By 1908, Black nationalist leader and deity Wallace Fard Muhammad (known then as Fred the Turk, Fred the Greek, and other aliases) was operating a food cart in Oregon. Twenty-two years before he declared Black people’s independence from the hells of North America, Fard sold tamales and sandwiches, perhaps in pursuit of the American Dream.
While the early life of W.D. Fard has been hitherto unclear to scholars, Anton Batey and Kevin Morris’ tome W.D. Fard’s First Footsteps in America: The Trail in Oregon, fills in significant gaps. With masterful writing and meticulous references and appendices, Batey and Morris explore Fard’s arrival to the United States, his career as a “tamale hawker”, his possible associates, his marital life, and his potential origins. Batey and Morris are up to date on their “Fardology”, consolidating the previous research of scholars and sleuths, and making their own significant contributions, with lots of documents to back their findings.
Batey and Morris decisively put Evanzz’s “Alam Khan” theory to bed. Perhaps the most significant discovery in this book is a manifest showing a “Wallie Dad Khan” arriving at San Francisco in 1907 on the SS Coptic from Hong Kong. While Evanzz was correct in suggesting that Fard boarded a ship from Hong Kong,[1] Batey and Morris prove that he was not the Alam Khan that arrived in 1904. Much of W.D. Fard’s First Footsteps in America then attempts to establish that Wallie Dad Khan is really our man. The authors also find important leads in the state of Montana. In the future, scholars, researchers, and sleuths will have to further validate these findings; but upon first reading, I found the case to be compelling. As a side note, if W.D. Fard was already travelling the world by 1907, and running his own business by 1908, one may be rightfully skeptical of an 1890s birthdate.
In 1917, W.D. Fard’s World War I draft registration cited “Shinka, Afghanistan” as his place of origin.[2] Batey and Morris suggest that this may have been the same as the then “Sheenka, India” (Shinka) in the Attock District – now in Punjab, Pakistan. This may be the case, but it is pertinent to mention that there is also a “Shinkay” region in southern Afghanistan, while Attock is in Punjab. The Shinkay in Afghanistan was also officially a part of Afghanistan in the early twentieth century. The predominant language of Shinkay, Afghanistan was Pashtun, while the predominant language of Shinka, Punjab was Punjabi. In either case, W.D. Fard may have written names in Arabic script in the 1930s, and Pashtun, Punjabi, Dari, Urdu, and Persian all use Arabic script. Batey and Morris cite Supreme Minister John Muhammad’s claim that Fard’s mother came from Kashmir (“Cushmeer”).[3] Kashmir is neither in Afghanistan nor in Punjab, but it is significantly closer to Punjab. An upcoming book by Dr. John Andrew Morrow and myself will further reinforce W.D. Fard’s South Asian origins.
Batey and Morris also suggest that the official NOI portrait of W.D. Fard “is a painting based on an original photograph, according to expert analysis as brush strokes are clearly shown” without citing the “expert analysis”. As Dr. John Andrew Morrow recently proposed, it may have been a real photo that was simply airbrushed, rather than an actual painting.[4]
Like many in the past, Batey and Morris also stated that the name “Fard” comes from the Arabic word farḍ (فرض), but this is unlikely, because there is no extant example of farḍ being used as a name (it means “obligatory” in Arabic and in Islamic terminology), and it is missing the second vowel heard and sometimes spelled in Fard’s name (“Farād”). Farḍ (فرض) is also different from the Arabic word fard (فرد), which is also not a name, but means “individual” – a one and alone person – in Arabic. It is possible that W. F. Muhammad was using the word symbolically, just as the name “Wallace” etymologically means “foreigner” or “stranger”. It is also possible that “Wali” and “Fard” are elements of his real name. I have seen “Farad” used as a name by people from the Indian Subcontinent, though it is exceedingly rare. It is possible that it is a corruption of the names Farhad, Farid, Faraz, or Fahed, but I am just speculating.
The ability to connect aspects of W.D. Fard’s early life to his later teachings demonstrates Batey and Morris’ incredible grasp of the subject matter. Frequent references to Fard and Elijah Muhammad’s teachings are made, without being guilty of reading into things too much. W.D. Fard’s frequent name changes, origin changes, occupational changes, and address changes show that he was a multiverse in and of himself. Regardless, there is a thread that ties these worlds in common, and this book makes an effort at highlighting that thread. Fard was frequently referred to as a foreigner in the papers, despite his apparent naturalization. Even though he had his successes in business, in court, and in politics, Fard was always being considered an outsider in the papers. This was in the heart of the Jim Crow era, and it may have helped radicalize him and shape his views in his future life as Master Fard Muhammad.
While W.D. Fard’s First Footsteps in America: The Trail in Oregon is not really a starting place for those new to the subject (it is more directed toward readers already familiar with the subject), the authors skillfully fill in the gaps, revise existing accounts, and show their work. It does not make any discoveries on W.D. Fard’s post-1934 life, but it gives new leads for us to pursue. While we may not know the end of the story, we have a better idea of Fard’s first footsteps on these shores.
[1] Karl Evanzz, Chameleon: The True Story of W.D. Fard, pp. 184.
[2] Anton Batey and Kevin Morris, W.D. Fard’s First Footsteps in America: The Trail in Oregon, pp. 17-29.
[3] Ibid, pp. 35.
[4] Dr. John Andrew Morrow, “Of Photos and Fraud: A Chronology of Fardian Iconography”, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XguOpy7qeGA
