Here is a short piece in honor of Brother Malcolm on the anniversary of his passing 50 years ago.

On a cool fall morning in 2013 Martin and I visited Ferncliff Cemetery in Westchester County, New York. We walked between the unassuming headstones and stood humbly before the graves of Malcolm X, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz and Betty Shabazz.

Here lies Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz

Ferncliff Cemetery is located in Hartsdale, Westchester County, New York. Malcolm X is interred in section Pinewood B, Grave 150. The map below outlines the approximate location of the grave.

Ferncliff Cemetery Map to the graves of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz; courtesy of Google Maps

Upon our visit we found comfort and hope in the words of Ossie Davis:

Eulogy delivered by Ossie Davis at the funeral of Malcolm X

Faith Temple Church Of God

February 27,1965

“Here – at this final hour, in this quiet place – Harlem has come to bid farewell to one of its brightest hopes -extinguished now, and gone from us forever. For Harlem is where he worked and where he struggled and fought – his home of homes, where his heart was, and where his people are – and it is, therefore, most fitting that we meet once again – in Harlem – to share these last moments with him. For Harlem has ever been gracious to those who have loved her, have fought her, and have defended her honor even to the death.

It is not in the memory of man that this beleaguered, unfortunate, but nonetheless proud community has found a braver, more gallant young champion than this Afro-American who lies before us – unconquered still. I say the word again, as he would want me to : Afro-American – Afro-American Malcolm, who was a master, was most meticulous in his use of words. Nobody knew better than he the power words have over minds of men. Malcolm had stopped being a ‘Negro’ years ago. It had become too small, too puny, too weak a word for him. Malcolm was bigger than that. Malcolm had become an Afro-American and he wanted – so desperately – that we, that all his people, would become Afro-Americans too.

There are those who will consider it their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee, even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of the history of our turbulent times. Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial and bold young captain – and we will smile. Many will say turn away – away from this man, for he is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverter and an enemy of the black man – and we will smile. They will say that he is of hate – a fanatic, a racist – who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them : Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you would know him. And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him.

Malcolm was our manhood, our living, black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. And, in honoring him, we honor the best in ourselves. Last year, from Africa, he wrote these words to a friend: ‘My journey’, he says, ‘is almost ended, and I have a much broader scope than when I started out, which I believe will add new life and dimension to our struggle for freedom and honor and dignity in the States. I am writing these things so that you will know for a fact the tremendous sympathy and support we have among the African States for our Human Rights struggle. The main thing is that we keep a United Front wherein our most valuable time and energy will not be wasted fighting each other.’ However we may have differed with him – or with each other about him and his value as a man – let his going from us serve only to bring us together, now.

Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man – but a seed – which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is – a Prince – our own black shining Prince! – who didn’t hesitate to die, because he loved us so.”

 

Ossie Davis, “Eulogy Delivered by Ossie Davis at the Funeral of Malcolm X, Faith Temple Church of God, February 27, 1965” Malcolm X, last modified February 21, 2015, www.malcolmx.com/eulogy/

Revisiting the Brooklyn Mosque on Powers Street

Early last year I happened to come across a passage from an unpublished memoir in the New Yorker by Joseph Mitchell, a former columnist for the magazine. Mitchell would wander New York, allowing the city to guide his steps. He was drawn to places of worship in particular.  Sometime during Ramadan in the 1960s he found himself at the Muslim Mosque Inc. on Powers Street in Brooklyn. Read the original post here.

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This piqued our interest and so began the search for more information. The bookshelves exhaled and crowded our desks with articles, books and news clippings. We suspected this to be New York’s first mosque. Martin and I visited and reported on the Muslim Mosque Inc. in March of 2013. Upon visiting we unfortunately found the mosque closed. Eager for more we concluded our post asking readers for more information.

We were recently contacted by Alyssa H. a board member of the mosque. Alyssa and her husband Pete reached out to us after reading our post and invited Martin and I to revisit the mosque. This time we were greeted by warm smiles and an open door. Alyssa graciously showed us the space and shared her knowledge on the history of the mosque and her own memories growing up in the Muslim Mosque Inc. community. Our conversation with Alyssa will be published in a forthcoming post.

The Powers Street mosque was originally constructed in 1885 and served as a Protestant church. It was later used as a public hall of the Democratic Club and was finally acquired and became a mosque in 1931. An article published in the Herald Tribune from 1937 details the early history of the mosque. A full transcript follows:

New York Herald Tribune, Sunday, September 5, 1937

Mahometans Refurbish Only Mosque in City for Holy Month of Ramadan Starting Nov. 5

Brooklyn Edifice Soon Will Hear Praises of Allah Again, as in Tartar Home

Weekly Service on Friday

Up to 200 Faithful Attend Usual Evening Prayer

By James G. Simonds

As repairs to the mosque at 108 Powers Street, Brooklyn, the only real mosque in New York near completion, the followers of the Prophet Mahomet are preparing to answer the call to prayers given by the Imam Hussain Rafikoff. The mosque does not have a minaret, as did the mosque of the little Tartar village of Iwje, near Vilna, in what was formerly Russia and is now Poland, from which the Imam came to the United States twenty-nine years ago.

