Dwight York

Dwight York (born June 26, 1945), also known as Malachi Z. York, Issa al-Haadi al-Mahdi, et alii, is an American religious leader, best known as the founder of the Nuwaubian Nation, a new religious movement that has existed in some form and under various different names since the 1960s. The Nuwaubian Nation is identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group advocating black supremacy. Other observers describe the Nuwaubian Nation as "an African-American spiritual movement" that had taken different forms since its inception. York's origins are contested. After converting to Islam in prison, in 1967 he began preaching to African-Americans in Brooklyn, New York, during the black power movement. He last called his group the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors, Nuwaubian Nation, or Nuwabians. These were at first based on pseudo-Islamic themes and Judaism; later he mixed ideas taken from black nationalism, cryptozoology, Christianity, UFO religions, New Age, the sovereign citizen movement and popular conspiracy theories. Around 1990, York and the Nuwaubian Nation relocated to rural Putnam County, Georgia. They came under scrutiny in the early 1990s after they built Tama-Re, an Egyptian-themed park compound for about a hundred of his followers in Putnam County. Before York's trial, the community had been joined directly and in the area by hundreds of other followers from out of state, while alienating both Black and White local residents. The community was intensively investigated after numerous reports that York had molested many children of his followers. York was convicted in 2004 of travel and transport of minors for the purpose of criminal sexual activity, as well as violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. He is serving 135 years in prison.