‘Black on Black’ explores history and racial tension

“DAVIES”: The largest hostage taking in American history. A book by Mufti and a Muslim leader named Hamaas Abdul Khaalis

DAVIES: This is not a show that has been done before. And we’re speaking with journalist Shahan Mufti, whose new book describes the largest hostage taking in American history. It occurred in Washington, D.C., in 1977 when a Muslim leader named Hamaas Abdul Khaalis led an assault on three locations in the nation’s capital. He was angry about the premiere of a movie on the life of the Prophet Muhammad and the murder four years earlier of seven of his family members and followers by supporters of the Nation of Islam, with whom Khaalis was engaged in a bitter dispute. American Caliph is a book written by Mufti, about the events in Washington, DC.

There’s a show called “DAVIES.” And that was Hamaas Abdul Khaalis during the hostage-taking in 1977, when he had nearly 150 people being held hostage. You hope that the hostages can be released without any harm, but it’s obvious that there were a lot of casualties during the taking of the people.

MUFTI: They’re on a mission. He has been out of trouble for a while, however there is a question over whether he has a mental illness or not, and if so, is he a master manipulator. I kind of shadow over these questions in the whole story. I believe that one thing he is sure of is that when he set out to do something, he really succeeded. He completed college, like I said. He shot through the ranks of the Nation of Islam, and then jazz. He has a new mission of bringing Sunni Islam, Hanafi Islam, to America, and he brings a group of people to the cause that include young men and African American men. And they – in the beginning especially, they really don’t – they are – they will do anything to get their mission started, including trying to rob banks. They try to take over the Black Arts Repertory Theatre and school in the 70’s led by Le Roi Jones. They get into a gun fight…

When he undergoes a mental health evaluation at the base hospital, I will meet him first. It is apparent that he is suffering from some kind of mental illness or disorder. And he’s let go from the Army and somehow slips through the cracks in the bureaucracy and ends up in Harlem as a jazz musician and a very successful one. And he tours through Europe with his band. But that is also where he first encounters in Harlem Islam and becomes a Muslim.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/04/1146891542/american-caliph-revisits-one-of-the-most-dramatic-hostage-crises-in-u-s-history

When Muhammad Ali – Muhammad Ali and the Nation of Islam – they’re straddling some issues in America, in America and in the Middle East

There are people named Daisy. Right. The Nation of Islam, their practices and beliefs were distinct from Sunni Muslims, which were also in the United States, many of them who had emigrated from other countries. So remind us of what the Nation of Islam’s particular beliefs and theology were.

A person named Mufti. The Black power movement is growing and the Black Panther movement is coming out in the ’60s. They have one eye on the unrest in America, but they are straddling on some other issues. This is for the summer of 1967, when Martin Luther King was assassinated and also for Khaalis, who was an important figure in this movement, as well as for the two important figures in this movement, who are now both dead. But interestingly, you know, they’re also tying it to being Muslim. They’re able to tie it to what they’re seeing in the Middle East, for example – the 1967 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. They’re looking at the plight of the Palestinians, somehow – and equating that in some ways to what African Americans are experiencing in this country.

There is a person named Musa. Yes, with guns. They move in. They move in with guns and establish a school, get some press coverage. They’re trying to establish supremacy, their supremacy of American Islam, but they’re also trying to bring Islam to America. The leader of the group is not holding back. They get involved in all kinds of schemes in New York City and later in Washington, D.C. to make sure they win.

There is a person named Mufti. That’s right. He’s – Khaalis has his eye, even though Khaalis moved to New York, away from Chicago, away from Elijah Muhammad. He was in competition with Elijah from the beginning. And Muhammad Ali, when he joined – Malcolm X actually brought Muhammad Ali into the Nation of Islam. Two things quickly fell out. And, you know, Muhammad Ali almost turned against Malcolm X towards the end of Malcolm’s – right before Malcolm’s death. Malcolm X could never have brought the Nation of Islam into a kind of global consciousness like Muhammad Ali did. His star power was just immense. And all over the world, especially in North Africa, the Middle East and in the Muslim world. So Muhammad Ali’s kind of – as he becomes Elijah Muhammad’s poster boy, he really propels the Nation of Islam into another realm.

