MXGM Self-Defence Manual

Moreover, although it's unclear how much the national Nation
of Islam (NOI) leadership knew or learned about the BM,
there's no question of the local NOI's eventual absorption of
the BM-under Minister Jeremiah X. Pugh. In fact, although the
BM was originally just local "stick-up kids" culled from neighborhood
gangs, their being swallowed by the NOI would eventually
turn them into a truly powerful and terrifyuing criminal
enterprise-completely divorced from everything that the NOI
had stood for since its founding in 1930.
Sadly, most of the high level tricks which the government
employed against the BPP were also used against the BM/NOI;
namely, Co-option, Glamorization of Gangsterism, Separation
from the Most Advenced Elements and Raw Fear.
that they were hustlers, stick-up kids, or both. So the same way
that the Italian Mafia would contribute huge sums to the
Catholic Church, the BM would do with Philly's Temple No. 12.
The national NOI, however, had been under close scrutiny and
surveillance by intelligence agencies for decades. In fact, by the
time of this death, the NOI's founder, the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad, had in excess of one million pages of files in the
archives of the FBI alone! (Anyone who still believes that the
assassination of Malcolm X did not have a hidden U.S. government
hand behind it, has no clear idea of the threat that the
NOI was perceived to be at that time). As a result of their surveillance,
the intelligence agencies knew who were the BM's
financial contributors to the NOI.
Thus, it must be understood that although the NOI and BPP
had different ideologies and styles, to most Black youth, both
held out the promise of helping them to obtain what they most
desired: self-respect, dignity and freedom.
Interestingly, the puritanical NOI's dealings with the founders of
the BM were similar to that of the Catholic Church's historical
relationship with the Italian Mafia. That is, the BM members
who attended NOI religious services did so strictly on that basiswhile
still coming to the attention of the local NOI leadership as
unusually good financial contributors. And within the lower
class Black community being served, everybody knew that meant
Overshadowing this, of course, were the bloody assaults that the
FBI and local police were levelling against other Black radical
and revolutionary groups, like the local and national BPP
branches, the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and
scores of smaller formations.
The FBI first tried to recruit Minister Pugh as a snitch
against the local BPP by telling him that the BPP was out to
get him and supplant the local NOI for Black youth's loyalties.
Pugh, to his credit, didn't take the bait and also avoided
getting his Temple No. 12 involved in a war with the BPP,
although he had to suspect that his taking of blood money
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Liberation or Gangsterism