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‘Killing the Messenger’ traces the roots of Black Muslim cult
“Killing the Messenger: A Tale of Radical Faith, Racism’s Backlash and the Killing of a Journalist,” by Thomas Peele; 464 pages, Random House, $26.
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
In “Killing the Messenger,” author Thomas Peele starts with a murder and digs around it until he has unearthed the history of the Black Muslim movement.
He uncovers a story of America that only cracked the surface when a reporter was gunned down on an Oakland, Calif., street in 2007.
The author is an investigative journalist for a newspaper in the East Bay area, which surrounds Oakland. As such, the story of Chauncey Bailey — who was killed by members of the Black Muslim cult — was right in his wheelhouse and he hit it out of the park.
With a sense of immediacy and purpose, Peele reconstructs the story in gripping fashion. He is especially adept at describing personalities.
“Killing the Messenger” puts the reader into the inner sanctum of Your Black Muslim Bakery, a North Oakland institution run by Yusuf Ali Bey, and — after his death — his son Yusuf Ali Bey IV. The author re-creates conversations that would have shocked those outside its walls.
Both Beys lived as gods in their compound, preaching hatred for whites and black self-sufficiency. They surrounded themselves with “soldiers,” culled from ghettos and mostly ex-cons, who would kill or die for their leader. Women were kept as sex slaves, sworn to submissiveness.
The sadistic elder Bey raped women and children in his compound while his fearful minions looked the other way. Murder, government fraud and other illicit activities were overseen by Bey and later, his son.
“Killing the Messenger” starts with the cold-blooded murder of Bailey, a reporter for a black newspaper in Oakland who was writing an expos on the Beys’ cult. After laying the groundwork, the book then barrels back toward its starting point.
As the title suggests, Peele takes pains to illustrate how racial oppression gave rise to the radical pseudo-religion. Later in the book, he uncovers the shoddy inner workings of Oakland City Hall and its undermanned police force.
Racists and the monstrous Bey family receive equal measures of disdain.
“Killing the Measure” is also a fascinating history of the Black Muslim movement in America, going back to the diaspora of job-seeking Southern blacks to industrial cities such as Detroit and Chicago in the first half of the 19th century.
Blacks poured in looking for a better life, but found themselves in squalid ghettoes, forced to take the worst jobs and policed like prisoners of war.
It was in those slums that a con-man named W.D. Fard first exploited that anger and hopelessness. He elevated himself to a god, appropriating elements of Islam and then twisting them into something unrecognizable: the Black Muslim faith.
“Killing the Messenger” leaves no stone unturned in its historical account. The author illuminates each new character — even if it means going back a generation or two — and then puts him into the context of the story. In doing so, he shows how racism and oppression spawned a radical faith rooted in revenge.