There is a person watching this. The people of New York are trying to rob banks. They are trying to get people – turn – you, join their cause. But they’re not, which is kind of the level ofRecognition andPopularity that Elijah has, which is not what Khaalis wants. He sees Lewis Alcindor on TV, and decides to make a play for him. He knew – actually knew his father from the Jazz days in Harlem. He’s able to bring Lewis Alcindor to his group, and he also gives him the same name as Abdul-Jabbar. Within a few weeks, Kamam joined Khaalis and threw himself into the Hanafi movement.

Hamaas Abdul Khaalis established his own movement in the Hanafi tradition, which is very different from what we have been talking about. In the early ’70s he was in a feud and sent letters that insulted the leader of the Nation of Islam. It was a war between the two leaders and the two movements after that, isn’t it?

MUFTI: Yeah. There is a beautiful building on 16th Street in Northwest Washington, D.C. and it is where Khaalis has created himself, with the help of Kareem. The FBI and the Washington police are watching these guys very close as soon as they move to Washington, D.C. But one thing that they don’t notice is that Khaalis buys a Xerox machine. They don’t make a lot of money. But that’s kind of his plan for this, is that he’s going to start writing letters and printing copies of these letters and sending them around the country to Elijah Muhammad’s followers.

And a part of this organization – within this organization, there is a really an element of an organized crime unit that’s also developed. And people within that organized crime unit take note of these letters. The Nation of Islam is coming from a defector with inside knowledge. And so they receive these as – almost as threats, but at the very least as threatening – letters that threaten the existence of the Nation of Islam.

You said they would arrive at the headquarters to kill Khaalis. But what they find is a house full of mostly kids and Khaalis’ close family members, including his wives. He had more than one wife. The Black Mafia, an organization that developed in Philadelphia, was also called the Muslim mob. And they were notorious in Philadelphia for real violent crime. They unleashed on the children in the house and on grown-ups as well.

And these men decided that they could not leave behind – even leave behind the children as potential witnesses and decided to drown them. It was a horrendous massacre, and it was just. The next morning’s papers called it the worst massacre in the history of the nation’s capital.

Khaalis and the Films are a Screen, Not the Screen, But the Camera. Why did Akkad and Is Lucas stop “Star Wars”?

Right out of the gates, the first demand was that the film be stopped. There was a 2 o’clock premiere showing of the Akkad film on March 9 at the Rivoli Theatre in Manhattan, and it was the final location for the film. And Khaalis, at around noon, relays his first demand, a little after noon, that he wants that film stopped. He does not want that premiere to go forward. But not only that, he wants the actual film reels removed from the United States. He thinks the film should be removed from America. And that is his first and only demand for a long time. The film begins. And I tell – I mean, I tell the story in the book. It is very close, but stopped in Manhattan.

The hitch here is that you cannot show Muhammad It is accepted by a majority of Muslims in the world. There is – and it’s a complicated history because Muhammad has been depicted in paintings in Islamic history. But it’s a widely accepted taboo. His workaround with – is simply to not show Muhammad, but actually use the camera to kind of relay his point of view. You can see things through Muhammad’s eyes. This is the device that he proposes. He shops around for executives from Hollywood studios. It sounds like an absurd idea to tell the story of Muhammad but never actually meet Muhammad in the film. And he’s shot down very quickly. That’s his proposal.

DAVIES: It is fascinating because, eventually, he gets funding and gets Hollywood stars. Anthony Quinn is in it. And he also wisely goes to religious authorities in Islam and kind of gets the boxes checked, right? People said, yes, this is okay. So he gets funding. And he sets up a – starts shooting on location in Morocco – huge sets, hundreds of extras, specially trained horses for the big scenes. And then in 1974, (laughter) he has to stop. What happened?

MUFTI: Yeah. And, I mean, it was – it took 10 years, this project, 10 years and $17 million, according to Akkad. In 1977 as well, “Star Wars” came out. I think George Lucas put the cost of “Star Wars” at 11 million.

MUFTI: …Is what Akkad tallied it up to in the end, most of it coming from – well, a lot of it coming from Muammar Gaddafi. Muammar Gaddafi provided a lot of diplomatic cover because he needed it for the film. So like you said, the film was not shut down once, but shooting was shut down several times because there were very powerful figures in the Middle East who were opposed to this project, especially – particularly in Saudi Arabia.

