Minister Louis Farrakhan
Operational Unity and Grassroots Organizing
By the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
Updated Jul 27, 2005, 10:01 am

[Editor’s note: The following article is excerpted from a message delivered by Minister Farrakhan July 14 at the Metropolitan Spiritual Church in Kansas City, Missouri during the opening rally for the 26th Annual Convention of the National Black United Front. Click here to order this message.]

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

Look at your beautiful body. It is the true house of God, if you let Him in. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of heaven is within you.” How? Your nature is from God. It is polluted now, but it just needs reform and cleansing. That is why the Bible says the first Adam was made from dust, but the second Adam is made of a quickening spirit. Once your spirit is quickened, the God within you starts rising up to condemn the evil of yourself. The more I studied our nature, the more I understood operational unity. Our bodies started from sperm mixed with ovum, which then created one cell. That first cell of life then divided and multiplied. A clot was formed, then an embryo, a fetus, a baby, a child, then a mature man and woman. You started from one cell, but you are now billions of cells, all working for one common cause. This is operational unity. The brain is the brain. You do not see any bragging in the body. “I am the brain. I am the boss here, so you all better do what I say.” The brain is functioning, the kidney is functioning, the liver is functioning, the lungs are functioning, the stomach is functioning, the tongue, teeth, hard palate, soft palate—everything in the body is functioning, but yet there are differences. In the nine systems of the body there are differences and the organs do not resemble each other, but they are working together in operational unity.

Brother Conrad Worrill may wear dreadlocks. I choose to wear my hair short. I shave, but my Brother may have a beard. But, am I better because I shave or is he better because he has dreadlocks? Why are we going to allow these things to interfere with operational unity? What is the goal of the body? It is to survive. The body is set up to overcome any impediments within and without. This is operational unity. But what makes the unity of the body purposeful is a cause bigger than the heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the intestines or the spleen. All of them have a function and an agenda, but the cause unites all systems for the common good of the whole.

For the first time in our history in America, on May 2, 2005 in Washington, D.C., the NAACP, Urban League, SCLC, the National Black United Front, integrationists, nationalists, Pan-Africanists, those who are pushing reparations, the mayor of the city, Christians, Muslims, Hebrews—all of us were on the same stage. We were not changing our organization or our religion, but a common cause, has given us a common purpose. That is bigger than our organizations, religious denominations or affiliations. That purpose is to save a people who are dying, while a few of us are living better. That is why the Million Man March was successful, because it overcame barriers that would keep us from each other. The barriers that keep us from each other are artificial and man-made; they are not real. You say you are a Christian. So am I. “I thought you said you were a Muslim,” you may ask. Well, I am that, too.

“Well, I know you are anti-Semite.” No, I am a Jew, too. Why would you allow labels to divide the people of God? The Books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the Bible contain some of the words of Jesus Christ. Show me in the Gospels where Jesus said, “I am a Christian.” It is not there. He said, “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the light. I am the good shepherd. I am the true vine and my father is the husbandman. I am the door. I am the resurrection and the life.” He is all of that, but he never said once, “I am a Christian.” So why would you use the name given at Antioch by the enemies of Christ to divide the people of God. Some Christians say, “I am Baptist,” but Jesus never said that, though he was baptized by John. He said that was a water baptism, but that there was one coming after him that would baptize us with fire in the Holy Ghost. What is that?! Everything has its form, but when fire touches it, fire breaks its form down and it becomes ashes. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” The light of the world is the sun. The Holy Qur’an calls Muhammad a light-giving sun. That means that the word of Jesus is like fire. He was baptized with water, but he represents fire. The scriptures say, “I was born in sin and shaped in iniquity.” That is the way you are. But when you meet the fire of the word of Jesus, that fire breaks down the form of wickedness and the shape of iniquity and takes you down to ashes and builds you back up as a righteous man and a righteous woman. That is the Jesus Christ that I know. That is the Muhammad that I know.

