Yusef Bey Dead at 67

Black Muslim leader Bey dies; battled cancer
Remembered for opening doors to down-and-out

Rick DelVecchio, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, October 2, 2003

Yusuf Bey, the Oakland Black Muslim leader who had been fighting cancer, died late Tuesday at an area hospital. He was 67.

The founder and chief executive of Your Black Muslim Bakery had undergone surgery Monday night to relieve an obstruction in his colon caused by the cancer spreading in his lower body, his attorney, Lorna Brown, said.

"It's actually quite shocking to everybody," Brown said. "I did see him a week and half ago at the bakery and he was actually in the bakery with an apron on. He lost a lot of weight but he looked OK."

In May, a doctor testified that Bey had inoperable cancer and had a life expectancy of less than a year. The disease began in his prostate and spread to his colon before it was discovered.

Family members and Bey's business associates and family members had no immediate comment.

Bey was among the best-known Black Muslim figures in the Bay Area. His supporters credited him with creating an organization that promoted the well- being of struggling African American families.

They respected him as a religious leader who opened his doors to the down- and-out and invited them into the business, faith and kinship network he called the "Bey family."

Bey "worked with people who didn't have a direction, bringing them in and cleaning them up," said Chuck Johnson, founder and chief operating officer of Oakland's Soulbeat Television Network, which has carried Bey's "True Solutions" program for 25 years.

". . . The only thing I can say is, he did a good job in our community and it's going to be a loss."

Known as Dr. Bey, he was a patriarchal figure within the family. Since June 2001, he had been fighting accusations that he abused his authority in connection with several girls who worked at the bakery.

He had faced sex abuse charges in Alameda County stemming from his relationship with a woman who was 13 when she came in contact with him while working at the bakery. Prosecutors also had alleged that Bey raped three other young girls under his spiritual wing from 1976 to 1995, although those accusations were dropped after the U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned a California law allowing the prosecution of decades-old sex-abuse cases.

Bey's brush with the law began 16 months ago, when a 33-year-old woman walked into Oakland police headquarters to say that Bey began abusing her in 1976 and fathered three of her children. The abuse continued from the time she was 8 "until she was able to get away from him, when she was 18," according to a police report.

Three other women later came forward with similar charges. The subject of the criminal case that was active at the time of Bey's death said she first saw Bey on TV in 1994 and felt he wanted to help young people in trouble. She got a job at the bakery and was abused and threatened by him within a week, she said in the police report.

Brown said Bey's death "certainly means the criminal case is over." Bey also faced civil claims filed by three of the unnamed women who worked in his bakery.

J.H. Stephens of Greenville, Texas, discovered the teachings of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad and became Yusuf Bey at age 30. He switched to a health-food diet and moved to California, one in a stream of Southern blacks headed to the West Coast.

Following his father into the bakery business, he opened a chain of bakery outlets in the Oakland area. He also formed a security business and a Muslim school and produced a weekly TV program. In 1994, he ran for mayor of Oakland.

Bey continued to work on business projects despite his recent health problems. He had been making progress on one of his long-term goals: creating a corridor for black-owned businesses in the block anchored by his San Pablo Avenue bakery.

"He didn't let his health get in the way of his dream to have that corridor, " said Johnson.

In his teachings, Bey followed the founder of the Black Muslim movement throughout his career.

"I practice Islam as taught by Elijah Muhammad," Bey said in an interview in February. "His religion is a way of life. He has taught how to resurrect us from the dead state -- the so-called American Negro men. We're white people with black skin. It's all a mentality."

Elijah's program of self-improvement is twinned with another idea: self- defense against a common foe, sometimes called the slave-master, or white devil in Black Muslim parlance.

He listed 12 steps that blacks should follow to end their reliance on whites, including: "Make your neighborhood a decent place to live" . . . "build an economic system around yourself" . . . "protect your women."

Bey referred to his health problems in a video taken last May and cataloged on his bakery's Web site.

"This is a very stressful thing," he said. "However, it's a temporary thing. "

He urged the audience to pray for his recovery and unite behind his cause: "We're all black and we all have the same problems. That's the common denominator. Let's unite and get out of hell."

Contact Rick DelVecchio at rdelvecchio [at] sfchronicle.com