In the 70s he traveled to Egypt and Sudan and on his return changed his group’s name to “Ansaaru Allah Community in the West”. An FBI report described this group as a “front for a wide range of criminal activity, including arson, welfare fraud and extortion”.
Not content with simply being the leader of a cult, York performed as lead vocalist for a number of bands including Jackie and the Starlights, the Students, and Passion. He had his own studio and set up his own record label – Passion Productions.
York also claimed to have penned a number of big chart hits in the 60s and 70s which is unanimously regarded as a complete lie. His music credentials don’t hold much water but he did hold a fair amount of sway in the black underground movement of 1990, despite claiming he was a native of the planet “Rizq” in the galaxy “Illyuwn”.
York continuously changed the name of his group, it’s almost as if he was trying to hide something? His group’s names included “The Holy Tabernacle Ministries”, “the Ancient Mystic Order of Melchizedek” and “Lodge 19 of the Ancient and Mystic Order of Malachizodok”. Snazzy.
To suit his group’s changing names he adopted his own suite of pseudonyms including Issa al Haadi al Mahdi, The Supreme Grand Master Dr. Malachi Z. York and my personal favourite Chief Black Eagle. Wikipedia lists 68 names that York has used in total.
His message to his followers was one of black supremacy and white inferiority. Black people – “wooly haired dark-skinned people,” as Mr. York called them – are Nubians, “the original seed” and were the “original Egyptians”. He also taught that white folks descended from the biblical Canaanites, their white skin caused by a genetic defect. One of Noah’s sons, Ham, was frightened so badly, Mr. York wrote, that “it affected his genes and it came out in his fourth son, Canaan”. FACT.
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