, but when those same Black leaders were in trouble, Farrakhan came to their aid because there is something bigger than personal things.

Do you want to lead? Then you have to serve. You don’t want people to serve you. You’ve got to get down and serve. Jesus said, “If any man would be great among you, let him be your servant.” I love serving you. You are who I live for. It would make so many mothers and grandmothers happy if we decided, no more (killing). I pray that God will put His spirit in you, that you will desire peace instead of war—except that war is forced on you.

Thank you.



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