The Five-Percent Nation, sometimes referred to as the Five Percenters or the Nation of Gods and Earths (NGE/NOGE), is a black supremacist movement influenced by the Nation of Islam founded in 1964 in the Harlem section of the borough of Manhattan, New York City, by Clarence 13X, a former member of the Nation of Islam who was previously known as Clarence Edward Smith.
Members of the group call themselves Allah's Five Percenters, which reflects the concept that ten percent of the people in the world are elites and their agents, who know the truth of existence and opt to keep eighty-five percent of the world in ignorance and under their controlling thumb; the remaining five percent are those who know the truth and are determined to enlighten the eighty-five percent.
The Nation of Gods and Earths teaches the belief that Black people are the original people of the planet Earth and are therefore the fathers ("Gods") and mothers ("Earths") of civilization. The Nation teaches that Supreme Mathematics and Supreme Alphabet, a set of principles created by Allah the Father, is the key to understanding humankind's relationship to the universe. The Nation teaches that the black man, insofar as the Nation defines this race, is himself God, with the black race being a race of actual gods.
History Founding
The Nation of Gods and Earths was founded by Clarence 13X after he left the Nation of Islam (NOI)'s Temple No. 7 in Harlem, New York, the same temple where Malcolm X was a minister from 1960 to 1963. Multiple stories exist as to why Clarence and the NOI parted ways. Some state he refused to give up gambling; others state he questioned the unique divinity of Wallace Fard Muhammad, whom the NOI deified as the true and living God in person, or that he questioned Fard's godhood because he believed that Fard was born of a white mother. One story states that he was disciplined by the NOI and excommunicated in 1963, but another version of events says that he left of his own free will.
After leaving the NOI, he renamed himself "Allah the Father." He was joined by Abu Shahid, formerly John 37X, who agreed with Allah's questioning of Wallace Fard Muhammad. Allah the Father and Shahid were nicknamed "High Scientists" due to their intense study of lessons. Clarence was joined by Justice, formerly James 109X, and before that, James Howell, who became one of his closest associates until his death.
Clarence proselytized the streets of Harlem, to teach others his views based on his interpretation of NOI teachings. After failing to reach elder adults whom he saw as already set in their ways, he found success with street youth.Knight, Michael Muhamad. The Five Percenters: Islam, Hip Hop, and the Gods of New York. Oxford, England, UK: Oneworld Publications, 2007. Chapter 16 On October 10, 1964, this young group formed the First Nine Born of what became known as the Five-Percent Nation, or later the Nation of Gods and Earths.
Clarence taught his Black male students that they were Gods, just as he was. He taught them that the astral twin of the Black man is the Sun. In Supreme Mathematics, the Black man is symbolized as "Knowledge." The Black women who came into Clarence's growing movement to study along with the males were taught they were symbolic of the planet Earth, because women produce and sustain human existence as does the Earth. Female Five Percenters are also referred to as "Wisdom." The Nation of Gods and Earths' Supreme Wisdom states: "Wisdom is the Original Woman because life is continued through her cipher (womb)."Nation of Gods and Earth. "Supreme Mathematics." Supreme Wisdom. page 8. https://www.scribd.com/doc/302750576/NGE-Supreme-Wisdom
The NGE does not consider itself a religion. Its position is that because adherents themselves, both collectively and individually, are the highest power in the known universe, there is nothing for them to worship outside of themselves.
Clarence developed a curriculum of eight lessons that included the Supreme Alphabets and Mathematics, which he devised, as well as lessons developed by the Nation of Islam's Elijah Muhammad and Wallace Fard Muhammad. The eight lessons were taught in this order, which follows below:
Supreme Mathematics (1–10) Supreme Alphabets (1–26) Student Enrollment (1–10) English Lesson C-1 (1–36) Lost-Found Muslim Lesson No. 1 (1–14) Lost-Found Muslim Lesson No. 2 (1–40) Actual Facts (13) Solar Facts (9)
Each Five Percenter was required to fully "master" each lesson and was expected to be able to "think and reason by forming profound relationships between the lessons and significant experiences within life." Five Percenters were required to share what they had learned with others, and thereby recruit new members.
Social and political influence The FBI opened a file on the Five Percenters in 1965, the height of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements in the United States. In "Disturbance by Group Called 'Five Percenters,'" the FBI refers to the organization as a "loosely knit group of Negro youth gangs.[...] These particular gangs emanate from New York City Public School Number 120 which is a junior high school." The FBI file stated that the organization's name meant "The five percent of the Muslims who smoke and drink."
1965 New York newspaper articles referred to the Five Percenters as a "gang", "hoodlums", and "terror group". Allah the Father and the Five Percenters "had a reputation for being unreachable, anti-white criminals." With the goal of preventing New York from having a race riot or uprising, New York Mayor John V. Lindsay sent Barry Gottehrer, the head of the mayor's Urban Task Force, to meet with the organization the FBI had called a "gang" and "terror group". Gottehrer stated Allah the Father was non-violent, "but was dedicated to his community's well-being."
