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Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely

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Speaker 1: those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,

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Speaker 1: and do not represent those of iHeartRadio or their employees.

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Speaker 1: This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be

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Speaker 1: suitable for everyone.

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Speaker 2: Listening to.

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Speaker 3: Discretion is advised. Radical is released every Tuesday and brought

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Speaker 3: to you absolutely free, but if you want to add

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Speaker 3: free listening and early access to next week's episode, subscribe

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Speaker 3: to tenderfoot Plus. For more information, check out tenderfootplus dot com.

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Speaker 4: Enjoy the episode.

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Speaker 5: Campsite Media.

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Speaker 3: Atlanta, Georgia, was one commercial crossroads of the Confederacy then

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Speaker 3: decades after the Civil War. In the middle of the

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Speaker 3: twentieth century, it became something dramatically different, the seat of

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Speaker 3: the country's black political leadership that was at the height

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Speaker 3: of the Civil rights movement. The city's business elite called

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Speaker 3: Atlanta the City too Busy to Hate. There are other

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Speaker 3: nicknames too, the Black Mecca, the city in a forest,

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Speaker 3: the atl My name is Mosey's Secret and for me,

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Speaker 3: Atlanta is my hometown.

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Speaker 4: It's where I grew up.

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Speaker 3: Within the city, there's a neighborhood called the West End

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Speaker 3: that was once a rich white enclave with bungalows, Victorian homes,

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Speaker 3: and a leafy tree canopy. In the fifties and sixties,

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Speaker 3: after desegregation, white people took flight to the suburbs like

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Speaker 3: in so many other American cities, and black people moved

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Speaker 3: in institutional neglect, urban decay, and the crack epidemic followed.

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Speaker 3: That was the West End in the eighties when I.

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Speaker 4: Was growing up in Atlanta, pretty rough.

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Speaker 3: But it was also around that time that black people,

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Speaker 3: African American Muslims in particular, began to create a thriving

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Speaker 3: religious community in the West End. It turned the neighborhood

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Speaker 3: into something radically different from the rest of Atlanta, unique

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Speaker 3: even in the country. It was self led and to

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Speaker 3: a large extent, self policed, but it was not removed

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Speaker 3: from the city in the country's problems. There was tension

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Speaker 3: and there were clashes. Then on the nine of March sixteenth,

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Speaker 3: two thousand, it all came to a deadly explosive head.

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Speaker 3: That confrontation is what this story is about. It happened

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Speaker 3: around West End Park, the namesake park in the neighborhood.

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Speaker 3: Across a small street south of the park, there's a

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Speaker 3: one story wooden building. It looks like a house, but

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Speaker 3: people in the community have used it as their mosques

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Speaker 3: since the late seventies. I like to use the Arabic

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Speaker 3: word for mosque, masjed. On March sixteenth, two thousand, around

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Speaker 3: eight pm the Adan, the Muslim call to prayer was

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Speaker 3: broadcast throughout the West end those bungalows and Victorians African

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Speaker 3: American Muslims lived in them. Now the neighborhood was like

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Speaker 3: a little Muslim village, and at the call to prayer

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Speaker 3: that night, like always, men wearing thebes and coofies walked

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Speaker 3: from their homes to the masjed. They took off their

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Speaker 3: shoes and got ready for prayer in the front room,

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Speaker 3: shouldered to shoulder, toe to toe. That's a Muslims prey

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Speaker 3: or makes a lot lined up facing the city of

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Speaker 3: Mecca as they recite Versus from the Koran. A seventeen

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Speaker 3: year old kid, just a few years younger than me

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Speaker 3: at the time, joined the prayer. And after Salat that night,

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Speaker 3: when most of the men walked home, abduced samat Jahad

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Speaker 3: stuck around for a math lesson.

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Speaker 6: Were going over fractions and I think also were dealing

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Speaker 6: with a little trigger number tree or algebra, something like that,

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Speaker 6: and I was having problems real bad.

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Speaker 3: The streets in the neighborhood are small, it's quiet, especially

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Speaker 3: at night. The match was normally a great place for

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Speaker 3: up just samat to focus on algebra.

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Speaker 6: You didn't hear nobody's saying anything. You didn't hear nobody

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Speaker 6: speaking anything. It was just completely silence, and then all

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Speaker 6: of a sudden gunfire. So naturally me, I don't know

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Speaker 6: what's going on. I'm sitting down doing math and they

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Speaker 6: I just know the teacher jumped on top of me,

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Speaker 6: and you know, say get down because it sounded so close.

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Speaker 4: I'd samot and the tutor lay still on the floor.

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Speaker 6: All I knew was it was scary, you know, it

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Speaker 6: was scary to hear. I didn't know what was going on.

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Speaker 6: I was just saying, oh God, I thought somebody Honestly,

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Speaker 6: when they already shooting, I thought somebody was doing the

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Speaker 6: drive by on the Master, trying to shoot up on

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Speaker 6: the Master while I was in so I thought he

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Speaker 6: jumped on me. I was just a god, don't let

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Speaker 6: me get shot in the head or get shot by

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Speaker 6: my stray bullet. I thought somebody was doing the drive

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Speaker 6: by that's why he jumped.

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Speaker 7: On top of him.

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Speaker 3: They weren't hit and it wasn't a drive by, but

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Speaker 3: with shots still ripping through the air, someone dragged u

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Speaker 3: Duce some mat into a closet and told them, no

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Speaker 3: matter what, stay put.

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Speaker 6: And then after that the gunshots continued and continued and

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Speaker 6: continue to continue. It was like almost like an overkill,

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Speaker 6: like it was a war zone out there. Who would

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Speaker 6: shoot that many tonight? No one, I mean, no one

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Speaker 6: would do that.

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Speaker 3: When the gunfire finally stopped, Abduce crept out of the

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Speaker 3: closet through a window. He saw the street was flooded

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Speaker 3: with cops, and then a few moments later he heard

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Speaker 3: his father calling for him. They lived right next to

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Speaker 3: the mass jed, so he hurried home. So you spent

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Speaker 3: the rest of the night looking out the window.

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Speaker 6: Huh well yeah, basically, yeah, yeah, looking out the window.