Speaking of the services in the mosque, Imam Rafilowich said, “In the village I came from we used to have services five times a day. My uncle, who was Imam (prayer leader) of the village, would go up on the minaret and call the people of the village and they would all come to the mosque.”

One Service Held Weekly

In Brooklyn it is entirely different, the Imam said. The congregation consists of working people, who are unable to get away from their jobs to attend the prayer meetings. Services are held only once a week, on Friday evenings. Then the imam and his assistants enter the mosque, and give the call to prayers from the pulpit.

The mosque itself was originally built as a Protestant church. Later it became a Democratic club, and finally about six years ago it was purchased by a group of devout Mahometans.

The building has high iron steps leading to the front entrance on the second floor. It contains a large hall, with a pulpit opposite and to the east of the entrance, so that during the entire service the Mahometans face the direction of the Holy City of Mecca.

Many Races Represented

The group that answers the call to prayers on Friday evenings comes from all parts of the city, and represents many races belonging to the Mahometan religion. It includes Arabs, Tartars, Syrians, Egyptians, Turks, Afghans, East Indians, Albanians and Malayans, as well as several converted Christians.

Before coming to the mosque each of the Mahometans must wash himself thoroughly, and must do nothing which would impair what is known as his state of “legal purity” before the service. Entering the mosque, members of the congregation must leave their shoes outside the door.

The imam wears a flowing, dark-green robe with a high collar and wide sleeves, and a green fez trimmed with white to distinguish him from the congregation and his assistants. During the service he has one official helper, but certain members of the congregation help him lead some of the prayers.

Some Use Prayer Rugs

Each prayer service opens with the formula “Allah Akbar” (“Praise be to Allah”), which is repeated by the congregation. Then the imam recites the first chapter of the Koran, which is called the Fatiha. The Mahometans kneel facing him. Some of them have prayer rugs, but for the most part they kneel on a covering placed on the floor for that purpose.

There are two special services during the Mahometan year, one on the day ending the month of fasting, Ramadan, and the other on the tenth day of the month of Zu-l-Heggeh, which corresponds to the day on which those who are making the pilgrimage to the Holy City make their sacrifices in Mecca.

All services are conducted in Arabic, the language of the Koran, although the most numerous racial group attending the mosque is that of the Tartars, who come from what is present-day Poland.

These Tartars are descendants of the Tartar hordes of Tamerlane the Great. They entered Russia almost six centuries ago and became engaged in a war with the Lithuanians. After the war many of them settled on Lithuanian soil and have remained there since, although the country has changed masters many times.

At the usual evening prayer service about 100 to 200 Mahometans are present, but on special occasions many more attend. The devout Mahometans keep their heads covered during the entire service. It does not matter what kind of headdress they wear, so all types may be seen during the service.

They kneel facing the pulpit while praying, and then listen to the sermon of the Imam. On either side of the pulpit hang the American flag and the green banner of the Prophet. On one wall of the mosque is a silk drape with a quotation from the Koran.

During the month of fast, Ramadan, this year from November 5 to December 5, there will be prayers several times every week.

The fast is one of utmost importance to the Mahometans, for it is one of the five pillars, or absolute requirements, of the Islamic faith. It is supposedly during this month that the Koran was revealed.

The conclusion of the fast is marked by a celebration known as “Eed es-Sagheer” (the minor festival), which is supposed to be the most joyful occasion of the Mahometan year.

On the other of the two chief festivals of the Mahometan year, on the tenth day of the month of Zu-l-Heggeh, the last in the Mahometan calendar, there is a general celebration among the Mahometan population of New York. At the time of this celebration, known as “Eed-el-Kurban,” (the great festival), there are other services besides the one in the mosque. Nearly 1,000 other Mahometans usually gather, sometimes in the Royal Palace Hall, 18 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn.

The mosque is much the same today. The lower level serves as a multipurpose gathering space. The two staircases at the east end of the building lead up to the main prayer area. The exterior iron staircase is no longer used. The walls on both levels are adorned with decades of history, from donor plaques, to banners, and original artwork by the mosque attendees. Additional images can be found in the gallery.

Mitchell, Joseph. 2013. “Street Life: Becoming part of the city.” The New Yorker, February 11 & 18. p. 66.

Simonds, James G. 1937. “Mahometans Refurbish Only Mosque in City for Holy Month of Ramadan Starting Nov. 5.” The New York Herald Tribune, September 5.

Muslim Mosque Inc. in Brooklyn, NYC

I recently stumbled upon a passage from an unpublished memoir in The New Yorker by Joseph Mitchell, a former writer for the magazine. Mitchell’s imagery and encounters in the city were fascinating, especially his musings on a Mosque in Brooklyn in the 1960s.

The following quote prefaces the article.

