“Bring me Muhammad Ali” is not something you expect as part of a list of terrorist demands in the middle of a hostage-taking. During the 1977 Hanafi Siege, 149 hostages were held at gunpoint for two days at three locations across Washington D.C. by Muslim militants. Future Washington mayor Marion Barry was wounded by gunfire during the crisis. It revealed deep divisions within America’s Black Muslim community.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: March 11, 1977--
Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, born a Roman Catholic as Ernest McGhee, had been national secretary for the Nation of Islam, a Black political and religious movement in the U.S. with a dark history. But he split with them in 1958 and became highly critical of the organization, working to convert people to Hanafi Islam on his own. One such convert was basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. In reprisal for his criticisms, a Nation of Islam affiliated crime group called Black Mafia brutally murdered Khaalis’s family, including a nine-day-old baby, in 1973. Fucking hell.
It was those murders that prompted the siege, which began on March 9, 1977. The primary siege was of the Jewish organization B’nai B’rith in downtown Washington, where more than 100 hostages were taken by seven members of Khaalis’s group. An hour later three men took 11 hostages at the Islamic Center of Washington. Two more Hanafis attacked the District Building, which holds the office of the mayor and is just a few blocks from the White House. When an elevator door opened at the District Building, the pair of attackers were startled and shot a radio reporter to death. They also injured a police officer during the raid; he later died of a heart attack. During the shooting Marion Barry, who was then a city councilman, was hit by a ricochet that lodged near his heart.
During the siege the attackers criticized the Jewish judge who presided over the trial of the murderers of Khaalis’s family, saying, “Jews control the courts and the press.” They demanded the killers be handed over to Khaalis’s men. They also wanted the Nation of Islam members who assassinated Malcolm X, who had been a close friend of Khaalis. It’s presumed their intent was to execute these killers for their crimes. Yet another demand was to have boxer Muhammad Ali, who at the time was a supporter of the Nation of Islam, visit them.
The crisis was resolved by the actions of three Muslim ambassadors from Egypt, Pakistan, and Iran. They entered the three siege locations, read the Quran with the attackers, and pleaded with them to end things peacefully. Their efforts were successful, and the siege ended without further bloodshed on March 11, 1977. Hamaas Khaalis was convicted for leading the siege and died in prison in 2003.
Note about the photo: She’s a police officer outside one of the siege locations, name unknown. I chose it because she looks fuckin’ badass.
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