Nuwaubian Nation - History

History

The following is an overview of the development of the group over the period 1967–2000 based on the Religious Movements Homepage Project at the University of Virginia

The group was called the "Ansaaru Allah Community" (AAC) during the 1970s and 1980s, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York ("Ansar" was the name of a 19th-century militant messianic movement in Sudan). The AAC was a messianic, millennialist, purportedly Muslim group that was well known among black nationalists and black Muslims at the time. During the 1970s, the group expanded its sphere of influence beyond New York, setting up chapters in Trinidad, Baltimore and Washington. According to former follower Saadik Redd, York had between 2,000 and 3,000 followers during the 1970s. Their headquarter was at Bushwick, Brooklyn until 1983, when they moved to Sullivan County, NY, to a site they called Camp Jazzir Abba. A Muslim cleric, Bilal Phillips, in 1988 published The Ansar Cult in America, denouncing the movement as un-Islamic. Phillips relied heavily on testimonies of former adherents.

In the late 1980s, York shed the "Muslim" flavour of his movement and moved on to a more eclectic approach that would result in the "Nuwaubian" movement. York now styled his movement in a mixture of Ancient Egypt and Native American themes. In keeping with this change of focus, York changed his legal name again, from "Issa Al Haadi Al Mahdi" to "Malachi York", effective 12 March 1993.

In 1996, under the name "Nayya: Malachi Zodok York-El" he published The Holy Tablets (a.k.a. the "Nuwaubian Bible"), for which he claims divine inspiration, and in which he styles himself as a messiah figure, expounding a UFO religion surrounding the "planet Rizq", according to which himself as well as pharaoh Ramesses II were extraterrestrials.

The Tama-Re complex in Eatonton, Georgia became the movement's new headquarters in 1993. The Nuwaubians now presented a narrative borrowed from that of the Washitaw Nation (a Louisiana black separatist group led by an eccentric 'empress'), according to which they were Yamasee (a historical confederation of Native American nations in the Georgia area) as well as "Moors", based on a claim of prehistoric migration to America "before the continents drifted apart". At this point, the group called itself "Yamassee Native American Moors of the Creek Nation". During the early 2000s (decade), York presided Tama-Re styled as "Our Own Pharoah NETER A'aferti Atum-Re," leader and chief mystagogue of "The Ancient Egiptian Order."