MJJG: Hamid’s handwritten note

[Raphael Saltwood]

I’ve skipped over this many a time - not tonight.

I have bowdlerized some words.


1) Dear LaBas,
it was a pleasure meeting you the other night. You and that Herman fellow proove [sic] that even anachronisms have their charms.
i called you so that you could have a look at the manuscript i translated into the language of “the brother on the street”

A copy sent to a publisher was lost in the mails. All i received was a rejection slip indicating it had been returned. O well, maybe it will turn up someday.

Doesn’t really matter. They say they can no longer find a market for this work. Isn’t that incredible!! A sacred Black work, if it came along today, would go unpublished.

They seem only interested in our experience’s seamy side. But this is necessary now. Works of reform. Works, which will assist these backward, untogether n——-s in getting

Pg 2)
themselves together. We must change these
n——-s! Change, n——-s! N——-s change! Change! Change! N——-s! Make them baaaaaaad n——s!

Hopefully, one day all of us shall be able to express a variety of opinions, styles, and values, LaBas, but for now we need a strong man, someone to “whip these c—-s into line.” Let the freedom of culture come later! I know this sounds contradictory but I don’t have God’s mind, yet.

I really wanted you and Herman to see this book, the Book of Thoth, but now you won’t have a chance...for i have burned it!! it has gone up in smoke!!

When I translated it I didn’t give it too much thought,  but now that I have had a chance to read it over a few times,

Pg 3)
I have decided that black people could never have been involved in such a lewd, nasty, decadent thing as is depicted here. This material is obviously a fabrication by the infernal fiend himself!! So, into the fire she goes!! It is our duty to smite the evil serpent [caret & insertion of next to words] of carnality.

I am going to sell the beautiful, precious box, the Book of Thoth arrived in, from the proceeds I will build a great Mosque in whose reading room, only clean and decent books shall be kept

A fence is coming to my office this afternoon to
inspect it -

Pg 4)
I left behind a code dealing with Egyptian-American cotton so that if anything happened to me someone could locate the Book of Thoth, this serves no
purpose now [here an “a” is x-ed out] so I will destroy the note as soon as I get a chance. I will remove the box from the Cotton Club where it’s stored and return it to the office for the fence to see.

As-Salaam-Alaikum!

Abdul Sufi Hamid