DAVIES: So they get it done. I think they premiere it in London. And then its American premiere is scheduled for March of 1977. And Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, the Hanafi leader that we’ve been talking about, happens upon a poster of this. He’s at a low point in his life. Members of his family were murdered. He felt he was never given the justice he deserved. And he is enraged about it. This all leads to the hostage taking. This is a massive operation. Let’s just walk through it. There were three different locations, most of them at the Washington headquarters of B’nai B’rith, which is a longstanding and very large and influential Jewish organization. What do you think happens there?

MUFTI: So just to kind of contextualize this, this is March 9, 1977. Jimmy Carter has been in office all of – what? – 50 days at this point. He is about to face his first hostage crisis. He does not know that. He is hosting the Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin that morning, who – and it’s a really important meeting that a lot of people are paying attention to because Carter has come into office. peace in the Middle East is going to be a central focus of his foreign policy.

They’re still trying to piece this together when the Hanafis hit the third target, which is the district building, which is kind of how – the city council for Washington, D.C. It’s visible from Carter’s bedroom, as it’s a few hundred yards from the White House. The Hanafis on the fifth floor of that building were the two Hanafis. That was the most violent part of the takeover. The third building is where there was a fire – gunfight between security, police and the Hanafis. And that is where, within a few minutes of the takeover, there are three bodies lying on the marble floor bleeding. One of them is a security guard. One of them is a young radio reporter, a 24-year-old young radio reporter. And the third one is Marion Barry, who is a council member of the Washington, D.C., City Council.

But by the time they do that, the other demands, Khaalis’ other grievances have already come forward. He wants the murderers, the people who had entered the Hanafi Center in ’73. Some of them are in jail. Some of them are not. One of them had been acquitted. Some of them were still waiting for trial. Khaalis wanted all of them delivered to him at the B’nai B’rith, where he said he would execute justice, which most people assumed to mean that he would behead them or execute them somehow. He also wanted $750, and that was a demand that when I started research for the book, it didn’t make much sense to me. It seemed like it was irrational. But that was actually a very specific amount that he had to pay in court fees during the trial of the murderers at the Hanafi Center. It was a symbolic figure for him that he had to suffer for the price of justice or injustice.

DAVIES: And I think you write that one of the ambassadors said, perhaps you should release 30 hostages as a show of good faith. And he thinks maybe I could just release them all. You talked to the Iranian ambassador, who is still alive. What did he recall of it?

There’s a person named Haramis. I would love to have them and the $750. You need to make sure you give me credit on the radio for turning down millions of dollars. Judge Braman has held me in contempt because I charged the murderers that murdered my babies. Do you think it’s a good idea? And you think I’m going to roll over and play dead? What do you think about me? A kind of jokester? I take my faith seriously. You think I did it as a joke, Max? Do you?

There is a person named Haifa, it is also called the Haifa. What about those sharpshooters, brother? They may have taken them somewhere else. Keep stacking, boys. Keep stacking, boys. Move it quickly. You can make them move faster. Work them.

And that is – he was there present in the B’nai B’rith. And that is where, you know, there was – there wasn’t – nobody died immediately at that location – actually, at no point. But that is where there was a lot of physical abuse. At least one person was knocked out with a gun, as a result of some people being knocked out by Khaalis. There were many people who were shot, bleeding, and piled up. Some of the Jewish hostages escaped the Holocaust in Europe. And for them to be – you know, these – this trauma was triggering, you know, really old wounds.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/04/1146891542/american-caliph-revisits-one-of-the-most-dramatic-hostage-crises-in-u-s-history

Musa: the most-dramatic hostage-crises in u-s-history revisits Musa with a psychiatrist

I was going to ask you what you think about him given that there are many cases in his life where he appears to have mental health issues. His wife, at one point, committed him for treatment, you know, many years before. I mean, do you think he was mentally ill?

There’s a person named Musa. I don’t decide in the end, but I do leave for the reader to make a decision. It’s interesting – his encounters with a psychiatrist and his mental evaluations are always going on at a time when he’s in some trouble. Either he is about to be deployed or he has just been sentenced to prison for a bank robbery and his mental illnesses go out of control. Having said that, I am no psychiatrist. I can’t say who those people are because I can’t diagnose them, especially since I never met them.

