Dwight D. York or Malachi Z. York has a long line of adjectives behind his name. But what he is most known for is being the creator and leader of the Black power group United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, or Nuwaubians. Some have referred to the group as a cult due to its religious teachings, but it was also called a Black empowerment organization.
York began his ministry in the late 1960s. In 1967, he was preaching to the “Ansaaru Allah” (African Americans) in Brooklyn, New York, in the midst of the Black Power movement. His teachings were based on pseudo-Islamic themes and Judaism (Nubian Islamic Hebrews). Later he developed a focus centered around “Ancient Egypt,” combining ideas drawn from Black nationalism, cryptozoological and UFO religions, and popular conspiracy theory.
York relocated the community to rural Putnam County, Georgia, in 1990 where they built a large complex.
Despite many controversies surrounding him, York did receive various accolades. He was awarded the Keys To The City of New York by Mayor Ed Koch “after cleaning up the slum and drug-infested Bushwick Avenue community” in Brooklyn, Nuwaubian Facts reported.
He was also named one of the state’s 50 Most Influential Men by The Georgia Informer.
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York published his first book entitled “Bible Interpretations and Explanations,” which taught biblical theology from a skeptical point of view.
“Christianity is merely a tool used by the Devil (Paleman) to keep you, the Nubian (Black) man, woman, and child blind to your true heritage and perfect way of life (Islam). It is another means of slavery,” he wrote.
In 1971, York wrote a four-part series called “The Nine Balls: Liberation Information for the Woolly-Haired People called the Ethiopian Race.” In later lectures, York said that his initial attempts at reaching his people through this teaching failed, and so he decided to adopt a more mainstream religious format. He changed his name, title, and the name of the organization, Nuwaubian Facts reported.
York told his followers he was not of this Earth but from the planet Rizq. He wrote, “We have been coming to this planet before it had your life form on it…My incarnation as an Ilah Mutajassid or Avatara was originally in the year 1945 A.D. In order to get here, I traveled by one of the smaller passenger crafts called SHAM out of a Motherplane called MERKABAH or NIBIRU.”
Among other
York launched his own record label, Passion Productions, and recorded as the solo artist “Dr. York.” He released the single “Only a Dream” (which was later included on the album “New York,” Hot Melt Records UK, 1985). Background vocals were performed by Ted Mills of the group Blue Magic.
According to the New York Press, “He was based in Coney Island for a time, and operated a bookstore and a printing press on Flatbush Ave. in the ‘70s. In the ‘80s, he was based in Brooklyn, on Bushwick Ave. York’s students are best remembered by New Yorkers as practitioners of orthodox Islam – members of certain New York Five Percent Nation, Nation of Islam, and Arab Islamic mosques still regard the Nuwaubians as a rival faction – but at different times they followed the paths of Christianity and Judaism.”
He then moved the group to an area of New York called Liberty, near the Catskills, around 1991. Then in 1993 he moved out of state to Georgia.
York was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Though other sources give his birthplace as New Jersey, New York, Baltimore, and even Takoradi, Ghana.
What is known is that York claimed to raised in Massachusetts, and at the age of seven went to Aswan, Egypt, to study Islam. “My grandfather, As Sayyid Abdur Rahman Al Mahdi, the Imaam of the Ansaars lived in Sudan until 1959 AD, upon looking into my eyes foretold that I was the one who would possess ‘the light.’” York said he returned to the U.S. in 1957 at age 12 and continued to study Islam.
York has gone by a variety of names. In the late
As an adult, York returned to Africa, to Sudan and Egypt in particular. According to “The Ansar Cult in America,” York met and persuaded members of Mohamed Ahmed Al-Mahdi’s family to finance him to set up a cell of their organization in the U.S.
The U.S. government started to look closely at York’s organization as it continued to grow, especially after they built Tama-Re, an Egyptian-themed “city.”
York was convicted in 2004 of child molestation and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. He is currently serving a 135-year sentence in prison. There were also numerous reports that York had molested numerous children of his followers.
He is serving his sentence at the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence, Colorado.
“Many are unaware of the fact that at age 19, Dwight York was convicted of statutory rape. At the age of 19, he pleaded guilty to raping a 13-year-old girl and was given probation. However, he was imprisoned for 3 years after violating his probation for unrelated charges,” the Pan African Alliance.