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Speaker 6: And then my dad put me to sleep. He said, hey,

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Speaker 6: you got to go to school in the morning.

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Speaker 3: The responding officers found the aftermath of a shootout. There

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Speaker 3: were dozens of shellcasings strewn about and two black men

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Speaker 3: lying on the ground. They were bleeding, one in the

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Speaker 3: street and another in the grass next to the mass Jed.

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Speaker 3: The men were uniform deputies from the Fulton County Sheriff's Office,

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Speaker 3: the county that includes most of Atlanta. Someone had shot

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Speaker 3: the cops. The sheriff's deputies were there to arrest a

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Speaker 3: man named Jamil Abdullah Elamine on some relatively small charges.

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Speaker 3: He lived right across the street from the mass jed.

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Speaker 3: In fact, he was the imam it's leader and the

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Speaker 3: de fact the leader of the whole neighborhood. When investigators

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Speaker 3: arrived at the crime scene, a Maam Jamil, as he

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Speaker 3: was known in the neighborhood was nowhere to be found.

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Speaker 4: It wasn't a leap for the.

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Speaker 3: Investigators to suspect he shot the deputies. And that's the

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Speaker 3: story that's still in the public record about what happened

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Speaker 3: that night in March sixteenth, two thousand. I was away

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Speaker 3: at college when it happened. Then I began working as

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Speaker 3: a journalist. I've been doing that for more than twenty

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Speaker 3: years now, and by some strange twist of fate, this

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Speaker 3: story about a Maam Jamil in the shootout, it found me.

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Speaker 3: A Maam Jamil was convicted of the shooting after a tense,

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Speaker 3: high profile trial. Some of the evidence against him was shaky,

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Speaker 3: and a prosecutor was accused of misconduct. Ma'am Jamil insisted

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Speaker 3: he was innocent, and his family and supporters they're still

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Speaker 3: making that case. In the last year or so, I've

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Speaker 3: learned that the story in the public record it's not complete.

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Speaker 3: There's much more to a man Jamil, and more to

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Speaker 3: what happened that night, more than law enforcement has cared

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Speaker 3: to acknowledge, and more than Muslims in Atlanta had cared

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Speaker 3: to acknowledge. Somehow, when I started asking questions, the timing

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Speaker 3: was right for a new narrative to emerge. A Mam

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Speaker 3: Jmil was not an ordinary man, or even in ordinary

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Speaker 3: a man. He was legendary, the stuff of myth, the

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Speaker 3: kind of person people tell stories about. Some of those

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Speaker 3: stories people need them to find the courage to face

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Speaker 3: their own lives. Some of those stories people fear, fear

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Speaker 3: their danger in their violence. But all the stories, regardless

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Speaker 3: of their basis, in fact, tend to grow. Over the

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Speaker 3: course of his life, a man Jamil became more and

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Speaker 3: more of a hero, even as he became more and

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Speaker 3: more of a villain. And even the tallest of those

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Speaker 3: tales had a way of becoming real as people lived

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Speaker 3: with them, acted on them. Sorting through this tangle I've

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Speaker 3: just described bringing this story to you, it required me

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Speaker 3: to come to grips with how I let stories take

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Speaker 3: shape in my own mind and just how I'm willing

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Speaker 3: to pass them on. This is one I'm going to

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Speaker 3: tell you and the way I'm going to tell it.

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Speaker 4: That's what I want to pass on.

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Speaker 3: From Campsite Media, Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart podcasts. This is Radical,

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Speaker 3: I'm Mostly Secret. Episode one Fire and ma'am Emil Elmine's

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Speaker 3: story begins in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was born

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Speaker 3: into a black family in nineteen forty three. He was

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Speaker 3: the third and final child of a man off fighting

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Speaker 3: in the Second World War and a woman who worked

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Speaker 3: two jobs as a teacher at the local orphanage and

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Speaker 3: as a maid. The parents named their youngest Hubert Gerald Brown.

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Speaker 3: As a kid, he was drawn to the young bloods

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Speaker 3: on the corner, the bad mother focus who made a

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Speaker 3: profession of hanging out all day, playing the dozens, the

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Speaker 3: ones who excelled at sports like he did. These were

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Speaker 3: the guys who stood firmous against the establishment. Brown thought

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Speaker 3: against Jim Crow they didn't give a shit about white values.

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Speaker 3: The kid could talk trash with the best of them,

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Speaker 3: and they took the calling him Rap a moniker. That

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Speaker 3: stuck as he rose to public life. Most of the

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Speaker 3: folks I spoke with who knew AmAm Demil before he

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Speaker 3: became Muslim, they called him rap h Rap Brown.

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Speaker 4: So that's what I'll do too.

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Speaker 3: Rap bristled at Jim Crow's efforts to control his movements,

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Speaker 3: to limit the idea of what he could be, and

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Speaker 3: he bucked the system in the brashest way possible at

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Speaker 3: every opportunity. In his first book, a memoir called Die

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Speaker 3: Nigger Died not my favorite book title, Rap wrote that

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Speaker 3: he once went to a boy scout circus. It was segregated,

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Speaker 3: but nobody was going to warn Rap Brown that he

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Speaker 3: couldn't go see what the white boys were up to.

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Speaker 3: He walked over there and heard a white boy holler out, nigger,

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Speaker 3: you have been sentenced to death, and the boy started

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Speaker 3: shooting him with a B begun. The next year, Rap

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Speaker 3: brought his own bbgun to the circus. Rap grew up

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Speaker 3: to be a tall man, distinguished by his height six

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Speaker 3: foot five. He was thin, lanky, with dangling arms and

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Speaker 3: long fingers, but he moved smoothly through the world, almost

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Speaker 3: gliding as he walked his own kind of swat. He

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Speaker 3: was light skinned, a complexion that black folks used to

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Speaker 3: call red, similar to Malcolm X. He grew a short

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Speaker 3: afro and a mustache, wore a lot of dinnim, sometimes

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Speaker 3: a leather jacket. In the sixties, Rapp followed his brother

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Speaker 3: to Howard University in DC and got involved in organized activism.

