Muslims in Alabama

When the white residents of rural, depressed St. Clair County, deep in the pines of north central Alabama, heard last fall that the Black Muslims had purchased nearly 1,000 acres for a farm and ranch in the county, they were horrified. Tales spread that the black separatist cult planned to bring hordes of blacks onto the farm, seize political control of the county and drive out the whites. Some rumors even had the Muslims using the farm as a staging area for commando raids on the dingy nearby towns of Pell City and Ashville.

The reaction was swift and predictable. It began with officially sanctioned moves, and was encouraged when Governor Albert Brewer declared full state support for efforts to drive the Muslims out. The state filed several suits seeking to invalidate the Muslim purchase. Farm workers and whites dealing with the Muslims were repeatedly arrested on spurious charges. The tiny Pine Forest Missionary Baptist Church, whose cemetery is surrounded by Muslim land, filed damage suits of $250,000 against the Muslims for trespassing. Unofficial harassment was even worse. Six cows on the farm were shot and killed. Ray Wyatt, the white Pell City automobile dealer who sold the acreage to the Muslims, began receiving a dozen threatening phone calls a day. Acid was poured on cars in his lot. Then, just before Christmas, his office was ravaged by fire.

Court Order. In mid-December, a temporary court order halted the officially sanctioned harassment. This week civil-liberties lawyers backing the Muslims and their few white partners are scheduled to go into U.S. District Court in Montgomery to seek a permanent injunction against the anti-Muslim drive. Nevertheless, local resistance to the Muslim intrusion remains high in St. Clair, where about 85% of the residents are white.

The Muslim public relations man, Walter Turner, claims that fears of a black takeover are groundless. The Muslims, he says, have no plans other than turning the farm into "the showplace of the South," to supply high-quality food to Muslim restaurants and markets in several northern cities. The modern, $750,000 farm, with its own meatpacking and vegetable-canning operations, will provide 150 badly needed jobs for black and white local residents, add taxes to the county's income, and boost the business of local suppliers. But whites, remembering the fire-eating rhetoric of Malcolm X and the violence that has on occasion erupted among Muslims, remain unconvinced.

Much of the uproar came about as a result of the way the Muslims got their land. Ray Wyatt, 41, a gospel-singing segregationist, is hardly the sort to advance the cause of the black man. Yet it was he who sold his 376-acre Big Beaver Ranch to the Muslims for $115,000 last May. He claims that he did not know he was dealing with the Muslims at the time. But there was little doubt of Muslim involvement in July, when Wyatt and a local dentist, Dr. Robert McClung, sold the Muslims an additional 541-acre parcel for a quick $20,000 profit. McClung, similarly, was an unlikely ally of the black man; he is past president of the local John Birch Society. Their neighbors were particularly enraged, since the pair had apparently been motivated solely by profit. In addition to the land sales, Wyatt was also offered the job of personnel manager at the farm, and the Muslims promised to buy trucks and cars from him.

No White Women. Wyatt professes that he acted not only for profit but to bring new industry to St. Clair. He also expresses growing admiration for the Muslims. "The more I find out about the Muslims, the better I like 'em," he says. "They don't believe in smoking, drinking or adultery: they have no interest in white women; they believe in hard work and segregation."

Ray Wyatt's brother Wallace, 45, does not agree. Wallace first exposed the land deal. Later, he signed a trespassing warrant against his brother. Wallace Wyatt says he regrets the need for such action, but explains: "I'd rather see my brother in jail than with the Muslims. I feel like when they get through using him, they will kill him."

The Muslims have remained generally unperturbed at the uproar, except for one remark by Turner that, if the whites resorted to violence, "we will send a thousand Muslims in there" to fight back. Instead, they have sought relief in the courts while continuing to look for other expansion sites in the South. There are reports that the Muslims have quietly bought up to 50,000 additional acres below the Mason-Dixon line.

So far, the Muslims have proved themselves exemplary neighbors. Similar Muslim farms operate in Michigan and Georgia, and neither has encountered the resistance met in Alabama. Both have small work forces recruited from local labor, and local white businessmen have been highly pleased with the operation. The Muslims, in fact, offered to fly St. Clair County businessmen to Georgia to inspect the farm there and hear white testimonials, but so far there have been few takers.

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