Dignity, Diligence, Scandal

In more than three decades here, Oakland's most prominent Black Muslim had built an empire of bakeries, security firms, a school and other businesses. He taught dignity, hard work and discipline to many in this city's sea of street felons, putting them to work when no one else would.

He championed "family values" on his weekly cable television program, while assailing what he called the white devil's "tricknology" that kept the black man down.

His finely dressed followers, with shaved heads and ramrod posture, would fill City Council chambers by the dozens when Bey organization members or their allies sought public financing or other city help, which was often approved.

But when the 68-year-old Bey died Sept. 30 of complications from cancer, another story was emerging.

He was facing criminal charges and a civil lawsuit alleging that he had repeatedly raped underage girls at his compound -- in some cases fathering their children, then demanding their welfare payments.

According to court records and interviews with his accusers, girls in the foster care of one of Bey's wives had given birth to child after child fathered by Bey. Authorities did nothing, even after the alleged rape of another teen who had worked at Bey's burgeoning Your Black Muslim Bakery was reported to police.

In a town hungry for black male role models, nobody seemed compelled to judge or probe. Not until one woman stepped forward last year. Not until one detective listened.

"I decided that somebody had to stop this," said the woman, a former foster child of Bey's. She marched into the Oakland Police Department headquarters after her own daughter -- fathered by Bey -- told her that she, too, had been abused by Bey. "God gave me the proof and I wasn't going to stand by and not use it."

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Yusuf Ali Bey Sr. was born Joseph Stephens in Greenville, Texas. He moved to Oakland at age 5 with his parents. He served in the U.S. Air Force, worked briefly in warehousing and opened a beauty salon in Santa Barbara before converting to the Nation of Islam and changing his name.