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Speaker 3: He read thinkers like W. E. B. Du Bois and

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Speaker 3: Franz Feron and Frederick Douglass for the first time, and

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Speaker 3: eventually became a part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

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Speaker 3: that's the s NCC or SNICK. It was the most

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Speaker 3: prominent student group of the movement. While Rapp was a

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Speaker 3: part of SNICK, he grew close to a fellow fire

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Speaker 3: brand named Willie Rix or Mucassa Dada as he's known

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Speaker 3: these days. Mucassa eighty years old now hasn't lost much

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Speaker 3: of his fire.

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Speaker 7: Rap was always around and you would have encountered him personally.

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Speaker 4: You met him and hung out with him.

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Speaker 8: I met him with him smoked.

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Speaker 7: We used to smoke out herb and whatever and party

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Speaker 7: and whatever, and we fought together.

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Speaker 8: And Rap was a fighter and a warrior, and he

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Speaker 8: was in many, many battles.

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Speaker 3: Inside of Snick, the organization was working in the Black Belt,

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Speaker 3: a mostly rural swathe of counties across the South that

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Speaker 3: got its name from the black fertile soil there and

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Speaker 3: the Black people who live in the land since the

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Speaker 3: end of their enslavement. But despite their demographics, these mostly poor,

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Speaker 3: majority black counties were still controlled by white people. So

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Speaker 3: Snickson and organizers Mucasa was one of them, and so

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Speaker 3: was Rap.

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Speaker 7: The first thing organized have to do is find a

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Speaker 7: place to eat, find a place to sleep, and also

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Speaker 7: find local leadership.

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Speaker 8: If not there, you have to creating.

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Speaker 3: Lowndes County, Alabama, where both a RAP and Mucasa worked,

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Speaker 3: was the center of the struggle. Black folks there lived

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Speaker 3: in wood shacks out on the flat grassy plains, sometimes

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Speaker 3: near pine and oak forests.

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Speaker 4: The outnumbered white.

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Speaker 3: People four to one, but few, if any, of the

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Speaker 3: more than five thousand eligible black voters in Lowndes County

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Speaker 3: were registered to vote. Landowners evicted black people who tried

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Speaker 3: to register, and night writers fired shots into the.

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Speaker 4: Homes of local leaders. While Snick was organizing.

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Speaker 3: In Lowndes County, a sheriff's deputy killed a volunteer working

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Speaker 3: closely with the organization. In the nineteen sixties, at least

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Speaker 3: twenty civil rights activists were killed, a conservative estimate that

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Speaker 3: doesn't include the hundreds of people who were injured and threatened.

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Speaker 3: SNICK is widely remembered for non violence. Of course, it

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Speaker 3: did have the word non violent in its name, but

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Speaker 3: as I've learned more about the organization, that's really only

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Speaker 3: part of the story. Mukasa puts it pretty simply.

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Speaker 7: We used none violent as a tactic, where doctor King

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Speaker 7: used it as a will of life and what whatever.

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Speaker 7: And we said if we'd do it in front of

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Speaker 7: let a white man hit us in front of a camera,

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Speaker 7: but if they hit us in the camera and there,

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Speaker 7: we're gonna fuck him up. If they file us around

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Speaker 7: the column, we're gonna fuck him up.

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Speaker 3: Mucassa isn't speaking for everyone. Other SNICK organizers may have

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Speaker 3: seen it differently, but Mucassa and rap they were prepared

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Speaker 3: to defend themselves with violence if necessary, and this was

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Speaker 3: in line with many of the locals they were working with,

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Speaker 3: Black people living in the Black Belt in Lownes County

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Speaker 3: kept shotguns next to their front doors or handguns next

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Speaker 3: to their beds, and some snack activists carried guns with them.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, we U should go out and fit in the backyards

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Speaker 7: and practice shooting and all that cast up all the time.

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Speaker 3: But did you ever have to fire your weapon in

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Speaker 3: the confrontation?

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Speaker 8: Absolutely about tamen.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, we'd we'd ride down the street and white folks

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Speaker 7: jump behind us and started shooting.

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Speaker 8: We ain't out there and started shooting back.

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Speaker 3: Rap had carried a gun for years, got us first

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Speaker 3: one at fourteen after a run in with some white boys.

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Speaker 3: He stole it from a sporting goods store. Rap wrote

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Speaker 3: in his autobiography, give me a gun before you even

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Speaker 3: give me somebody to work with. A gun won't fail you.

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Speaker 3: People will who costs us of it. Once, when Rap

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Speaker 3: was organizing in the Alabama, some of the black folks

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Speaker 3: who had registered to vote were kicked off their land.

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Speaker 3: So they set up a tense city and then white

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Speaker 3: people attacked.

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Speaker 7: And the white wo come by attens and shooting an attense.

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Speaker 8: So Rap, you should have fire him back up.

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Speaker 7: Some white man got shot over there, wrapped their Hell yeah,

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Speaker 7: we shouted.

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Speaker 3: Rap gained a reputation within Snick and across the Black

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Speaker 3: Belt for fearlessness and for his speeches that encouraged and

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Speaker 3: inspired people to stand up for themselves. A year after

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Speaker 3: Snick started working in Lowndes County in Earnest, the local

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Speaker 3: leaders organized their own political party, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization.

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Speaker 3: They made a black panther their symbol, inspiring activists in

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Speaker 3: Californi who would later found the Black Panther Party. In

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Speaker 3: nineteen sixty six, despite intimidation, sixteen hundred people in Lounges.

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Speaker 4: County voted for the new party.

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Speaker 3: They wanted to take down the sheriff given the violence

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Speaker 3: against black people, and elect their own candidate, but no

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Speaker 3: one on the party ticket won. It was this same

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Speaker 3: year that Snick began peeling away more publicly from doctor

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Speaker 3: Martin Luther King Junior in his rallying cry of freedom.

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Speaker 3: Now Snick's new rallying cry was black power. The next year,

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Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty seven, rap became Snick's chairman and was

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Speaker 3: named an honorary officer of the Black Panther Party. Now

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Speaker 3: Rapp wasn't just traveling around the Black Belt. He was

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Speaker 3: chairman traveling around the nation at speeches and press conferences

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Speaker 3: like this one, he shocked many Americans black and.

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Speaker 9: White violence is a plot of America's culture, is as

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Speaker 9: American as cherry pie. We will use that violin to

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Speaker 9: rid ourselves of oppression if necessary.

