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August 12, 2007

The Black Muslims Of Oakland: Part One

This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

The Black Muslims Of Oakland: Part One

Recent Events

The Black Muslims of Oakland, California, were in the news again on Friday, August 3, when SWAT teams raided the main premises of their bakery. 19 people were arrested from "Your Black Muslim Bakery" at 5832 San Pablo Avenue, and guns were seized. On the previous day a journalist, 57-year old Chauncey Bailey, had been shot dead in a street as he went to work. Mr Bailey had recently been appointed editor of the Oakland Post, and had been working on a story on the Black Muslims. For two months the bakery, founded in 1968, had been under surveillance. Members of the sect were suspected to be involved with the murders of 31-year old Odell Robertson Jnr, who had been gunned down on July 8 this year, and 36-year old Michael J. Wills, shot on July 12.

The Black Muslims have no connection with the better known Nation of Islam, though the founder of the group, Yusuf Bey senior, was inspired by the NOI's former leader, Elijah Muhammad. Among the 19 people seized from the bakery and private residences was 21-year old Yusuf Bey IV, self-proclaimed heir to the Black Muslims' business enterprises. This individual has had numerous brushes with the law, described later. Additional raids took place on Friday at addresses in three other locations in Oakland.

The bakery was found to have dead rats on its roof, and such unsanitary conditions inside, including rat droppings, that it was closed down by environmental health authorities. In December 2006 inspectors found breaches of environmental health regulations.

One of the guns found during Friday's raids was linked by Oakland police to the murder of Chauncey Bailey, who had previously written for the Oakland Tribune newspaper. Bailey, originally from Detroit, had also appeared on cable channel Soul Beat TV. The journalist had received threats from members of the "Your Black Muslim Bakery" at this time, with many happening during Bailey's show, from callers while he was on air.

On Saturday, July 4, it was revealed that a 19-year old handyman and occasional cook at Your Black Muslim Bakery, Devaughndre Broussard, had confessed to the slaying of Chauncey Bailey late on Friday night. He told police that he had been angered by stories which Bailey had previously written about the bakery and the Black Muslims. Used shotgun shells which had been found on the roof of Your Black Muslim Bakery matched those from a weapon found at Broussard's residence, where he had been arrested. Broussard has a previous conviction, for a robbery in San Francisco. He told police that when he killed Chauncey Bailey, he was acting "as a good soldier".

On Monday August 6, a member of the original Black Muslims claimed that he had been the main source for an article Bailey had been writing, about the corruption and dynastic intrigue surrounding the Black Muslims. 43-year old Ali Saleem Bey is a son-in-law of Yusuf Bey senior. He maintained that Antar Bey, one of Yusuf Bey's sons, had taken over the group immediately after the legitimate heir to the Black Muslims' business empire had disappeared. Waajid Aliawaad had been the CEO of Your Black Muslim Bakery at the time Yusuf Bey senior had died of colon cancer on September 30, 2003. Waajid Aliawaad had run Your Black Muslim Bakery until March 2004, when he suddenly vanished. Later, his body was found rotting in a shallow grave near a trail in the Oakland Hills. Antar Bey had mortgaged Your Black Muslim Bakery in 2005,

On Tuesday October 25, 2005, Antar Bey, then aged 24, was shot dead at a gas station in North Oakland as he waited to fill his black BMW car . Police later maintained that the shooting was the result of a car-jacking that had gone wrong, though the Oakland Tribune of the time reported that Antar Bey had been shot at on at least two occasions in the weeks leading up to his killing. His car, with the vanity plates reading "DR BEY", had not been taken from the gas station forecourt. Four months before Antar Bey had been shot, Yusuf Bey senior's adopted son, John Bey, had been wounded in a gun ambush at his home in Montclair. John Bey had managed Universal Distributors Security, one of the Black Muslims' businesses, but had fled with his family after he had been shot.

According to Ali Saleem Bey, Antar Bey had used a forged document to claim his right to control the bakery, and he led a faction that was basically criminal in intent. Other members of the bakery were sidelined as Antar Bey claimed his position as leader. When he was killed, his younger brother Yusuf Bey IV, then aged 19, took over Your Black Muslim Bakery. Within a month of taking control, Yusuf Bey IV was making headlines.

