Seek Knowledge until Death

The Story of Michael Hamptons growth in to Malik Shaheed El-Shabazz

By AsynakaOne

 

As his eyes rushed open he still felt the panic he had experienced just before they closed some eleven hours ago. He sat up in bed and glanced over to see Toni eating a Big Mac as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Slowly his mind began to find peace in his new surroundings. Toni had managed to finish the blinds just after Malik had found himself unable to remain awake any longer. Good, it meant that he was starting to understand how to do the things he asked of him. Walking to the window he only glanced through the small slits on the side, never really touching the blinds. His mind returned to reflect on the events of the last few nights he had spent with his sire as he tried to figure out what had happened.

 

Two months ago Abdul had suddenly insisted that they leave their home to look into matters in the city of Dallas. It was so unlike Abdul to do such a thing. Malik had carefully erased any sign that they had been in there and off they went to Dallas. While there they had followed all the customs he had been taught about the Camarilla, even a few he hadn’t yet come to understand, and while he spent his nights studying the ways of his caste, Abdul seemed to be searching for something. However, he had never given a clue what his sire searched for and Malik had learned long ago not to ask. Sometimes his sire was a bit insistent about certain things, and he understood that was just his way. But then came the night when he awoke and went to the place where his sire usually slept only to find a pile of ashes and signs of a struggle. Nothing made sense. The domain’s sheriff questioned him as if he had been the one behind the attack on his own sire. Did they understand nothing of the loyalty he felt toward Abdul? Then there were the words of the Shaitan Prince, “Leave my domain, and know that I will destroy everyone you love before I allow even one of your kind to hurt what I have here!” Malik didn’t want to leave, but he was sure that the he had no choice. The way the Shaitan spoke made him think that they might know about his son, and Malik had to protect him.

 

Malik Shaheed had been born on February 21, 1965 in Chicago’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital at 3:33 and was named Michael Hampton by his parents, Fred, Sr. and Ester. Only hours before his birth things had been fine, but then his mother went into labor and it seemed as if Michael needed to be born right then. He was two months early, yet he was a good weight and generally in good heath. His parents were young but they where in love and that was all that mattered. He was the first of two children and was born in Chicago during the height of the civil rights movement. His father was no stranger to the movement; he was a vocal leader in his community and later he would even be a driving force in bringing the Black Panthers into Chicago. Michael would never get to really know his father who died December 4^th 1969 only weeks before celebrating the birth of his second son, Fred, Jr.

 

The social climate of the late 1960’s was definitely NOT on Fred Sr.’s side. The government was not supportive of any radical political organization, and in fact turned out to be downright suspicious at any attempt to challenge or change the status quo. Discriminating against the black community was the norm. When word of a "Days of Rage" rally came to the government's attention, it was discovered that some members of the Black Panther Party supported this "attack on the pig power structure." Allegedly, Fred Hampton and the majority of the Chicago Panthers did not support this rally, but to the FBI they were guilty by association. This information, combined with the general suspicion the government had of the Black Panther Party and Fred's powerful speaking and organizing skills, made Fred Hampton a wanted man. The Federal Bureau of Investigation saw Fred Hampton as a threat to society that needed to be eliminated. They conspired with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and William O'Neal to spy on Fred to give them information about his daily itinerary. O’Neal an outsider member of the Black Panther Party who was up on felony charges and was willing to do anything to get the charges dropped. His job was to serve as a bodyguard to Fred and director of the Chapter's security. He was supposed to notify the FBI of the Panther's apartment floor plan and how many residents lived in the apartment. When the FBI got its information, the state attorney, Hanrahan, authorized a raid. That would be a night that Michael would never forget.

 

Around 4:30 am on December 4, 1969 the heavily armed Chicago Police entered the Panthers' apartment. They entered the apartment by kicking the front door down and then shooting a panther who was sleeping in the living room with a shotgun in his hand. His reflexes responded by firing one shot at the police before he died. Their automatic gunfire entered through the walls of Fred and his pregnant wife’s room only just missing Michael who was sleep in his mother’s arms. Fred was shot in the shoulder. Then officers entered the bedroom and shot Fred pointblank in his head to make sure that he was dead. Michael still remembered that night and has always been haunted by it in his sleep. Nothing was ever the same after that. His family spent only a few more years in the Chicago area before his mother sent Michael to live with his grandmother in Hampton Va., and she went to New York his Fred Jr. to find work. Michael was never an easy child and she simply couldn’t deal with him or the anger he seemed to hold towards the world even then.