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Speaker 3: And his speeches, rap boldly explained the mindset he thought

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Speaker 3: was necessary for real change in the country where racism

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Speaker 3: was a part of the bedrock.

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Speaker 9: We did not make the laws in this country. We

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Speaker 9: are neither, Marley, not legally confined to those laws, those

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Speaker 9: laws that keep them up keep us down.

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Speaker 8: You got to begin to understand that.

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Speaker 3: It was a revolution and the object was not for

307
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Speaker 3: black people to simply replace white people at the top

308
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Speaker 3: of the heap. Rapid As comrades wanted to toss out

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Speaker 3: the systems the country ran on capitalism and all they

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Speaker 3: saw a grand conflict between black people and the government

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Speaker 3: controlled by white people, a government that used police and

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Speaker 3: law enforcement like a domestic military force to maintain control.

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Speaker 9: And wan end in the Swahili saying, it says losima

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Speaker 9: to sinda be lost you eli shakak which means we

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Speaker 9: shall concer without a doubt.

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Speaker 8: Black power.

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Speaker 3: Mukasa was Wrap's right hand man.

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Speaker 7: I was assigned to travel rap wherever he would go.

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Speaker 7: And that we started traveling, and as we traveled throughout

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Speaker 7: different areas everywhere would go to cities would be on fire,

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Speaker 7: catching on fire. Right after we leave, he would go

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Speaker 7: out in the battlefields and go out there with them

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Speaker 7: folks doing five arms and fighting and burning and whatever.

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Speaker 7: And he would always ready to go do that. And

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Speaker 7: whenever he talked, he go with him. And when the

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Speaker 7: rebellions started wrapped beyond the front line.

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Speaker 3: In nineteen sixty seven, there were at least seventy five

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Speaker 3: uprisings or rebellions and cities across the country, from San

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Speaker 3: Francisco to Cincinnati to New York.

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Speaker 4: People took to the streets.

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Speaker 7: Even Doctor King and his organization field rep Brown so

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Speaker 7: much that even if he wasn't nowhere around, that was

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Speaker 7: gonna be somebody in the crowd let's say black power

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Speaker 7: and throw a brick or throw a brick at the police.

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Speaker 7: And the police didn't discriminate, they didn't running there and

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Speaker 7: stop beating them all.

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00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:25,560
Speaker 3: As part of cointelpro the FBI's program aimed at preventing

338
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Speaker 3: the rise of a so called black messiah. The Bureau

339
00:20:28,560 --> 00:20:31,959
Speaker 3: used dirty tricks to disrupt SNICK and other black power groups.

340
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Speaker 4: Agents began surveilling.

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Speaker 3: A Rap and apparently targeted him with trumped up or

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00:20:37,400 --> 00:20:41,359
Speaker 3: entirely fabricated criminal charges. The conflict seemed to reach a

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00:20:41,359 --> 00:20:44,879
Speaker 3: climax when a car bomb exploded, killing two SNACK activists.

344
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Speaker 3: There were conflicting theories about what happened, but it looked

345
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Speaker 3: like the bomb was.

346
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Speaker 4: Meant to assassinate Rap. He went into hide it.

347
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Speaker 7: Police departments, the United States government and their agents they

348
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Speaker 7: hated reput all the way to death.

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Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy one, after more than a year underground,

350
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Speaker 3: Rap was arrested in New York City. I won't get

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Speaker 3: into the particulars of that arrest now, just know that

352
00:21:13,680 --> 00:21:16,679
Speaker 3: he got popped on an arm robbery charge. He and

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Speaker 3: some friends were sticking up a lounge to help further

354
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Speaker 3: their activities in the movement, a caper that ended in

355
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Speaker 3: a shootout with cops.

356
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Speaker 4: Rap twenty eight.

357
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:28,800
Speaker 3: Years old, went to jail Rikers Island and eventually landed

358
00:21:28,840 --> 00:21:32,399
Speaker 3: at Attica Prison. Tough places to say the least, but

359
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:34,680
Speaker 3: it's hard to imagine Rap living much longer if he

360
00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:38,119
Speaker 3: hadn't stepped back from the front lines. Death was certainly

361
00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:50,520
Speaker 3: something he prepared for and maybe even welcomed. In that autobiography,

362
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:53,560
Speaker 3: it was published two years before rap was locked up,

363
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:58,120
Speaker 3: he wrote, America, if it takes my death to organize

364
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Speaker 3: my people to revolt against you, and to organize your

365
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:04,800
Speaker 3: jails to revolt against you, and to organize your troops

366
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:08,080
Speaker 3: to revolt against you, and to organize your children to

367
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Speaker 3: revolt against you, and to organize your God to revolt

368
00:22:11,720 --> 00:22:15,080
Speaker 3: against you, and to organize your poor to revolt against you,

369
00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:19,520
Speaker 3: and to organize your country to revolt against you, and

370
00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:23,080
Speaker 3: to organize mankind to rejoice in your destruction and ruin,

371
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:30,520
Speaker 3: then here is my life. But within weeks, maybe months,

372
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Speaker 3: of his arrest, that seemed to change. He converted to Islam.

373
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Speaker 3: A transformation was underway. Some would even say the creation

374
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Speaker 3: of a new man, Jamil, Beautiful Abdullah, servant of God,

375
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Speaker 3: Alamin the Trustworthy. My own conversion to Islam happened in

376
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Speaker 3: the fifth grade. We'd been Baptist and Pentecostal, and then

377
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Speaker 3: my father found new faith and he wanted all of us,

378
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:24,159
Speaker 3: my mom and two younger siblings to follow suit. My

379
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:26,159
Speaker 3: parents put me out of public school and sent me

380
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 3: to a Muslim private school. I got so being out

381
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:32,240
Speaker 3: of shape by the change that during my second week

382
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Speaker 3: at the new school, I got super sick and had

383
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:38,359
Speaker 3: to stay home. When I felt better, my parents finally

384
00:23:38,440 --> 00:23:40,320
Speaker 3: let me go back to public school and joined my

385
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 3: old friends. In time, I accepted Islam for a good while.

386
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Speaker 4: Anyway, I made.

