Support
Reparations

Get the latest
information

Exodus Land Project

Interview with Attorney Harriett AbuBakr

By: Minister Samadia Hamidullah

Minister Samadia Hamidullah interviews, the First Lady and Attorney General of the Lost Found Nation of Islam about her work on the Exodus Land Development Project.

SH: First, Atty. AbuBakr, let me thank you for granting this interview with me. I understand you are a very busy woman. What type of law do you practice?

HA: The majority of my cases are personal injury, and I handle other business matters, and, of course, I’ve been handling the subdivision.

SH: How did the Nation come to acquire this land for the land project?

HA: The land was purchased in 1981. Khalid Shabazz, currently the Minister in Detroit, Michigan, made friends with Lorean Irons. Through their contact, she told him about this land, after he mentioned we were looking for land in Georgia. She took him to see the land, and he liked what he saw. He told the Saviour about it. The Saviour came out and examined the land and decided to have the Nation purchase it. [At this time] We were planning to move to Georgia from California. In order to raise the down payment for the land, we had a dedicated group of hardworking sisters who sold bean pies -- and hard working brothers, also. This small cluster worked from early morning until night in order to raise this money, in Atlanta, and they were successful. We had enough to lock the land down and we were raising money to reduce the debt. I attended the closing. We officially purchased the land in 1981.

SH: So all this work started before 1981?

HA: Yes, about a year before. Khalid and his family moved into the house that was on the land. They were the first to live there. In a few months, the Saviour and the girls relocated from Altadena, California, to the land. He used it as headquarters and had an apartment.

SH: How long before you came to join them?

HA: I came in January 1983. Before I moved to Atlanta, he had moved into the house and the pioneers were selling the pies and making payments on the land, and they kept that up for about a year. I moved into the house with the family in January 1983 and stayed until June of 1983. Afterwards, we (the family and I) moved to Marietta, and the house functioned as a temporary Mosque until we found the Mosque on Campbellton Road, in 1984. The same believers worked to get the Mosque.

SH: How many sisters were there living and working on the land?

HA: Around eight sisters.

SH: Have you been involved, legally, with the land project since this time?

HA: No, I was just involved with the purchasing. There wasn’t anything to do until we decided to do the subdivision. The land was not suitable for farming. We looked to rent land in rural Georgia for farming purposes, but it never materialized. That’s when we decided to use the land to build a Muslim community of homes. In 1985 the Saviour commissioned me to handle the construction and development of the subdivision. In the meantime I was studying for the Georgia Bar and trying to set up a law practice in Atlanta, Georgia. So one of my first clients was the Nation.

SH: And what did that case entail?

HA: The first case entailed finding out everything necessary to develop the land. I was the actual developer. I hadn’t even built a house before, starting from scratch. I had to find out what to do and meet with engineers, people who laid out photography, officials at Fulton County in charge of land development, a company that built homes and architects. And after getting the information and meeting a lot of people, I put together a team to do the work: Harrington, George, and Dunn, engineers (land developers), and an architect named Yaya Hassan. They were the first team of professionals I worked with. We coordinated things with Fulton County officials until we got the plat approved (around 1986?)

HA: I contracted with Fulton County to split the cost of putting in a major sewer line - about two blocks worth. We paid half and they paid half. We had to pay our cash up front. It took them about a year to put the sewer line in. With the sewer line in place, we were in position to put the infrastructure in. We searched for someone to work with us on putting in the infrastructure for about two years, and we were turned down everywhere we went.

HA: Around 1990, I decided to develop the three houses on the front while we were waiting for infrastructure approval. I developed Kataba Khan’s house first. I had to hook up with a builder for that. The first house went smoothly, with no problems. It turned out to be a beautiful home.

HA: Then we moved to the second house, owned by Haleef and Sakeenah Hassan, in 1991. Every problem that could possibly happen happened. We spend eighteen months trying to get it finished. The contractor who built the first house started having problems, so their problems became our problems. I got a second contractor to finish where the first one left off. That was hard to do. I got a contractor who was a friend of Janise. (Janise Miller, a close friend, attorney, and former Muhammad Speaks Staff person) Since he took over the headache of the previous contractor, we let him build the third house, owned by Raushan and Rasheeda Shabazz. There were few problems toward the end.

HA: We finished the third house, but couldn’t get loan approval for the land development. Taaj Al-Tariq found John Bryant in 1996-97, president of Lorain Building and Development Corp. From then on, he’s been developer of the land. He’s been working with us for three years to make it happen.

HA: As of December of 1999, we got financing for the land. Mr. Bryant almost had to start over from scratch. We tried to get a new plat approved. We had to go back to the original plan and bring it up to code. It took over a year to do that. They tried to prolong what we were trying to do. After two years of discussions, South Trust Bank turned us down because of lack of experience. I finally got approval from Capital Bank, a Black owned bank, specifically opened to accommodate the needs of black patrons who wouldn’t normally be given a loan. They gave us our infrastructure money and we began digging in January. We hope to be in position to lay our first foundation in May. Out of a subdivision of twenty lots to be developed, we have six qualified homeowners ready to build and another six ready and waiting for qualification. About two-thirds of the subdivision are claimed, or spoken for. Most of the eight remaining have been spoken for, but the interested parties have to put the money down. We have to have everything finished in two years, at least the lots sold and paid for. After being told they could purchase lots, five families are waiting to put down money.

The Name of the Subdivision is Exodus Subdivision, with Valley Brook Drive, Misshaki Terrace, and Muhammad Drive being the streets that run through it.