 

Fred Sr’s mother was a loving woman who didn’t have very much. Her home was simple and her life was centered on her faith in Jesus Christ. Michael spent every Sunday in church and many more days during the week working on church events. Despite this, Michael wasn’t the greatest of students and had problems respecting authority. Even worse than this was the fact that he had clear problems with White America. He blamed all white people for the losses he had felt early in life. His grandmother hoped the teachings of Christ would help him deal with his anger, but clearly by sixteen he was out of control. During a simple disagreement in his high school lunchroom, Michael had lost his temper with a fellow white student during a disagreement about the talent on their high school football team. The simple disagreement had ended with Michael attacking the other student and beating him nearly to death. His grandmother was broken hearted and she wasn’t sure what she could do anymore. So when they appeared in court she didn’t protest when the judge ordered him to enter the Juvenile Correction System. Michael was shattered as she just sat there as they took him out of the courtroom. His pride refused to allow him to call out to her and her pain wouldn’t allow her to look at him.

 

In the Juvenile system Michael found his distaste for whites easy to express. The guards and the people in charge were mostly whites and any other he found there he quickly dismissed as a sellout, while most of his fellow “inmates” where young black men. It was here that Michael was first exposed to members of the Nation of Islam. The Nation often used their status as a religious group to visit and speak with the young men, even converting many of them to their version of Islam. Michael was one of the first and most devoted.

 

The Nation of Islam told him that black men were the first and only true races and that the others were created by the enemy or science. Suddenly he found a faith that fed his hate and anger. As he learned about their faith he quickly became the leader of the young men and before long they were looking to him as their leader. He was soon leading the daily prayers and even keeping the peace among the young men. They worked out as a group and before long they were looking more and more like their grown counterparts. Among the adult men was a group called the Fruit of Islam, who were the protectors and defenders of the Nation. As Michael looked to them all he saw was perfection. They were like a military force following the orders given by their leader, and that was who he wanted to be. Michael dedicated himself to the understanding of Islam and the Nation.

 

For two years he did little more than study faith and on his eighteenth birth when he was released he was welcomed into his new family and given a home with a Local leader of the Fruit of Islam. He also took the name Malik X. One day he was traveling with a group of brothers when he returned to his old neighborhood. Suddenly he came upon the house that had belonged to his grandmother. He excused himself, approaching the door but unsure of the damage he had done when he was here before. Slowly he knocked. It was a few minutes before the door opened and before his eyes stood a young white female. Her hair was a black as night but her eyes where as blue as the ocean. As he asked about Mrs. Hampton she explained that she was simply the nurse who took care of his grandmother. As he entered the house he felt the humility Islam had shown him. Rounding the corner he found himself looking at a woman who was only a shell of her former self. She could only smile as he stood there, a man now. As she spoke to him she was bothered to hear that some of his views hadn’t changed and she laughed at the idea that she should replace her nurse simply because she was white.

 

Over the next few years Malik became more and more of a figure in local politics and his faith. There was a lot of federal money being shipped into the area to improve the standard of living and he was going to make sure that his community got as much of it as he could manage. In his personal life he focused on his grandmother and little else. He learned to deal with the presence of Jazzmond, the nurse, since his grandmother would have nothing of the idea of replacing her. Honestly after a while he even found that she was amusing and kind of fun to be around.

 

On January 2, 1988, Malik’s grandmother passed away. Few things in his life had hit him harder. It was almost too much for him and he found little comfort anywhere other than the young lady he was secretly falling in love with. He began to question his faith and as he sat down one night studying several different versions of the Quran, and he found much was wrong with what he had been shown by the Nation. It was as he kneeled down to pray that everything changed. He began to hear a voice in his head and it spoke to him of the truth of Islam and not the lies he had come to believe. It spoke of how his quest for knowledge was not at an end but was in fact at a whole new beginning. The voice guided him in his learning of the Quran and the truth. Over the next few months he began to question more and more of what he had been told. Soon he had driven a wedge between himself and those who had followed him and before he knew it they were looking at him as the enemy. They began to call him a traitor to their cause and before long the leaders had distanced him from the others and he found that he had been cast out of the Nation. They where destroying his name in the community and he found himself lost only in his studies, and closing out the affairs of his grandmother. He had allowed Jazzmond to stay in the house mostly because she had seemed to have no other place to go. But he also wanted to be sure where she was and that she was safe. Then one night as he studied his phone rang and on the other line it was she. She said that she was simply thinking about him and wanted to hear his voice. She seemed to be bothered. He offered to come and speak with her to make her feel better. When he arrived at the house he found her crying. After speaking for a bit Jazzmond explained that she was pregnant with the son of a man she had slept with one night and now she didn’t know what to do. It was then that he spoke from his heart, and he asked her to marry him. She was shocked, for they had not dated and she was with child yet he was willing to marry her. She had fallen for him long ago but never had she dreamed this would happen. They where married within the month and Malik X became Malik Shaheed El-Shabazz.