Gottehrer and Clarence began organizing picnics and airplane rides for the Five Percenters that were funded by New York City through the Urban Task Force. Wakeel Allah's book In the Name of Allah includes a photo captioned: "Clarence (in background) along with Mayor Lindsay (holding baby) on airplane ride with Five Percenters." In 1967, Clarence, with Gottehrer's assistance, opened the Urban League Street Academy, which became known as the Allah School in Mecca.
In 1967, shortly after Clarence and Justice started holding classes at the Street Academy, Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin and Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke visited Father Allah at the academy. In an article titled "The Five Percenters", published in The New Amsterdam News, Rustin wrote:
Leaders have described the group as "neither pro-black nor anti-white." Unlike the NOI, membership is not restricted on the basis of race. There have been from the organization's inception Five Percenters of various ethnicities. The most well-known white Five Percenter is John Michael Kennedy, who met Clarence in 1965. Allah proclaimed Kennedy a "righteous man" and renamed him Azreal. Michael M. Knight's The Five Percenters includes a photo of a gathering of Five Percenters that includes Barkim, who Knight describes as "one of the earliest white Five Percenters" and his siblings. Knight's book includes two photos of Allah with Gottehrer, who Allah called "Moses".
In 2018, members of the Five Percent Nation and Harlem community members applied to the Transportation/Historic Preservation & Landmarks Committee of Manhattan Community Board 10, to have the northwest corner of 126th Street & Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd in Harlem, New York, co-named "Allah, Justice & The Five Percenters Square". The application and subsequent proposal were approved by Manhattan Community Board 10 and the New York City Council. In March 2019, the intersection of 126th Street & Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd in New York was officially co-named "Allah, Justice & The Five Percenters Square".
Conflicts After the founding of the Allah School, the Gods and Earths became more influentialupon the April 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., it quelled a potential rebellion inside Harlem. Allah was assassinated on 13 June 1969, in the lobby of 21 West 112th Street in Harlem, within the Martin Luther King Jr. Towers housing projects, the residence of his wife and children. There have been rumors and theories about assailants and motives, but the murder remains unsolved. The murder was a blow to the movement. According to the direct orders of Allah before his death, some of his earliest disciples, a group of nine men who were called the First Nine Born, carried on the teachings, and his friend Justice assumed an acting leadership role.
The FBI's labeling the Five Percenters as a "gang" in 1965 has caused much trouble for Gods and Earths in the United States. The "gang" label has caused individuals with even remote NGE affiliation to be designated as security threats in jails and prisons in Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and South Carolina. NGE literature has been banned from penal institutions in these and other states, and inmates have been denied privileges enjoyed by those of other persuasions. Such rules were relaxed in 2004 in New York to allow registered "sincere adherent(s)" to study teachings personally, but not share with unregistered inmates during their incarceration.
The group's newspaper, The Five Percenter, condemns the states that impose restrictions on their practice as those who "attempt to define us in ways that seek to criminalize us."Five Percenter Newspaper, Vol 16.8, p.2 In 2009, in Michigan, the Nation challenged a ban on the group's literature among prison inmates, after an inmate was designated a security threat until he renounced his membership. Judge Steven Whalen found no evidence that the group advocated violence and recommended that it be recognized as a legitimate belief system.White, Ed (September 9, 2009) "Nation of Islam sect allowed in prison", The Associated Press.
Beliefs Basis The men of the Five Percent Nation view themselves as Gods, both individually and collectively as the "Original Man." According to the Five Percenter Newspaper, "God first means that it is no longer a judicial argument; centered means everything we do is about God. Culture is the practices and principles of a people at any given time."Five Percenter Newspaper volume 16.5 p.2 Gods and Earths sometimes refer to themselves as scientists, implying their search for knowledge and proof.
The teachings of the Nation of Gods and Earths are passed on through a modern oral tradition. The advancement of a God or Earth is based on their memorization, recitation, comprehension, and practical application of the Supreme Mathematics and the Supreme Alphabet and also the 120 Lessons, sometimes referred to as degrees, a revised version of the Supreme Wisdom lessons of the NOI, originally written by Wallace Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad.
The anthology Knowledge of Self: A Collection of Wisdom on the Science of Everything in Life by Supreme Understanding details the teachings of the Nation of Gods and Earths. Wakeel Allah has written In the Name of Allah: A History of Clarence 13X and the 5 Percenters and The Naked Truth: From the Goal Mind of Abu Shahid, the Elder of the Nation of Gods and Earths.Muhammad, Ashahed (March 21, 2017). "In the Name of Allah, A History of Clarence 13X and the 5 Percenters". The Final Call Newspaper. Retrieved March 26, 2014.
"Five Percent"