By AFRO Employees
Last Name editor-in-chief Naba’a Muhammad has died, in line with the Nationwide Newspaper Publishers Affiliation (NNPA) of which the publication was a member.
In a discover despatched June 7, NNPA President and CEO Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. knowledgeable publishers of Muhammad’s transition on June 6.
“All of us are very saddened to inform you in regards to the passing final night of Naba’a Muhammad, the distinguished Editor of the Last Name newspaper,” Chavis wrote.
The Last Name is the official communications organ of the Nation of Islam. Based within the basement of Minister Louis Farrakhan’s south Chicago dwelling in 1979, the publication has styled itself as a substitute for mainstream, company media, providing unflinching, generally controversial protection of nationwide and worldwide points. Muhammad has led its newsroom since 2009.
“In Chicago, throughout the nation, and all through the world Brother Naba’a Muhammad was a stalwart journalist-defender and consultant of the Black Press of America,” Chavis wrote. “Brother Naba’a, as a faithful follower of The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and an lively member of the Nation of Islam, embodied what it means to be a freedom combating editor and journalist.”
A local of Baltimore, Md., Muhammad attended Walbrook Excessive Faculty and studied English-journalism at Morgan State College. He later known as Chicago his dwelling.
Previously Richard B. Muhammad, he was given the Islamic holy title “Naba’a Muhammad” in February 2020 in Detroit by Minister Farrakhan.
A media skilled for nearly 4 many years, Muhammad was the founding father of Straight Phrases Media and straightwords.com and host of a weekly information and evaluation podcast, “Straight Phrases With Naba’a Richard Muhammad, Bj Murphy and James G. Muhammad,” which debuted Could 9, 2023, on WVON AM 1690 Black Discuss Radio Chicago, in line with his LinkedIn profile. The award-winning journalist additionally traveled internationally and lined uprisings equivalent to these in Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere after the deaths of Mike Brown and in Baltimore after the police killing of Freddie Grey.
As a guide and communications director, Muhammad labored with nationwide nonprofits equivalent to LISC group improvement corp, Chicago Rehab Community, Veterans for Peace, Nationwide Individuals’s Motion, Interfaith Employee Justice, the Environmental Management Challenge and others. He additionally performed vital roles within the 1995 Million Man March, its anniversary commemorations, mobilizations for Hurricane Katrina survivors and different main occasions.
He carried out coaching classes and introduced at nationwide conferences on employee rights, group housing and banking points, racial justice and unbiased publishing – but additionally spoke in humbler locales equivalent to native faculties, faculties, jails and road corners.
Muhammad’s phrases and images are immortalized within the “Million Man March/Day of Absence, A Commemorative Anthology.” His first guide, “Dopebusters: Farrakhan Fanatics Or Saviours? The True Story of the D.C. Crack Cocaine Disaster and Profitable Muslim Anti-Drug Patrols” was revealed in 2018.