But there – many people – you know, his – the way he excelled at manipulating people and the way he had these what I call in the book kind of possible delusions of grandeur, these are also possible manifestations of whatever his mental condition and mental state was. So it’s hard to tell. But he was clearly not handicapped always by these – well, by his condition. It would allow him to manipulate people and charm them, but also allow him to have a condition that let him do that.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/04/1146891542/american-caliph-revisits-one-of-the-most-dramatic-hostage-crises-in-u-s-history

When Khaalis first broke his faith in America, the first time he had to cry over the deaths of his children. A story of cyclical violence and revenge

This meeting went on for over 3 hours until the night of March 10. And the first couple of hours, the ambassadors were really relying on their Koranic verses and kind of reasoned Khaalis through – with Khaalis through those words and appealed to his ideas of justice and – but also precision in following Allah’s commands, etc. But really, what broke him in the end was not words of the Koran or any religious text. It was a story that the Iranian ambassador told him about – that he had heard from his grandmother about their – his own family and kind of a story – it was a story of cyclical violence and revenge. And that root story really cracked Khaalis in the end.

DAVIES: He embraced the Iranian ambassador for several minutes and wept. You said this was the first time he cried over the deaths of his children.

MUFTI: I started this book and I found this episode of it in 2015, and then I was working on a book about the Obama administration. I started this book when America was a different place. I’ve been working on the book ever since. And I’ve been, you know – I’ve been – with one eye, I’ve been watching what’s been going on in America ever since. And, you know, I worked through – on this book through the Trump presidency. I worked on the book after the Muslim ban conversation, the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement, the January 6, attacks on Washington, and the storming of the Supreme Court when Justice Kavahn was being sworn in.

And, you know, it’s been interesting experience watching America – American – contemporary American history unfold as I was working on this book. I can think of a lot of reasons why this is a really relevant story. You know, even at this moment, there is an big ongoing controversy where a university professor at a Minnesota university has been fired for showing the images of the Prophet Muhammad in a classroom. I’m pretty sure this was the gateway into this story that I was looking for, an idea of sacrosanct Islam. It was the most powerful thing for me because I saw the disillusionment that Khaalis felt with America. And I’m seeing a lot of people lose faith in America. And this is the story of what one man was driven to do by – when he completely lost faith.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/04/1146891542/american-caliph-revisits-one-of-the-most-dramatic-hostage-crises-in-u-s-history

DAVIES: FRESH Air’s Production of Audio and Video Interviews with Danny Miller, David Levinson, David Bentham, Mike Saman, Tony Peniel, and Steve Jobs

DAVIES: FRESH AIR’S executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley, Susan Nyakundi and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock is a director. For Terry Gross, I’m Dave Davies.

A rush deadline is when NPR transcripts are created. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Black on Black wants to change the American criminal justice system, the Black church, the way black people see themselves, and the country itself. Black on Black never backs down from its hard punches and invites everything from kissing God in the mouth to making declarations about having a conversation about difficult topics.

In addition to being a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Peniel is also the founder of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Barbara Jordan chair in ethics and political values. He is the author of “The Third Reconstruction: America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century.” The views are of his own. There are more opinions on CNN.

The FBI and NYPD covered up evidence that could have proved the innocence of both muslims in 1965, and hid it for over half a century. While the exonerations don’t prove the Shabazz family’s claims, they do raise troubling questions that need to be explored in the ongoing criminal and civil proceedings surrounding Malcolm X’s assassination.

Conspiracy theories have arisen because of the circumstances surrounding Malcolm’s killing. Here we have what we do know. According to historian Zaheer Ali, the NYPD and FBI didn’t tell the prosecutors that they had undercover agents at the scene. Both agencies were aware of the increasing death threats against Malcolm X emanating from the Nation of Islam (NOI).

Malcolm sought out people who had either been prisoners or drug users in order to create an underclass within the NOI. The ideas of Black radicals, that they had inherent value in being born and that their past had been misrepresented in American history books, media, and politicians, eventually inspired millions of people around the world.

The assassination of Malcolm’s dad in 1931 was widely thought to be racially motivated and devastated the Little family. Louise, the sole provider of a family of eight children, was put in a mental hospital by the late 1930s and Malcolm ended up in prison from 1946 to 1952 for crimes he committed as a child.

Malcolm found his vocation in jail through the teachings of the NOI, a religious organization that fused aspects of Garvey’s teachings of Black political self-determination with a grassroots version of Islam that sought to position holy man, Jesus, as the messenger of God.

Malcolm repudiated law enforcement agencies and the role they played in supporting structural oppression when Black Americans were being disproportionately punished by the criminal legal system. His time spent in prison offered intimate experience into the ways Jim Crow segregation constrained Black people’s educational attainment, vocational options and ways of making a legal living.