They call themselves Five Percenters
The Department of Corrections calls them trouble
BY ALEX TODOROVIC
Five Percent Nation is a loose-knit religious organization that split
from the Nation of Islam in 1964. The group's lack of structure and young
members have prompted the South Carolina Department of Corrections to
label the group a "security threat," and treat it as a "gang."
Because of their affiliation with Five Percent, about 60 South
Carolina inmates have been in solitary confinement for the past year. They
are allowed 5 hours of exercise a week, in handcuffs and leg chains, and
receive limited visits.
But where the Department of Corrections (DOC) sees a threat, Five
Percenters and members of the Nation of Islam (NOI) see religious
persecution.
Four of the 60 inmates in lock-down recently filed suit in U.S.
District Court against six prison administrators, including Michael Moore,
DOC director. It was Moore who last year ordered the lockup of 300 inmates
a week after riots rocked the Broad River Correctional Facility. Inmates
rioted and took hostages after Moore implemented a policy forbidding long
hair and beards.
Steven Bates, director of the South Carolina ACLU, said that because
a few rioters were associated with Five Percent Nation the department
placed 300 suspected members in lock-down across the state. "Those who
were released had to convince officials that they were never Five
Percenters or renounce their faith by signing a form," he said.
The four plaintiffs represented by the ACLU and Southern Center for
Human Rights say they were not involved in the riots and claim they are in
lock-down indefinitely because they refused to sign a paper renouncing
their religion.
The attorney representing the plaintiffs, Robert Bensing, said, "Due
to the harsh conditions of solitary confinement, several prisoners have
recently signed renunciation forms" after being confined in solitary for
nearly a year.
DOC has also banned all Five Percent literature and, according to
Bensing, some prisons forbid the writings of Elijah Muhammed, which the
NOI hold sacred. NOI has for decades been recognized by federal courts as
a religion.
While Five Percenters do not claim any scripture unique to their
religion, followers often read the Quaran or Elijah
Muhammed's Message to the Black Man, the same texts read by NOI
members. Members from a NOI community in Virginia are planning to
demonstrate in South Carolina in the near future in a show of solidarity.
The department's policy manual requires that a report of rules
violation be completed for every inmate placed in solitary. A report for
Five Percenter Mario Wagner lists the reason for his segregation as,
"Pending investigation for inciting or creating a disruption of
institutional operations."
Citing the lawsuit, department officials refused to discuss the
inmates in lock-down, the classification of gangs, prison policy regarding
gangs nor what criteria are used to determine a legitimate religion.
Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Faye Pollard initially said
that the group was considered a gang, but later amended that comment to
"security-threat group." She said, "They are not a significant management
concern for us at this time."
Pollard stressed that the government does not track inmates based on
their religious beliefs, but can track according to behavior and conduct.
The federal prison system reserves judgement as to whether Five Percenters
are members of a religion.
Georgia's Department of Corrections has paid "closer attention" to its
small group of "suspected" Five Percenters, according to spokesman Mike
Light, but does not treat them as a gang. "We're sort of watching them
like they were loosely affiliated, a group of people with similar
interests," he said.
This group that causes corrections departments to split hairs over
terms like "gang" and "religion" was founded in 1964 by Clarence 13X after
he left Nation of Islam.
Born Clarence Smith in 1929, he moved to Harlem from Virginia in 1946
and joined the NOI several years later. He worshipped at Temple No. 7,
then under the leadership of Malcolm X, was a gifted speaker and rose
quickly to the position of student minister. When Clarence 13X left NOI in
1963, he took the lessons of the honorable Elijah Muhammed to the streets
of New York. Five Percent doctrine remains closely linked to NOI
teachings.
Clarence 13X added to Elijah's teachings, but rejected the NOI belief
that founder Wallace Fard was God, reasoning instead that the collective
black man was God. The religion is named after the idea that only five
percent of the population is righteous.
Thanks to Clarence 13X's close relationship with Mayor John Lindsey,
in 1967 the Five Percenters leased a prime piece of Harlem property from
the city. The "Allah School in Mecca" still serves as Five Percent
headquarters. Painted above the building's entrance are the words "The
Black Man Is God."
Clarence 13X was killed by unknown assailants two years after Allah
School in Mecca was opened, but Five Percenters believe city police were
behind the plot.
Clarence 13X taught that once a man achieved mastery of self, he
became God, to the extent that he controlled his own destiny. Five Percent
men refer to themselves as Gods and women as Earths, and the religion is
commonly referred to as The Nation of Gods and Earths.
Five Percenters depart from NOI in their teaching of the Supreme
Alphabet and Supreme Mathematics, an arcane system devised by Clarence 13X
wherein each letter or numeral denotes a concept with an accompanying
parable. "A" stands for Allah, "B" is Be or Born, "C" is See and so on.
This process of teaching is referred to as "dropping science" or
"sciencing out."
For example, the 14th degree (letter) of the Supreme Alphabet "N"
stands for Now and Nation, and begins something like this:
"Now is the time for the Black man to wake up and come into the
realization of Islam, which is the true and righteous Self, which is his
true Nature and his true Nation."
Clarence 13X's esoteric street gnosis was delivered in a staccato
"rap" that mesmerized New York City youth. Members were trained to deliver
their rap, and the group won converts by the hundreds. Today the group
numbers in the tens of thousands in New York City alone.
From its inception, according to social science professor Yusuf
Nuruddin of Medgar Evers College in New York, the prison system was an
important conduit for the religion fanning across the country.
In an environment where a bowel movement is a public event and every
request a power struggle, adherence to a haughty ideology that deifies the
collective Black Man is a political act, a manner in which to register
protest against the institution.
There are, no doubt, some followers who join Five Percent precisely
for that reason. Black supremacist ideology, as Nuruddin has noted, tends
to flourish in environments of impoverishment and decay because the
message speaks directly to disenchanted.
By the mid-seventies Five Percenters had become part of the
African-American inner city experience, and 10 years later the group had
organized meetings on the West Coast, especially in Los Angeles.
Contemporary rap artists like Rakim, Big Daddy Kane and Lakim Shabazz
have used the Five Percent flag on album covers and have written lyrics
influenced by its doctrine.
Five Percent continues to be dominated by young adherents. Part of the
religion's allure is that there is no leader and the group's meetings,
called parliaments, generally occur in public places.
Some members of NOI were once Five Percenters, according to NOI member
and printer H. Khalif Khalifa. The group has always been viewed as the
most threatening Islamic group because they are young and win converts
preaching racial consciousness with a potent inner-city parlance.
While Five Percenters are Black Nationalists, they do not preach
violence. Five Percenter Bilal Allah noted in an article, "The task at
hand is to maintain one's own righteous existence while teaching others to
be righteous. We place major emphasis on being articulate and well-read."
Arguments in court will likely revolve around what constitutes a
legitimate religion. Bensing pointed out that the 4th Circuit has
recognized Wicca as a religion, a group with a loose structure like Five
Percent.
"If we lose," Bensing said, "I know we'll go to the 4th Circuit." The
decision could affect the treatment of Five Percenters across the country.