 

On August 14^th 1988, Jazzmond gave birth to a wonderful healthy baby boy, Malik Andre El-Shabazz. The boy was half-white and half-black. Malik had never known that the man she had been with had been black. Over the next ten years Malik completed his Masters in Theology and even began to teach at Hampton University. Jazzmond took a job with the local school as a nurse once Dre was old enough to allow her to be closer to him. It was the family that Malik had needed to feel whole. His reputation as a teacher began to grow and before long he was looked at as one of the top professors in his department. Once again he heard that voice that had often guided him, but this time it was different - it was not in his head, it was coming from the rear of his classroom. As he looked up at the man approaching him, he felt a sense of peace, not fear, and yet there was something odd about the man. He was different and he seemed to have a very tense inner peace. He explained to Malik who he was and much about himself. Malik listened in amazement as the man spoke in the languages he had spent years learning with perfect tone and pitch that was unlike anything he had heard. The man was Abdul El-Shabazz, and as he pronounced that he had guided Malik through the events in his recent life, Malik could sense that it was the truth. Abdul explained that while he had guided him in the past he still had much Malik needed to learn. Malik was like a child craving knowledge, and Abdul told him that he needed to make a holy trip. This was the trip that so many of his faith had made before him. As Abdul explained that it would need to be made before they could move to the next level of his education in not only the ways of Islam, Malik knew that he had to go.

 

Jazzmond understood that Malik needed to make this trip. She assured him that she and Andre would be fine and that he should make this trip both for himself and for his faith. Andre was proud that his father was making the trip. It was the end of the century and Malik was beginning a whole new phase of his life. He began to feel a bond with the man who had become his mentor and friend. They spent a year learning in the homeland of his faith, the cradle of life and learning. His Hajj, as it was called, enlightened him in more ways than he had ever hoped. He learned the true nature of his mentor, and learned that he himself had changed, and it seemed that he would share in many of the plusses his teacher gained from his conversion. When he finally spoke to Jazzmond, she continued to express her desire for him to do what he needed to do there. After only a few weeks Malik found himself worrying less and less for his family and more and more for the lessons he was learning from the teacher who opened his eyes to a world hidden in the shadows of his own. During part of the Hajj itself Malik was unable to speak to Andre or Jazzmond for a short time until three weeks later when he finally reached Mecca. It was there that he also reunited with Abdul. Upon reaching the city Malik was overwhelmed by the glory of what he had just done. That night his mentor explained why he had been chosen. Malik was a seeker of knowledge before he was anything else, and that so impressed Abdul that he planed to prepare Malik to one day replace him as the keeper of his own libraries and records. Abdul keep rare texts and arcane secrets of his clan protected from those who would steal such knowledge. Malik was honored; he never dreamed that he would be given such a chance in life.

 

The next day when attempting to contact his family he learned from a friend that Jazzmond had been in a car wreck with Andre and that they were both in intensive care. Abdul awoke to learn that Malik was preparing to return home and was forced to explain that he could not leave just yet. Abdul was searching for a specific text and until it was found they would need to remain, for otherwise it would be hard to prove to others that Malik truly was the one who should be allowed to one day replace him. Malik was torn, for before him stood the greatest chance he had every known to seek knowledge, but his family was also in danger.

 

When Malik finally arrived at the hospital his heart was racing and fear overwhelmed his mind. As he arrived in the ICU, the sterile smell of the floor even caused him fear. He got to the Doctor’s station and began to ask questions, but the answers weren’t what he wanted to hear. She was gone, having died just two days after he had called, and Andre was close to death. The Doctor seemed to wonder why he was only just arriving, but Malik didn’t explain as he went to his son’s bedside. Abdul appeared as the door closed. “Help him, sire, please!” Malik asked as Abdul looked down at Andre. After muttering a few words Abdul removed a small vial and pressed it to Andre’s mouth. There was a single moment where Malik’s faith almost left him but as his son’s heartbeat began to slowly improve, it removed all doubt. Malik leaned over kissing his son’s forehead. Abdul reminded him that he had to leave him, but assured him that Andre would be safe and well taken care of. It was the last time Malik had seen him.

 

Abdul ensured that Andre was taken care of by members of his own mortal line. Jazzmond’s parents had recently returned to her life and when the boy’s father simply seemed to vanish they took the only reminder of their daughter into their home and hearts. Malik spent night and day studying the ways of his clan and his caste, trying to understand the laws of a world that wasn’t built on the normal ideals of freedom as he had come to understand them. He learned to use the powers that his sire had blessed him with and began to understand the ways of his Caste’s special gift for Sorcery. It took years for Malik to gain a basic understanding of all he need to know just to live within this new world, and then just as he was beginning to grasp it he found himself left alone. The only person he had left was Toni, the young man who protected Malik during the day. Now Malik was looking out of the slit in a window hoping he could get to the one place he hoped he could find not only safety, but also someone who would listen to him. He remembered the words of his sire about the recent Prince of Georgia being a close ally of their clan, and he hoped that he would find a safe haven there.