The United Nation of Islam

KANSAS CITY BUSINESS JOURNAL
The Metro Area's Most Comprehensive Business Coverage

by Dan Margolies - Staff Writer

The changes are subtle, but Quindaro Boulevard, one of the roughest stretches in a rough part of KCK, is looking kinder and gentler these days.

At 18th and Quindaro, what used to be a gathering place for drug dealers, prostitutes and pimps is now a homey-looking restaurant serving vegetarian cuisine.

A Block away, at 17th and Quindaro, an aging furniture outlet has been transformed into an immaculate grocery and bakery selling fresh produce and baked goods.

Four Blocks southeast of the grocery, at 13th and Quindaro, a once-run-down service station has been spruced up, its apron cleared of weeds, its bays freshly painted.

Another four blocks southeast, past boarded-up storefronts, a small home-appliance store has supplanted a once-marginal convenience store. The store opened just last week.

The four businesses, and others as varied as a construction company and a cleaning service, go by names such as "Your Diner," "Your Supermarket"and "Your Service Station," as if to stress their down-home ties to the community.

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The businesses also share this: They're run by the United Nation of Islam, a non-profit with headquarters in Temple Hills, Md., that preaches the message of self-help and self-sufficiency. The organization is not related to Louis Farrakhan's similar-sounding Nation of Islam, although it apparently had ties to it in the past.

The United Nation of Islam is not a religious group either, although it preaches its self-help message with the fervor of the newly converted. Rather, say its followers, the group is dedicated to "civilization development" through "mathematical principles," which it teaches in vocational and technical training classes and on the job.

The organization has made Kansas City, Kan., a laboratory of sorts for its program, and at least judging by the results on the ground, the experiment so far has yielded some impressive results. Pockets of blight have given way to viable businesses, trash-strewn lots have been cleared, loiterers have dispersed and, perhaps most significant, and area once written off as an intractable morass of urban decay has seen a glimmer of hope for the future.

"This was the roughest, toughest corridor in Kansas City, Kan.," said James 2X, who holds the title of national secretary for the United Nation of Islam. "This bears witness to the fact that we're developing life-giving principles here. This is not just about business, it's a university."

James 2X brushes aside questions about the group's finances, how the businesses are structured and how the employees - whom the United Nation of Islam prefers to call "instructors" - are compensated.

"None of us get a salary. There's no federal or state funding. There's no private foundation funding," he said with a hint of impatience. "After deciding what we want to do, the members put their money together and start focusing on central points, on what we're going to do."

Seated in Your Diner, he gestured to the workers behind him and ticked off the jobs spawned by the restaurant: four chefs, three cashiers, three servers, three dishwashers, two maintenance people, four delivery drivers, two buyers.

"The United Nation of Islam operates on the formulas of mathematics, or that which can be proven. And with these formulas, we actually produce something that bears witness that the formula is accurate," James 2X said.

Unclear as the financial underpinnings of the United Nation of Islam's businesses may be, the businesses appear to be well-patronized, their products well-made and their services efficiently delivered. Profits, James 2X said, are plowed back into the businesses.

Like James 2X, United Nation of Islam members all speak with the certitude of true believers, convinced that their "mathematical" approach will prove an economic tonic to the neighborhood and a boon to their own questing spirits.

"I wanted to participate in the idea of building community," said Sister Sabra, a soft-spoken transplant from Los Angeles who heeded the group's call to move to Kansas City, Kan., and works in the sewing factory. A former funds-transfer supervisor at a Los Angeles bank, Sister Sabra now mends donated linens and clothing.

"I wanted to do what I could for more than just myself," she said. "It's for the community, for everyone who wants to participate in right and wants to do right for the right reasons."

At Your Service Station, once a weed-strewn haven for dope dealers and now a busy gas station and auto repair shop, the neatly dressed and unremittingly polite workers scurry to attention as James 2X drives up. Many, like Sister Sabra, came from out of town, enticed by the United Nation of Islam's stated goal of fashioning an example out of Kansas City, Kan., that can be replicated elsewhere.

"I wanted to do whatever was necessary to make the Nation flourish": said the station's manager, who goes by the name Brother Larry. "I was working for a phone company and I was looking for a change."

Brother Larry said he was drawn to the United Nation of Islam by a taped talk given by the group's leader, Brother Solomon, who operates out of the United Nation of Islam's headquarters. The talk, he said, inspired him to develop "direction and a certain aim in life, toward something positive, toward doing right."

Lillie Welch, a longtime resident of 10th ∓ Quindaro who was waiting for her car to be repaired, nodded in agreement. Not a member of the United Nation of Islam herself, she said she was impressed with the group's can-do spirit.

"I wouldn't dare come down here before they came to this community," she said, shaking her head. "No, sir. All this killing and mugging going on. I didn't dare go down as far as 18th Street. Now I bring my car down here all the time.

"They have done a remarkable job. And the children are all so respectful."

Impeccably good manners seem to mark all the workers, many of them youngsters getting on-the-job training at the bakery or the service station. Profanity is discouraged. "Yes sirs" and "No sirs" fill the air. It's part of what the United Nation of Islam likes to call "civilization development."

"What we're doing is symbolic of a way of life," James 2X said, punctuating the word "life" with a sweeping motion of his hands. "What you see in our businesses is the same way we operate in our homes. You see a civilized place that reflects the thinking of the people who produced it. We must be in harmony with the formulas and principles that we're not the originators of."

Warming to his theme, he continued: "These places are for the purposes of teaching people how to think. To do that, they have to be in motion, which will bear witness to what they're thinking about. If what they love to do is bake bread, they're given that opportunity and everything they need to do that.

"This is a university, and it's unlike any university in existence. It teaches people how to think, not what to think. Then, afterwards, the individual produces something for their mind that's right and something that perpetuates life."

There's little denying that, while Quindaro has a long way to go, the United Nation of Islam's presence has changed the boulevard - albeit incrementally - for the better. What's unclear at this point is whether the businesses, dispersed as they are, can achieve the critical mass that's probably necessary to restore the vitality the area once enjoyed.

"Crime at and around the businesses themselves has definitely decreased," said policeman Matthew Cross, a community policing officer who patrols the area.

John Mendez, a former Kansas City, Kan., deputy administrator and now director of neighborhood and regional affairs for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., said the city had deeded over to the United Nation of Islam several structures slated for demolition after the group convinced them they could rehab them.

"I've visited the sites and you can't believe it," he said. "They've taken a sow's ear and turned it into something beautiful. They've made a heck of an impression."

At Your Variety Store, the United Nation of Islam's latest venture, store manager Brother Dwayne busied himself last week with last-minute details as he prepared for the store's grand opening the next day.

"Brother Dwayne," James 2X called out, "I think we need some paint over there."

The shop got a fresh paint job recently but there's a spot that needs touching up. The merchandise - blenders, fans, toasters, electric can openers, bread makers, vacuum cleaners, restored television sets - sits neatly arrayed on the shelves, and James 2X is anxious that everything be just so.

"This store represents the activity that's taking place in the community, one that's experienced the absence of life, that was on a downward spiral and is now being brought back to life," he said, evidently satisfied with the way things looked.

"Because we have a genuine concern that the children of this community receive their inheritance, and that inheritance is knowledge and a place to practice what they have learned - the principles of how to bring back to life something that is broken and damaged."

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