Nation of Islam Chess set

Nation of Islam Chess Set - the story of "Do for self" - the basis of community development.

As Salaam Alaikum

Dear Family

In the summer of 2005 I created "The Nation of Islam Chess Set" it was a beautiful set consisting of :

THE PAWNS (F.O.I.) Foot soldiers as holding a stack of final call newspaper

THE ROOK       Mosque Maryam

THE KNIGHT (F.O.I.) Wearing his F.O.I. uniform saluting with the flag of Islam

THE BISHOP   The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

THE QUEEN      M.G.T.

THE KING   The Honorable Elijah Muhammad

The Set was exclusively on ebay,. and did well It sold for $79.90 compared to other themed sets, which sells from $200.00 to $500.00 easy. I did this because this is one of a kind, and you cannot find this anywhere. I just recently posted an even cheaper version, made from plaster. The only problem. is that it is fragile, but if you can refrain from slamming chess pieces down, you can enjoy it's look .

Facebook Hype

This chess set was a hobby. I presented them to my local Mosque, and everyone like it, and inspired me to sell them. So after research, I figured out how to mass produce them, my ex wife, and I worked together as a team. After our separation, I lost the motivation to continue, so I discontinued the whole project. This was 2004 8 years later after joining facebook from time, to time. I post artwork that I create. I did not even know that I had pictures of the set ,but I found them on a old Myspace account, copied it, then pasted it to facebook. Within minutes of posting the pictures, the response blew up With likes, then I started to get requests to sell them. At that time, I did not have any molds, or equipment, so I blogged about it, requesting a production donation .I only received one donation..... I thought " that's interesting" so I created a fan page, with almost 200 likes .

I must admit, I got caught up in the facebook hype!!! So I thought that if I go ahead, and create the whole new set from scratch, and post it on ebay. I have 200 likes, that would be enough to complete the whole project in it's entirety, but only 7 orders was placed, which was just enough to purchase the molds. To complete the rest of the project, like the board!!! had to come directly from my pockets, which in turn delayed the delivery time for all of those whom purchased a set. I know, call it poor judgement, but I really did believed the hype. Some of my facebook family even inspired me, when I refused to bring back, that it was too much work, they took counsel with me, gave a good words, that advanced me to the next step, but so far none of them has made a purchase themselves. I wrote this blog feeling a little down, for making my people wait so long, one of my customer threaten to inform the NOI community of her dissatisfaction.

Black Dollars - Unreachable

I remember back in the days. When I was taking baby steps in learning about my black self...... the brothers that grew up in blackness with me, all took an oath to buy black!! when we would go to the movies, we would go to a black owned theater, when we want to brush our teeth, we would get a black owned toothpaste, if our skin get ashy, we would buy an all black owned lotion ...etc. even if it cost more than the ones you would buy at a grocery store, for many this would be an inconvenience, especially if that means going further than around the corner A lot of black people live in a box. The only difference us, and Indians is that they are on reservations, and know it! We place ourselves on a mental reserved spot, without realizing it. The furthest some of us drive, is to work, but on our days off we don't go far unless it's to a club, or vacation, or to Disneyland or some other place of entertainment, but on a daily basis, we want everything convenient, our food, our liquor, our lotto tickets, collectively our Black Dollars, our spending powers, would make us a self sustaining country, we would have the power to buy NBC, CBS and ABC and create films, and TV shows, in a better light for us, but unfortunately black dollars don't even recycle, in the community not even once!! I pondered this, while I was launching my kickstarter project, for a black animated film called "Lords of the Underground- Street Scrolls" and did not get one donation. I said "do my ideal suck?" but I look on my Kickstarter page and seen 300 likes my fan page is 2,000 strong, but not even a dollar? I further investigated, and I saw ideals ten times worst than mine, but non black. They asked for $20,000 ,and got $50,000 I said wow! maybe I should pretend to be white, promote a dry humor film, without attempts to educate, then sucker punch the audience with something positive...lol forgive me for making such a long blog, to sell my product, but this is the peoples request!!! The people came to me via facbook, and said "sell"! so I. Did now here I am, out of pocket .....ready for business, with a product that no one has...... enough of the formalities.

THE ALL NEW NOI CHESS SET