Record #: R2020-45   
Type: Resolution Status: Adopted
Intro date: 1/15/2020 Current Controlling Legislative Body:
Final action: 1/15/2020
Title: Recognition extended to Prophet Noble Drew Ali on 134th anniversary of his birth and designation of January 8th through January 15th as "Moorish American Week" in Chicago
Sponsors: Sawyer, Roderick T.
Attachments: 1. R2020-45.pdf
RESOLUTION HONORING THE 134!S ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF PROPHET NOBLE DREW ALI
WHEREAS, on January 8, 1886, Prophet Noble Drew Ali was born in the State of North Carolina, destined to become the first patriot and founding father ofthe Moorish Divine National Movement. It was the Noble Drew Ali's belief that African Americans were all Moors, descended from the ancient Moabitcs thought to be inhabitants of Northwest Africa; and
WHEREAS, In 1913, Noble Drew AH founded the Canaanilc Temple in Newark, New Jersey and established congregations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and Detroit, Michigan. In 1925, he arrived in Chicago to establish the Moorish Science Temple of America as the headquarters of his Moorish Divine National Movement, a "network of alternative spiritualities thai focused on the power of the individual to bring about personal transformation through mystical knowledge of (he divine within"; and
WHEREAS, it-was in this city that Prophet Noble Drew Ali built a civic organization to teach those things necessary to make his adherents better citizens. Since his work was largely religious, in accordance with the divine inspiration of God-Allah and the laws of the state of Illinois, on July 20, 1928, Prophet Noble Drew Ali convened a meeting of his followers to formally adopt this religious body politic under the corporate aegis of the Moorish Science Temple of America, filing as a religious institution on August 1 of that same year with the Cook County Recorder of Deeds office, and declared to the Moorish Americans everywhere that Chicago, Illinois would be their new Mecca; and
WHEREAS, it is the fervent belief of the congregants ofthe Moorish Science Temple of America that, until the coming ofthe universal Prophet Noble Drew Ali, the resurrected Nation of Moorish Americans who, as a result of the 13th Amendment, were emancipated from slavery in 1865 but had yet to reestablish and reunite themselves with the human family of nations; and
WHERE...

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