by Dr. Ridgely A. Mu’min Muhammad

Here at Muhammad Farms in Bronwood, Ga we have a treasure in one of our great pioneers and
farmers, Bro. William Muhammad. He just got out of the hospital so we thought that the readers would
like to meet him.

Bro. William was born in Mississippi on March 14, 1901. This coming March he will be 100 years
old. He acts as “father” to over 90 children and is the natural father of 50. His youngest
is 20 years old. He attributes his long and productive life to hard work, the farm, and the
teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

He was one of the first two pioneers sent down here to Georgia to run the Nation’s farm in
1966. They had to clear thousands of acres of woods for crop land. However, the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad made sure that they had all the money and equipment that they needed to make the farm
successful.

Back in the 1960’s and 70’s there were many small black owned stores in Albany that bought
produce directly from the Nation’s farm, but since that time these small stores went out of
business. The larger stores no longer bought vegetables locally and the vegetable production in this
area basically stopped. The larger chains buy from corporate farms and keep the produce in large
warehouses in another state, then ship the produce back into smaller towns like Albany.

Here is part of Bro. Williams testimony:

William: “There wasn’t nobody down here growing vegetables. They called this a dead area.
We did more with this land, this old battlefield land, with vegetables than anybody in Georgia. It
wouldn’t produce nothing here but corn and wheat, barley. When we got started back with the
vegetables the people knew that we were producing vegetables with none of those chemicals in it.

What happened is that a farmer grew some kale and collard greens and turnip greens and he put
that DDT on there. A lot of people got sick and died off of that. But we wouldn’t allow none of
that on our farm. We wouldn’t let them fly over and spray that stuff either.”

Q.: So that was back in the 60’s right?

William: “Right. Back then and right today they come by asking for vegetables cause they
know we don’t use chemicals. We use organic. Many people don’t know what organic means. It don’t
just mean one thing. You can take leaves as a good organic that you can put in the field, along with
cow manure or horse manure, you have good deal.”

He has lived to see the Nation lose that farm and get a part of it back in 1994. During the time
that the Nation had loss the farm, Bro. William chose to stay in Georgia and attempt to farm on his
own. He like other black farmers had little success at getting loans from the local Farmers Home
Administration due to discrimination. He has also filed a claim in the class action lawsuit against
the USDA. However, he like many other black farmers have not received any compensation, but are
still fighting against an unending stream of red tape between them and justice.

In the interview he went into the history of how he was chosen to come to the farm in Georgia and
what they went through to set things up. He also talked about what happened when the Nation fell and
what has happened since Minister Farrakhan, using the Three Year Economic Program, got part of the
old farm back.

He also went into detail about how Nation did not have enough money left over for equipment when
it got the farm land back in 1994. In the first few months Bro. William and I had to borrow
equipment from other farmers and get local black farmers to help them put in the first crop in 1995.

Later in the interview we asked him about his most recent hospital stay which produces more
evidence that we need facilities to take care of our pioneers and elders ourselves in our own health
and convolesence facilities. He went to his doctor to check on the congestion in his lungs and
discovered that he had contracted pneumonia in both of his lungs.

When he went into a local hospital in Albany Georgia, one of the doctors put the I.V. needle in
his flesh instead of his vein. This caused his arm to blow up like an inner tube, while he was
asleep. When he awoke his arm was bleeding and severely swollen. He could not lift it up and rang
for the nurse. The nurse took another 20 minutes to get there.

He had to stay over for an extended period in the hospital for them to get that swelling down.
Fortunately, it did go down and he is home now. We started to do an article on him when he was in
the hospital, but thought better of it, since he was actually in the hands of strangers. We thank
Allah for bringing him safely through his ordeal. It would have been a tragedy indeed, if after his
long years of struggle, we would have lost him because of a careless doctor.

His story is fascinating. We will be doing more interviews with him and other pioneers who were
on Muhammad Farms in the early days. It would be well worthwhile to visit Bro. William and Muhammad
Farms to see a living legend or invite him to your local areas to share with the youth what it takes
to be a pioneer for freedom. For more of his story read “Interview with a 100 year old
Pioneer” at: http://muhammadfarms.com/The%20Farmer%20Newsletter.htm