Black nationalist institution in California goes down in bankruptcy and disquiet

[Ian David]

By Neil MacFarquhar
Published: August 12, 2007

OAKLAND, California: A federal judge's order to liquidate the assets of Your Black Muslim Bakery will shutter one of this city's black nationalist institutions, a step called long overdue by many members of the clergy and community activists.

"They had veered far, far away from the basic tenets of the Muslim faith," said Amos Brown, senior pastor at the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco. "They had become agents and perpetrators of terror and vigilantism."

The bankruptcy ruling to pay off some $900,000 in debt and back taxes came a week after the killing of a local journalist, Chauncey Bailey Jr., a case in which a handyman employed by the bakery is a prime suspect. Bailey, who had been investigating the bakery's finances for a newspaper article, was shot at close range in daylight in downtown Oakland on Aug. 2.

Yusuf Bey opened the bakery, famous for its bean pies, in the late 1960s, becoming a well-regarded figure by relentlessly advocating black self-reliance. Bey and his followers drew their inspiration from Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam leader. Several clerics in the Bay Area recall that Muhammad excommunicated Bey in the early 1970s, but the reasons were murky.

More:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/12/america/bakery.1-113321.php

[noiretextatique]

1. a lot of nasty business going on with them

and it is time to end.
the Chauncey Bailey killing was the last straw.