So, I am a Christian. It means one crystallized into oneness with God, following the example of Jesus Christ. I am trying to follow his example and that is why I am persecuted. If you are not being persecuted, you should examine who you are following. Jesus said, “You will be hated for my name’s sake.” So, if you are not hated, persecuted for his name sake, cast into prison and brought before the courts of this world, falsely, you do not know Jesus. He was in ancient Rome; we are in a modern Rome. I want to illustrate to you how I am following Jesus. I am not just talking Jesus, I am living Jesus. Did the Roman authorities like Jesus? Do the modern Roman authorities like Farrakhan? Who were the scribes? “Scribe” comes from the Latin word scribo, which means “to write.” How do the writers write about me? How do the religious leaders think of me? Jesus went in the synagogue, but he did not stay there, because he knew it was filled with hypocrites. So, Jesus went into the highways and byways. He did not travel with a choir, although we are supposed to sing songs of praise. He did not have any musicians. The music was the Word. The choir was those who said “amen” and lived the Word. When the choir of this church sang earlier, “He woke me up this morning and I’m on my way,” I saw you in the audience moving to the rhythm. We are a groovy people, but you do not have the right rhythm. Jesus said, “I piped to you all the day long and you have not danced.” There is a rhythm to truth and it has a groove. Truth is so magnificent. When you want to get in the rhythm of truth, you are on time with the beat of the Master, as he is on time with the beat of His Father. Jesus said to God, “Whatever you bid me say, that I say. Whatever you bid me do, that I do.” Even though the rhythm of music is good, it is best for you to dance by the rhythm of the Word of God. He said, “I lamented to you and you have not mourned.” Look at the condition of our people. Don’t you think we ought to lament and mourn over what is happening to us? What is needed is grassroots organization and operational unity. In Kansas City, and every city, there must be a strong local organizing committee that is not only for the 10th Anniversary of the Million Man March, but for a movement!

Movement. Where are you going, if there is a movement? The Bible explains it with beautiful parables. Naturally, when somebody gives you the command “go,” the next question you want to ask is, “where?” That is movement.

Pharaoh had the Children of Israel in bondage. Moses told Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” Look at the words: not “free”—let them “go.” Go where? There was a land and Moses wanted to get his people away from Pharaoh. Jesus met Lazarus at the tomb and he called him out of the tomb and he said, “Satan, loose him and let him go.” In the 15th Chapter of Genesis, it reads: “Know of a surety Abraham, your seed is going to be a stranger in a land that is not theirs and they’re going to serve them and they’re going to afflict them 400 years. But after that time, I will come and I will judge that nation which they shall serve and afterwards shall they come out with great substance, and go to their fathers in peace.”

Jesus told a parable of the Prodigal Son, who left his father’s house and tried to join on to be a citizen in a strange country, like Black people in this country who say, “I am an American. I was born here.” Who said so? Brother Malcolm X said, “Cats can have kittens in an oven, but that does not make them biscuits.” If you do not have the rights, privileges and guarantees of an American citizen, then you have to ask yourself, who you are fighting for, why are you fighting, and why are you dying? Are you really an American?

“Come out of her my people, that you be not partakers of her sins and her plagues.” When the prodigal son fell down in that strange land, the Bible says that a famine arose and then he thought about his father’s house. He said, “I think”—he started thinking—“I will rise.” He was lying down before. He said: “I think I will rise and go to my father.” He started moving toward his father. The Bible ends with the Chapter of Revelation. Do you understand? You started with your Father, the Creator. You started with Africa. Now, you must arise and return. You do not have to go to Africa physically, but you must come out of the mind that your slave-master created for you, because the mind that you are in is self-destructive because he made you hate who you are.

This is the opening of the National Black United Front’s annual convention. “Why are you here, since you are a Muslim?” you may ask me. I love my Brother and I love what this organization stands for. I know we are not going where we need to go until the Nation of Islam can lock arms with the National Black United Front, the NAACP, the Urban League, the Crips, the Bloods, the people in the street, church, mosque and synagogue, with a common purpose and operational unity. Brother Conrad Worrill has never infringed on who I am and what I do. I have so much love and respect for him. I have never tried to infringe on what he is and what he does to further the cause of the liberation struggle of our people. This is not a cookie cutter struggle, where you make everybody in the image of your idea. Operational unity demands that we respect each other, where we are and the common purpose is bigger than who we are. That common purpose is to save a people and prepare that people, literally, to be an instrument to save a world.



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