387
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:50,639
Speaker 3: My salots and facet for Ramadan, but I always occupied

388
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Speaker 3: this weird in between spot, not fitting in all the

389
00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 3: way with the Muslim kids and feeling different from my

390
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Speaker 3: non Muslim friends. An insider, outsider in both way worlds,

391
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Speaker 3: an observer. When I went to college, I studied comparative religion,

392
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:11,280
Speaker 3: trying on other beliefs. I realize pretty young that what

393
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 3: we believe, the way we structure our worlds, and the

394
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 3: stories we tell ourselves, all of that can be totally

395
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:18,679
Speaker 3: changed with the flip.

396
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Speaker 4: Of a switch.

397
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Speaker 3: Part of why I pursued writing when I graduated college,

398
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 3: and why I'm so drawn to complex stories like this,

399
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:29,639
Speaker 3: is because I sense the power stories.

400
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:30,960
Speaker 4: Have over our lives.

401
00:24:31,480 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 3: What are myths but stories we believe in? With cosmic

402
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:43,119
Speaker 3: stakes and Ma'am Jimille's conversion, his flip of that switch

403
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 3: was obviously pivotal in his life. But what kind of

404
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:51,320
Speaker 3: man did it make him? Rap, the man who was

405
00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 3: throwing fire bombs in the streets, who people believe escaped

406
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:58,679
Speaker 3: an assassination attempt by the federal government. I can imagine

407
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 3: him shooting sheriff's deputies coming into his neighborhood to arrest him.

408
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 3: But a Mam Jamil, all these years later, that was

409
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 3: much less clear. Converting to Islam. It was something I

410
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 3: shared with a Ma'am Jamil, something my family shared with him,

411
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 3: and something that connected us to lots of other African Americans.

412
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Speaker 10: We believe anywhere from twenty to thirty percent of the

413
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:29,160
Speaker 10: African slaves were either Muslim or exposed Islam in West Africa.

414
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Speaker 3: This is a man Pleman Elamine, maybe the most prominent

415
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:37,360
Speaker 3: elder in Atlanta's African American Muslim community and the peer

416
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:40,920
Speaker 3: of a Mam Jamil. A man Pleman believes that through

417
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 3: our ancestors, Black people have a deep and innate connection

418
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:49,640
Speaker 3: to Islam, like it's somewhere in our DNA. And when

419
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:52,679
Speaker 3: Rap became Muslim in jail, he was joining something ever tradition.

420
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 3: Because the history of African American Islam is linked to

421
00:25:56,400 --> 00:26:01,400
Speaker 3: incarceration and to the Nation of Islam, the black nationalist

422
00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 3: organization found in the nineteen thirties. The Nation did a

423
00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 3: lot of ministry in prisons. Its message that the white

424
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:11,880
Speaker 3: man was a devil resonated with black people living under

425
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 3: the yoke of oppression. Malcolm extrajoined the Nation when he

426
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:18,639
Speaker 3: was in prison, and after he got out, eventually became

427
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 3: its spokesperson. But like many others, he left the organization

428
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:26,359
Speaker 3: for Sunni Islam, which is more closely based on the Qur'an.

429
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:31,239
Speaker 3: The vast majority of the world's Muslims are Sunni, and

430
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 3: as new sects of Sunni Islam developed in the United States,

431
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 3: they also recruited in prisons.

432
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Speaker 10: When people in prison, they have to have to think,

433
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 10: you know, really, that's Malcolm. He came to Islam by

434
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 10: being in prison and just studying and reading and trying

435
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 10: to come with some solutions. So that's been a tradition

436
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 10: in our community and where gangs are really dominant in prisons,

437
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 10: and many folks see the salvation as being a Muslim,

438
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,920
Speaker 10: so they get the protection of the brotherhood or even

439
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:09,040
Speaker 10: the sisterhood. And it's also a great productive way of spinning.

440
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:11,040
Speaker 4: Your time organizing your time, organizing your days.

441
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a Sunni movement called dar

442
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 3: Ul Islam that reached Rap. Darul was based at Amasthid

443
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 3: in the Beverid Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, not.

444
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 4: Far from where I live now.

445
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:27,720
Speaker 3: Actually, Daroul used to send men to minister to inmates

446
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 3: of the notorious Rikers Island jail where Rap was being held,

447
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 3: and those men met Rap at a moment when he

448
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 3: was trying to make sense of what was happening in

449
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 3: him and around him. Rapp said the fact that Malcolm

450
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 3: X converted to Islam made him take it more seriously.

451
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 3: The men from dar Oul organized Friday Juma services at

452
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 3: Rikers and Rap attended. In nineteen seventy one, he took

453
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 3: the Shahada, the oath to become Muslim. When he got

454
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:58,679
Speaker 3: out of prison. In nineteen seventy six, a man Jamil

455
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,879
Speaker 3: made the pilgrimage to Mecca and completed the Hodge. He

456
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 3: moved to Atlanta, and not long after he arrived he

457
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:07,800
Speaker 3: founded the Western Community Master, and Man Cleman was a

458
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:09,440
Speaker 3: leader at another Master across town.

459
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 10: I had the role of keeping a relationship with AmAm

460
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 10: Jamil always found him very very Islamic, but always very

461
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 10: polite and uh wonderful hospitality, and it's really very decent person.

462
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 3: How much of what he was doing in the West

463
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 3: End did you see as a continuation of who he

464
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 3: had been before or was it a departure.

465
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 10: Yeah, No, he made a complete change.

466
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 8: He made a complete change.

467
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 3: But I see it as the prophet at my question

468
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 3: reminded the man cleman of a hadith a teaching from

469
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:49,640
Speaker 3: the prophet.

470
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 4: Behind came a follower asked a prophet a question. We

471
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 4: all have genes.

472
00:28:55,400 --> 00:29:00,280
Speaker 10: The gen that is really is the identity that earth

473
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:05,719
Speaker 10: the devil is this fiery nature, the passionate nature that

474
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 10: is willing to reject God. And the prophet said, yes,

475
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 10: we all have gens, even myself. But I've made my

476
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 10: gin a Muslim. So there's Mohammed the prophet saying that

477
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 10: he's made his gin a Muslim. So I see Jamil

478
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 10: in the same way that he had this fiery nature

479
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 10: of h rap brown, and he didn't just give it

480
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 10: up and let it go.