Joseph Mitchell was on the staff of this magazine from 1938 until his death, in 1996. Born in 1908 into a prosperous family of North Carolina cotton and tobacco growers, he came to New York City at the age of twenty-one, to pursue a career as a writer. Arriving jut as the Depression set in, he heeded the advice of one of his first editors, at the Herald Tribune: walk the city; get to know every side street and quirk and character. He did this, obsessively, for the rest of his life. Mitchell profiled the Mohawk steelworkers who erected many of Manhattan’s skyscrapers; and McSorley’s old Ale House, the city’s most venerable tavern; and George Hunter, the caretaker of a ramshackle African-American cemetery on Staten Island; and Lady Olga, the bearded lady in countless circus sideshows. What follows here is in the initial chapter of a planned memoir that Mitchell started in the late sixties and early seventies but, with other writings after 1964, never completed. 

Mitchell writes of being drawn towards places of worship, “specifically to old churches that have undergone a metamorphosis…” He goes on to write about two such buildings in which he would often find himself.

The other building is about a dozen blocks away, on Powers Street. It is much plainer. It is a steep-roofed, clapboard-sided, two-story building with tall wooden doors and tall, colored-glass windows. Except for one appendage, it closely resembles a New England town hall. It was built in 1885, and for many years it was in fact a public hall. Its first story was the clubhouse of the Democratic club of the Thirteenth Assembly District and its second story was a hall that was rented out for dances, parties, and wedding receptions, and for lodge and labor-union meetings. In the early thirties, a group of Muslims from all over the city got together and bought the building and turned it into a mosque. The only outward sign of this a minaret that has been constructed on the roof, straddling the ridgepole. It is a dummy minaret; no muezzin ever climbed up in it and cried out the call to prayer; it is wholly symbolic. It is a wooden minaret, it is octangular, it is louvred, and it is surmounted by an iron rod holding aloft a wooden crescent painted gold. In front of the building, in a narrow little dooryard, is a glass-fronted signbox containing a faded sign in which lines in Arabic and lines in English alternate. The lines in English read: “God is the Master of All. Muslim Mosque, Inc. There is No Other God But God. Muhammad is a Messenger of God.” The Muslims are Russians who came here from several parts of Russia and from Poland and Lithuania. Some are Tatars. Among themselves, they speak Russian, they use Arabic in their Services. People in the neighborhood call them “The Turks.” Just as the three-barred cross casts a Slavic aura over South Fifth Place, the golden crescent on the minaret up on the ridgepole of the mosque casts an Islamic aura, a Baghdadian aura, over the factories and wooden tenements and one-and two family houses and vacant lots of Powers Street. One spring day several years ago, during Lent, I was on the Driggs Avenue bus riding through Williamsburg and I remembered reading in a newspaper that in this particular year, Lent, both Roman and Eastern Orthodox, and Ramadan as well would all come around the same time, I got off the bus and walked over a couple blocks and looked in Holy Trinity and, just as I had hoped, a Lenten Mass or Liturgy was going on and I went in and attended it, and then I walked over to the mosque on Powers Street and looked in there, and just as I had hoped, a Ramadan service of some kind was going on and I took off my shoes and went in and attended it. 

We first heard mention of the origins of this mosque in New York Panorama (1938) – part of the WPA guide series. Our post on the Real Muslims of Lower Manhattan highlights passages from the guide. Here is a snippet on the Brooklyn mosque:

The Turks are exclusively Mohammedans. The only real mosque in the city, at 108 Powers Street in Brooklyn, claims most of the devout. Some belong to the Mohammedan Unity Society at 67 West 125th Street. (p. 117)

In our search for more details we were able to find a newspaper clipping from 1923 that announces the intention to build a mosque in New York City – we think it might be this very Brooklyn mosque. A transcription of the clipping follows the image.

N.Y. To Have Mohammedan Mosque

(Crusader Service)

New York. July 28 – Mohammedans living in this city, led by Dr. Abdul Suleiman, native of Arabia, have started a drive to win Negroes [t]o their Mohammedan faith by stressing the fact of the absolute equality of races and genuine brotherhood under Mohammedanism, as in opposition to the well-known attitude of white Christians. A mosque is to be built in this city soon. 

Upon visiting the mosque we found the doors closed and the gates locked. A kind neighbor, likely suspicious of our curious behavior, told us that the building only opens occasionally for funerals. Additionally, he informed us that the caretaker lives next door. Unfortunately, the caretaker was away (or ignoring us) on the day of our visit. Muslim Mosque Inc. is located at 104 Powers St., Brooklyn, NY 11211. Additional images can be found in the Gallery.

While this site may indeed be the first formally registered mosque in New York City (the Harlem address remains to be investigated as well) it is probable that more informal musallas and prayer spaces were established by the earlier Muslim inhabitants of New York. Nevertheless, it’s remarkable that this Brooklyn mosque has endured down through the decades.

It should be noted, that though they share the same name, this mosque in Brooklyn is different from the Muslim Mosque Inc. established by Malcolm X in 1964.

We’re interested in learning more about this mosque’s history and the history of its congregants. If anyone has information on this mosque, please share it with us.

Mitchell, Joseph. 2013. “Street Life: Becoming part of the city.” The New Yorker, February 11 & 18. p. 66.

New York Panorama. 1938. New York: Ramdom House.

“N.Y. to Have Mohammedan Mosque.” The Afro American. 27 July 1923. http://www.afro.com/afroblackhistoryarchives/google.htm. (accessed 12 March 2013)