NYC Council considering naming Harlem street to honor separatist Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad
January 29, 2023
The New York City Council is considering naming a Harlem street
after controversial Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad.
The City Council is set to rename a Harlem street after Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad — a figure civil rights activists consider a bigot who promoted black separatism.
According to a street-naming list, the corner of West 127th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard would become “The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad Way.”
The site is where Mosque Temple No. 7 — the Eastern regional headquarters of the Nation of Islam — is located.
The honor for Elijah Muhammad is among 128 street renamings on a list before the Council — which will vote on the entire list.
But naming an intersection for Elijah Muhammad along a section of Malcolm X. Boulevard is expected to raise eyebrows at a Tuesday public hearing.
NYPD Patrolman Phillip Cardillo was killed by Nation of Islam radicals in 1972 at Mosque No. 7’s previous location on 116h Street in 1972 while responding to a fake emergency call. No one has been convicted in the slaying.
Malcolm X was a protege of Elijah Muhammad, but the pair had a falling out and Malcolm X split from the Nation of Islam.
The corner of West 127th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard would be named “The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad Way.”
Malcolm X was later assassinated by members of the black religious and nationalist organization in the Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965 — with speculation continuing to rage over whether others, allegedly including Elijah Muhammad, ordered the hit.
Muhammad denied any involvement but said days after the assassination that “Malcolm X got just what he preached.”
Harlem democratic socialist Councilwoman Kristin Richardson Jordan put in the request to honor Elijah Muhammad.
But Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) said the proposal to honor Elijah Muhammad should be removed from the list. The issue will be discussed at the Council’s public hearing Tuesday.
Muhammad was a mentor to Malcolm X before X left the Nation of Islam.
“I’m going to oppose Elijah Muhammad. He was a black supremacist. He was a bad guy,” Holden said. “It’s an insult to Malcolm X Boulevard.”
Councilman Kalman Yeger (D-Brooklyn) said it would be “highly embarrassing for the Council to pass… [the Elijah Muhammad street renaming]. Streets renaming should be reserved for principled and respected individuals.”
The Anti-Defamation League argued the Nation of Islam has “maintained a consistent record of antisemitism and bigotry since its founding in the 1930s.”
“The Nation of Islam opposes racial integration and advocates for the creation of a separate nation for Black people,” the ADL said. “Anti-white doctrines are incorporated into NOI ideology. Unlike many civil rights activists who critique whiteness with regard to power structures and systemic racism, the NOI engages in the demonization of and conspiracy theories about the biological nature of all white people, portraying white people as satanic, sub-human, and inherently inferior to Black people.”
The request to rename the street was made by Harlem Councilwoman Kristin Richardson Jordan.
The civil rights group said Elijah Muhammad “took over and promoted the idea that white people were created by an evil Black scientist and that Black people are the superior race.”
Others point out Elijah Muhammad drew blacks into the Nation of Islam and encouraged self empowerment.
Richardson Jordan’s proposal says Muhammad “served as the inspiration and mentor
to many, by preaching a new form of Islam tailored to the needs and problems of African
Americans, such as economic self-reliance, clean living and the promise of a future in
which African Americans would no longer be oppressed by racial discrimination.”
Some have speculated that Muhammad was responsible for ordering the assassination of Malcolm X.
The request noted Elijah Muhammad’s economic development program for black people was an integral part of the growth of the Nation of Islam. During his tenure in the 1970s, the Nation of Islam owned properties, bakeries, barber shops, grocery stores, laundromats, night clubs, a printing plant, retail stores, farmland and the Guaranty Bank and Trust Company.
The renaming has it backers.
“Absolutely. Elijah Muhammad was a historical figure throughout the nation. It’s a good thing,” said Harlemite Keith Wright, leader of the Manhattan Democratic Party and former state assemblyman,
And Council Republican Minority Leader Joseph Borelli said local council members should be given deference in who they want to honor in their district — even controversial figures.
“I don’t care who council members want to name streets after in their districts. But I don’t want to hear bitching and moaning when we want to honor Christopher Columbus,” said Borelli, who represents a Staten Island district with a significant Italian American population.
Borelli has pushed back on efforts by progressives to eliminate Columbus statues and Columbus Day — arguing the famed explorer has been accused of genocide and mistreating indigenous people.
“All historical figures are human,” Borelli said.
________________
NYC pol wants Nazi allies removed from Broadway’s Canyon of Heroes
January 26, 2023
Manhattan
Borough President Mark Levine says Broadway is no place to honor the
names of Nazi collaborators like Pierre Laval and Henri Philippe Pétain.
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said the city must remove the names of Nazi collaborators Henri Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval from the Canyon of Heroes — almost 100 years after they were honored with a ticker-tape parade.
“There are difficult calls here on the Canyon of Heroes and the question of reconsidering modern monuments in general, but all of us should agree that Nazi collaborators are simply beyond the pale,” Levine, who is Jewish, told The Post.
Pétain and Laval fell into international disgrace after they collaborated with the Third Reich in sending thousands of Jews to their deaths while respectively serving as the top leader and prime minister of Vichy France following the 1941 German conquest.
Laval, the French prime minister at the time of his Oct. 22, 1931 parade, was executed for his crimes in 1945 while Pétain died in prison in 1951 twenty years after his own ticker tape held just four days after that given to his future fellow fascist-loving Frenchman.
Their ignominious falls were particularly rough for Pétain, a man admired worldwide as “The Lion of Verdun” who stopped the Germans from overpowering allied forces in a key 1916 battle of the First World War.
New York City has held ticker tape parades for more than a century to honor admired figures like the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team.WireImage
Despite their roles in one of the biggest crimes in human history, New York City enshrined their names into the Broadway sidewalk two decades ago alongside a long list of military heroes, politicians, sports idols and others honored with parades declared by mayors.
“You might assume that names were added throughout the last century,” Levine said of the names etched onto the Broadway sidewalk. “This is a fairly recent development.”
History has hardly been kind to some of the people once honored by New Yorkers such as former South Vietnam strongman Ngo Dinh Diem, who was honored on Broadway six years before dying in a 1963 military coup backed by the United States.
French
WWI hero Henri Phillippe Pétain became a widely-reviled figure after
collaborating with the Nazis as a leader of the Vichy France puppet
regime during WWII
Pierre
Laval was honored in 1931 while serving as the French prime minister
before betraying his country ahead of his 1945 execution.
But the crimes of Pétain and Laval are on a whole other level, according to Levine, who will champion their removal at a Friday press conference in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
He said he will formally detail his objections to their continued presence in a letter to the City Design Commission, which has the ultimate say on whether the disgraced Frenchmen will become the first people to ever have their names removed from the sidewalk.
While former Mayor Bill de Blasio tried and failed to remove their names, Levine expressed confidence that he can succeed given the role Pétain and Laval played in helping the Nazi regime in killing roughly 6 million Jews during WWII alongside millions of other groups victimized in the Holocaust like disabled people, the Roma, Slavs, prisoners of war and others.
Laval and Pétain’s names can be clearly seen on Broadway
New
York City added the names of the disgraced Frenchmen in the early 2000s
alongside others honored by past ticker tape parades.
Discussions can be held in the future on potentially removing other controversial figures from the Canyon of Heroes, but why not start with two Nazi collaborators tried and convicted by their own country long ago, Levine argues, though French pols have struggled at times with the Pétain legacy considering his WWI heroics.
“They were active participants in a Nazi regime, in Europe in a country
that persecuted and caused the deaths of countless students,” he said.
1 comment:
Petain was a cowardly collaborationist turd.
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