On Wednesday, November 23, 2005 a group of about a dozen black men, wearing suits and bow ties, entered two stores in Oakland around 11.30 pm. Some of the men carried clubs and metal pipes. The owners of these stores, the San Pablo Market and Liquor at 2363 San Pablo Ave., and New York Market at 3446 Market St, were told by the smartly dressed men to stop selling liquor to black men. The gang then attacked the contents of the shops, smashing liquor bottles, throwing food onto the floor, and breaking refrigerators containing alcohol. $15,000 damage was caused in each store. Another store at Third Street, Richmond, owned by a Yemeni man, was also vandalized.

Three days later, members of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam appeared on the streets carrying leaflets, disassociating themselves from the events of Wednesday night. Tony Muhammad of the NOI condemned the reporting of the attacks as "racial, as well as religious profiling at its worst".

On the early morning of Monday, November 28, 2005, New York Market, the Yemeni Muslim-owned store vandalized the previous week, was gutted by fire. According to a fire official, an accelerant had been detected. 19-year old Abdel "Tony" Hamdan, the store clerk who had been working on the Sunday night, had disappeared. He was found later in the day, locked inside the trunk of a Mercury sedan in the parking lot of Safeway supermarket in El Cerrito.

The police examined footage from surveillance cameras at the vandalized stores, and identified six individuals from the Black Muslims, including Yusuf Bey IV. Warrants were issued for their arrests. The attacks on the stores had brought publicity to the group, and proclaimed to the world at large that Yusuf Bey IV was now the leader of the Oakland Black Muslims. The incidents in the liquor-selling stores were strikingly similar to a tactic used by followers of Yusuf Bey senior in January 1993. At that time, employees from a laundry owned by the Black Muslims were implicated in the vandalizing of a store in North Richmond. $1,500 of damage had been caused at the store, and one laundry employee had been arrested. Yusuf Bey senior had justified the attack by saying that Black Muslims had been angered by seeing people gathering in the store to buy drugs.

Yusuf Bey senior had a reason to be angry about drug taking as one of his sons was a drug taker, a tattooed wannabe "gangsta". In September 1994, Akbar Bey, while high on morphine or heroin, had been shot dead by drug pusher Lavelle Stewart outside a nightclub. Just before Stewart shot him with a .357 Magnum twice in the head and twice in the chest, Akbar Bey was involved in an argument over $1,200 worth of drugs which had disappeared from Stewart's car.

On Friday, November 25, 2005, Yusuf Bey IV told the Oakland Tribune that Black Muslims had not been involved in the store attacks, but on Tuesday November 29, 2005, he handed himself in to the police. With him was a 73-year old associate of Bey's father, clarinetist Donald Eugene Cunningham. The pair were arrested on suspicion of vandalism, conspiracy, robbery and making terrorist threats and were placed in North County jail. Bail for their release was set at $200,000 each. Yusuf Bey IV raised bail and was released on December 3. A few days later Cunningham was released, and two more Black Muslims, 19-year old Yasir Hakeem Azzem and 24-year old Kahlil Raheem were arrested, and similar bail conditions were imposed. Later, Jamall Robinson, 19, Dyamen Namer Williams, 19, and Demetrius Harvey, 19, were also arrested.

Yusuf By IV gave a press conference outside Your Black Muslim Bakery on San Pablo in December 2005. He said: "I've lived in Oakland all my life, and I've noticed the growing violence...I've noticed the homicides, drug dealers and prostitution that goes on around these places." Standing next to him was Lorna Brown, his defense attorney. She had defended his father when he was accused of sex offenses in 2003. Bey argued that the Muslim owners of liquor stores who come from Arab countries are acting against Islam. "In their home countries they'd be killed for selling alcohol," he said.

On Wednesday, December 14, 2005 another Yemeni owned store in Oakland appeared to be given intimidation by the Black Muslims, though this time no violence was employed. Abellh Ali, son of the the Happy Times store owner, said: "These guys drove up in three cars, came in here and stood in rows. One of them put this card down on the counter and told me to behave like a real Muslim. They came in three abreast, carrying a flag, like it was the president of the United States." Within a few minutes, the men had gone.