481
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:30,920
Speaker 4: He just made it a Muslim.

482
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 10: So he got the advantages of having that passionate, fiery pod,

483
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 10: but it was always under a control then, and he

484
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 10: was made a total conversion.

485
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:47,480
Speaker 3: If a man Jamil had made a total conversion, if

486
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 3: his gin his devil, his fire was always under control.

487
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 3: It was hard to see him shooting two sheriff's deputies.

488
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:57,720
Speaker 3: But if he ever let the fire of rap Brown loose,

489
00:29:58,000 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 3: I thought I might find the embers burning in the

490
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 3: West the community a manager Meal founded and led Rahap's

491
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 3: vision that at least seems to have made its mark

492
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 3: on the new Muslim village. So much of what the

493
00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 3: community aspired to be and often became a place of

494
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 3: their own where black people could govern themselves, where they

495
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 3: could thrive and feel safe to raise their children. That

496
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 3: echoed the black nationalist's ideal. But that kind of utopia

497
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 3: didn't just materialize. There were too many obstacles. It took work, faith, passion.

498
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 3: Had a manmaged Meal ever leaned on his old demons too.

499
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 3: I spent some time around the weston mass Yet when

500
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 3: I was a kid, maybe popping in with my father

501
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 3: to make prayer a few times, but mostly I would

502
00:30:57,560 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 3: have seen a manager Meal at the e the islam

503
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 3: holidays when Muslims from all over the city would gather

504
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 3: to pray, and Mama Jamil always stood out there among

505
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 3: thousands because he carried this sword like a scimitar, and

506
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 3: he towered over everyone.

507
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 4: He's six foot five. Imagining that as a kid, and.

508
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 3: I did go to this week long military style boot

509
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:24,920
Speaker 3: camp wanted a Maam Jamil used to organize in the

510
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 3: North Georgia Mountains. I must have been twelve or thirteen,

511
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 3: and I could not have been more out of my element.

512
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 3: I don't know how to put this politely, but a

513
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 3: lot of the other boys were drawn to life in

514
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 3: the streets, and that was the last thing I was

515
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 3: interested in. Later I would learn that some of them

516
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 3: were already in the streets shooting, robbing. There was something

517
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 3: different about the Muslim boys from the West End. Most

518
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 3: often I would see them on sports teams. Abdusamad Jahad,

519
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 3: the kid who was in the matchet on the night

520
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 3: of the shootout, we were on the track team together.

521
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 3: He reminded me about his mother, sister Jamila, who always

522
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 3: came to our meets. He told me that she would

523
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:09,560
Speaker 3: be a great person to talk with about what it

524
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:11,560
Speaker 3: was like living in the West End while a Ma'am

525
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 3: Jamil was leading the community.

526
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 4: Hi, how are you doing?

527
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 8: Yes?

528
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 3: Now, your face looks familiar. Wow, now I remember you.

529
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 8: Sister.

530
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 3: Jamila grew up in Atlanta and went to Clark Atlanta University.

531
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 3: It's one of the historically black colleges that bordered the

532
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 3: West End. When she was still in college, Jamila took

533
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 3: the shahada from my mam Jamil.

534
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 2: We went into the mess yet and he asked me,

535
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 2: why anyone forcing me.

536
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 8: To become Muslim.

537
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 2: I said no, you know, so he told me, you know,

538
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 2: to testify that there's no guard but a law, you know.

539
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:57,760
Speaker 2: And I became Muslim. I felt free. I felt so happy,

540
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 2: and he became more like a uncle father figure for

541
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 2: me because I was eighteen and I was you know.

542
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 2: He had a corner store at that time, so I

543
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 2: would go into the store and talk to him, and

544
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 2: I felt like, Okay, this is my new family, you know.

545
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 3: And Mam Jamil ran that corner store Jamila mentioned, just

546
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 3: across the street from the mass Jed and across another

547
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 3: street from Weston Park.

548
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 4: During the day, a.

549
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 3: Mam Jamil might play basketball with kids from the neighborhood.

550
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 3: Everyone says he could really ball. He talked to people

551
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 3: who came into the store or chill outside, maybe sitting

552
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 3: at a picnic table, greeting neighbors as they walked by, offering.

553
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 4: Them counsel.

554
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 3: And the Mam Jamil led the daily prayers in the

555
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 3: mass Jed and delivered sermons during their Friday Juma services.

556
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:51,520
Speaker 3: A member of the mass Jed shared some recordings of

557
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 3: his sermons with us.

558
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 11: How do we increase our remembrance of a law? It

559
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:02,600
Speaker 11: is through the establishment of lot, through the prayer and

560
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 11: the maintaining of the prayer and the punctuality in coming

561
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 11: to prayer.

562
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 3: The message he was giving to the faithful, attend prayer

563
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:13,080
Speaker 3: as much as you can take care of your families

564
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 3: and care for others in the Masjed.

565
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:18,279
Speaker 12: You have to begin to practice your prayer now in

566
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 12: congregation because this is afforded to you. But when the

567
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:26,759
Speaker 12: repression comes, it might be a situation where you might

568
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 12: as in many different countries, you have to move around

569
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 12: and move your places of congregational prayer.

570
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 11: But right now you don't have to do that, But

571
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 11: that might be the case.

572
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 3: AmAm Demil tried to create something like a village in

573
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:44,800
Speaker 3: the West End. The Masjed hosted festivals and barbecues. Jamila

574
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 3: started a summer camp for elementary school kids and hired

575
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 3: teenagers as counselors. It was all centered around the masjed

576
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 3: and around the daily prayers five times each day. Jimill

577
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 3: remembers that part of the community most fondly.

578
00:34:58,719 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 8: It was a beautiful thing.

579
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 2: Means to see the brothers going to prayer, you know,

580
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 2: but a dyn call and you see the brothers walking

581
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 2: to the messget brothers coming out of the house. You know.

582
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 2: It was a beautiful thing.

583
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:15,719
Speaker 3: A man and Jamil also assign a group of men

584
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 3: to do armed security patrols of the neighborhood to establish

585
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:21,440
Speaker 3: a perimeter to keep out the drug dealing and the prostitution.