The Yemeni Grocers' Association, representing 300 stores, was fearful of further attacks. Its president, Saleh Mohammed, said at the time of the first incidents: "We need community support right now. It's not just us against them." He claimed that before immigrants from the Middle East began to buy stores in West Oakland in the 1980s, existing outlets only sold alcohol. The immigrants began to sell produce and other types of food. He said: "We're the easiest targets for community blame."

In West Oakland, where poverty is rife, 69 stores sell alcohol, 28 more than California state standards, which specify that there should be only one such store for every 25,000 residents.

On Thursday April 6, 2006 Yusuf Bey IV was arrested while driving his BMW a few blocks from Your Black Muslim Bakery. Oakland police officers Michael Mack and Dave Martinez had noticed that his car had no plates or registration. They did a check, and found that Bey had an outstanding warrant, connected with an incident which had happened in June 2005. He had been charged then with misdemeanor after he resisted a police officer. He had been arguing with the manager of a movie theater, and waving a toothpick in the man's face. When police arrived, Bey refused to be dealt with by a female police officer. He had not attended a pretrial hearing, scheduled for March 30, 2006 at Freemont, and an arrest warrant had been issued.

At that time, he was also awaiting prosecution in Solano County for grand theft of a vehicle and obtaining property under false pretenses. Bey had apparently used someone else's credit card and had used a false name to obtain a $55,000 vehicle from a used car lot in Vallejo.

On Friday April 28 Bey was jailed again. He had been attending a strip joint, the New Century Theater on Larkin Street, San Francisco with four other men. According to a police lieutenant, when the men became too "rambunctious" with the women entertainers, they were asked to "tone it down". An argument arose in one of the upstairs rooms, and the men had asked for the return of their admission fee. The management agreed, but once downstairs, one of the group groped a dancer. Bey and his friends were asked to leave. One of the group then hit a bouncer, and a fight ensued.

Yusuf Bey IV had then driven his car into one of the bouncers, injuring him, and then had tried to run down a second club bouncer. The car, which had the vanity plate "DR BEY" was found in an alley later, and Bey was arrested at 12.35 am. He still awaits trial on charges of aggravated assault.

At the time that Antar Bey had been shot in October 2005, members of the Black Muslims had claimed that a power struggle had been taking place ever since Yusuf Bey senior had died. The recent claims by Ali Saleem Bey about the decline and corruption caused by a "criminal wing" of the family has been denied by Lorna Brown, Yusuf Bey IV's attorney. She said: "I'm not at all convinced just how reliable that the information that was provided to Chauncey Bailey might be, because I know there were bad feelings between these two factions of the family." Ms Brown believes that the reason for Ali Saleem Bey's claims stem from a property dispute.

Your Black Muslim Bakery had specialized in providing employment to underprivileged black men in Oakland, including some former convicts. The bakery had been founded by Yusuf Bey senior in 1968, and made healthy foods such as peach pies, carrot pies, bread, cakes and bean pies. These were free from preservatives, colorants and additives. Now, under the direction of Antar and subsequently Yusuf Bey IV, the name of the Black Muslims has been damaged, associated more with gangsterism than self-pride and self-awareness. The finances for Your Black Muslim Bakery are apparently in a dire state. The mortgage which was taken out by Antar Bey in 2005 was not repaid under its agreed terms, leading to the bakery filing for bankruptcy in October 2006.

There can be no denying that in its hey-day, the Oakland Black Muslims engendered pride and self-respect for many disillusioned young black men. The ideology of Yusuf Bey senior was directly related to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, whom he had first met in 1964. It is almost inevitable that a group which defines itself in racial terms as "superior" to other groups will attract some undesirable elements. In the early 1970s, across the bay from Oakland, renegade members of the Nation of Islam formed their own group called the Death Angels. Still holding to the notions of Elijah Muhammad that white people were devils, created 9,000 years ago by an evil scientist named Yacub, the Death Angels went on to commit the Zebra Killings.

The Black Muslims of Oakland appear to have started out as a group with good intentions. They provided employment prospects and business advice for their membership, as well as feelings of self-worth within a community beset by poverty and crime. As I will show in Part Two however, in the latter years of Yusuf Bey senior's life, elements of corruption were already present within his empire.

Adrian Morgan

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Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at August 12, 2007 8:36 AM

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