586
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:24,880
Speaker 3: The eighties and nineties, this was the height of the

587
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 3: crack epandemic in the community. The Mastered they were right

588
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 3: in the thick of it. There are some of the

589
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 3: busiest drug corners on the West Side. Addicted people used

590
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:36,320
Speaker 3: to roam the streets like zombies.

591
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:38,399
Speaker 4: A few people told me, but.

592
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:41,920
Speaker 3: West End Park, a public park, remember, became known as

593
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 3: Holy Land. You better now tread on that land if

594
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 3: you have no business being there. There were consequences. The

595
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 3: rules for members of the community were strict too. The

596
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 3: women wore long dresses and hijab. Men wore thogues and coofies.

597
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 3: Women were supposed to get permission from their husband before

598
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 3: leaving the house, but for Jamilla, at least, that's not

599
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 3: how it worked in practice. She was close enough to

600
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 3: a Mama Jamil to have some sway.

601
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,720
Speaker 2: His sisters used to come to me and ask email Jamil,

602
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,160
Speaker 2: can we do such and such? I said, okay, you know,

603
00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 2: so like I said that uncle father figured. And he

604
00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 2: was almost often all the time he said yes, yes,

605
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:23,800
Speaker 2: go ahead.

606
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:29,200
Speaker 3: You know, Ma'am Jamil was in control, and he could

607
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 3: monitor what was happening near the mast, did in his

608
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 3: corner store, and on the streets and in the houses

609
00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:37,439
Speaker 3: that surrounded the park. I asked a man cleaning about

610
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:39,640
Speaker 3: the amount of authority in Mama Jamil seemed to have

611
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 3: over the West End.

612
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 8: Madam Jamil took it literally that in that community.

613
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 10: Now, not saying internationally all over the world or whatever,

614
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 10: but in his community he was the representative of the

615
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 10: prophet Mahobbit Press peace Field Honey, and so he expected

616
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 10: the same kind of respect from his community as.

617
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 8: They would give to the prophet.

618
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:12,759
Speaker 10: And then it became an issue when somebody was ignoring

619
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 10: that leadership or going against that leadership.

620
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 3: Over time, a man Jamil gained a reputation in Atlanta

621
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 3: for quote cleaning up.

622
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 4: The West End.

623
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 3: From the outside, at least it appeared that he had

624
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 3: secured his peace without violence.

625
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:33,399
Speaker 2: It was family, orented. You know, everyone was close knit.

626
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:34,479
Speaker 12: It was.

627
00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:49,240
Speaker 2: Really close. I'm sorry, Oh yeah, it was family. Everyone

628
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:53,240
Speaker 2: loved each other, everyone cared. The sisterhood were very strong,

629
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 2: and no matter what happened, we was there for one another.

630
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 2: You know, we was there.

631
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 11: For women him.

632
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 8: I'm sorry, yeah, you moved.

633
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:05,200
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.

634
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 8: Yeah.

635
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 5: Yeah.

636
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 3: Now I'm hearing what Sister Jamila is saying about the

637
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 3: beauty and peace of the community, and I'm hearing what

638
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 3: a man Pleman is saying about rap making his fiery nature,

639
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 3: his gin, his devil a Muslim. It seems like some

640
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:25,799
Speaker 3: ways that a Mam Jamil would have thrown away if

641
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:29,799
Speaker 3: he shot those sheriff's deputies, his own little paradise that

642
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 3: he controlled.

643
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:34,400
Speaker 4: Why would he do that? It just doesn't make sense.

644
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:36,720
Speaker 4: I must be missing something.

645
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 3: Either a man Jamil's transformation from h rap Brown wasn't

646
00:38:41,080 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 3: as complete as some would have us believe, or the

647
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:47,879
Speaker 3: West End was never really that peaceful or something had

648
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 3: thrown him off kilter, or was it just that he

649
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:53,319
Speaker 3: wasn't involved in the shooting as he's been saying for

650
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:56,200
Speaker 3: decades now, there's got to be more to it.

651
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:04,479
Speaker 4: Maybe I just.

652
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:06,319
Speaker 3: Needed to talk to more people who lived in the

653
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:09,240
Speaker 3: West End. So I went to a guy named Balao

654
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 3: Suni Ali. He knew both a Maam Jimil and h

655
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 3: Rap Brown. In the sixties, Blow was a member of

656
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:18,879
Speaker 3: the Black Panther Party in New York City and that's

657
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:19,959
Speaker 3: where he first met Rap.

658
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 13: He was talking to talk that I wanted to hear about,

659
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 13: you know, us controlling our neighborhood, you know, community self determination.

660
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 13: I mean that's what black power is. Black people control

661
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 13: the economics in the politics of an area where we live.

662
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 3: For Balal and Rap, part of creating that community meant

663
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 3: securing it themselves. They trained their comrades on how to

664
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:56,400
Speaker 3: handle guns and they did target practice.

665
00:39:56,920 --> 00:39:59,319
Speaker 13: It was empowering to grow up as a class where

666
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 13: he a person and now you've taken the power within

667
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 13: your hands to defend yourself. So you know that this

668
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 13: level of persecution is not going to continue. You know

669
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 13: it's not going to be my children are not going

670
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:14,440
Speaker 13: to grow.

671
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 8: Up like this.

672
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 3: In the eighties, Blao moved to the West End and

673
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 3: he joined the mass Jed. Blaugh told me there were

674
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:24,200
Speaker 3: at least two things Rapp didn't like and the man

675
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:29,600
Speaker 3: Jamil didn't like. Drugs and cops. Both came into black

676
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 3: communities from the outside and tore them apart. And many

677
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 3: of the people who moved into the West End to

678
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 3: join the mass Jed from black working class neighborhoods in Detroit,

679
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:43,120
Speaker 3: New York and Philadelphia. They had experienced that. On the

680
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 3: nine of March sixteenth, two thousand, Blao was in the

681
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 3: neighborhood at his house. He heard the gunfire near the

682
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:52,280
Speaker 3: mass Jed and when he learned two deputies were shot.

683
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:55,080
Speaker 3: The way he sees it, the blame shouldn't fall in

684
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 3: the shooter or anyone in the community. It should fall

685
00:40:58,080 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 3: in the.

686
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 13: Deputies sign that they was coming in and they was wrong,

687
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:05,800
Speaker 13: because most of the time they come in and they're wrong.

688
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 13: If they get stopped for doing wrong, they deserve what

689
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 13: happened to them.

690
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 3: The idea that a man Jamil might shoot at police

691
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 3: it seemed in line with what blal knew of the man.

692
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:20,839
Speaker 3: But in this case, he didn't think that a man

693
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 3: Jamil was the one who did it because he said he.

694
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 4: Didn't do it.

695
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 13: I knew that what they were saying he was capable of,

696
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 13: But when I heard him say he didn't do that,

697
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 13: I believed he didn't do it, Just like when he

698
00:41:35,239 --> 00:41:39,439
Speaker 13: said anything else any other time, I believe he ain't

699
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 13: never lied to me.

700
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 3: So the way Blal saw it, a man Jamil was

701
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:47,759
Speaker 3: capable of shooting the deputies, but he didn't do it.

702
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:52,760
Speaker 3: What a contradiction. That left me with a lot more questions.

703
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 4: But I did realize the two biggest questions I.

704
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 3: Had been thinking about what actually happened the night of

705
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:00,440
Speaker 3: the shootout and who was a man Jimil?

706
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:00,760
Speaker 8: Really?

707
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 3: Those questions were totally entangled. As peb allows other contention

708
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,240
Speaker 3: that AmAm Jamil was wrongfully convicted. Lots of people believe

709
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:15,880
Speaker 3: that thousands, tens of thousands. Maybe when I was younger,

710
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 3: I did a big investigation that helped free an innocent

711
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 3: man from prison, and the reporting mostly consisted of listening

712
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 3: to the folks who never stopped believing and tracking down

713
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:27,800
Speaker 3: their leads. A Ma'am Jimial's case would be much bigger

714
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 3: with tentacles reaching into shadowy parts of the federal government.

715
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:34,760
Speaker 3: You can spend a lifetime tracking down those kinds of leads.

716
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 3: But not long after I began working on this project,

717
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 3: I read a document that made the reporting seem a

718
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 3: little more realistic. It was a letter that I don't

719
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 3: think was ever meant to go public. The letter came

720
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 3: to me from my producer, Johnny Kaufman, who first started

721
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 3: looking into a Mam Jamial's case. I'd met Johnny through

722
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 3: a friend of a friend, a connection after a random

723
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 3: dinner party. He was looking for a reporter and host

724
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 3: to work with on a podcast he was imagining. The

725
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:12,280
Speaker 3: four page letter was among the reams of court documents

726
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:16,319
Speaker 3: connected to a Maam Jamial's case. Its author Andrew Young,

727
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 3: civil rights leader and confidant to Martin Luther King Junior.

728
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 3: Young was with King when King was assassinated. He would

729
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:27,319
Speaker 3: become an ambassador to the United Nations and the mayor

730
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 3: of Atlanta. Young sent his letter to the Fulton County

731
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 3: District Attorney in Atlanta, the office that prosecuted AmAm Jamil.

732
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:38,600
Speaker 3: It stated May twenty sixth, twenty twenty. That's almost two

733
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 3: decades after his conviction. On his own letterhead, Young wrote, quote,

734
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:46,319
Speaker 3: I believe that the only reason he was convicted was

735
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 3: because of the egregious misconduct of both law enforcement and

736
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 3: the individual prosecutor who handled mister Allamine's trial. Young was

737
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 3: asserting without equivocation that a Maam Jamil was innocent, that

738
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:02,839
Speaker 3: he was wrongfully convicted. Mister Alamine, Andrew Young wrote, has

739
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 3: outstanding character. You have the power to now write an

740
00:44:07,800 --> 00:44:10,520
Speaker 3: a storic wrong. This should be done not only for

741
00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:13,319
Speaker 3: the sake of mister Alamine, but indeed for the sake

742
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 3: of our entire nation and all mankind who yearn for justice.

743
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 3: Strong words right. I felt weary when I first started

744
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 3: working on this project. The community of African American Muslims

745
00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 3: in Atlanta is small. Some folks from the West End

746
00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:32,280
Speaker 3: the are family friends. Why should they go poking around

747
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 3: old pains that the man has already locked up. Gratuitous

748
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:39,320
Speaker 3: true crime stories are not really my thing, but Young's

749
00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 3: letter gave me a reason to keep digging. There were

750
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:47,120
Speaker 3: plenty more people to talk to, and I was ready

751
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 3: to start investigating the details of the shootout to determine

752
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 3: if a man Jimial was responsible for what happened that night.

753
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:58,320
Speaker 8: And I remember that that face, that cold faith. I

754
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 8: couldn't forget that.

755
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:03,760
Speaker 4: That's on the next episode of Radical.

756
00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 3: Radical is a production of Camside Media, Tenderfoot TV, and

757
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 3: iHeart Podcasts. Radical was reported and written by Johnny Kaufman

758
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 3: and me Mossy Secret. Johnny Kaufman is our senior producer.

759
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 3: Sheba Joseph is our associate producer. Editing by Eric Benson,

760
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 3: Johnny Kaufman, Emily Martinez and Matt Cher. Fact checking by

761
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:57,839
Speaker 3: Sophie Hurwitz, Kaylin Lynch and Layla Dos. Original music by

762
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:02,000
Speaker 3: Kyle Murdoch and by Ray Murray, organized noise, sound design

763
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 3: and mixing by Kevin Seaman. Recording by Ewan Leed trem Ewen.

764
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:07,320
Speaker 4: And Sheiba Joseph.

765
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:13,280
Speaker 3: Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slaywan, Ashley Warren, Elijah Papes,

766
00:46:13,719 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 3: Destiny Dingle, and Sabina Mera. The executive producers at Campside

767
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:23,160
Speaker 3: Media are Josh Dean Vanessa, Gregoriatis, Adam Hoff and Matt Cher.

768
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:28,720
Speaker 3: For Tenderfoot TV, executive producers are Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay.

769
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:32,880
Speaker 3: The executive producers at iHeart Podcasts are Matt Frederick and

770
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 3: Alex Williams, with additional support from Trevor Young,