Editor’s note: The symmetry of 52 weeks in a year and 26 letters in our alphabet inspired us here at The Eatonton Messenger to embark on an alphabetical journey of Putnam County every other week this year, looking at something – or someone – unique, significant, unusual, or just plain interesting.
Perhaps the most unusual, some might say downright bizarre episode in Putnam County’s 216-year history began Jan. 15, 1993, when Dwight York paid approximately $975,000 for 476 acres alongside Shady Dale Road in the northwest corner of the county.
York arrived from a similarly rural 80 acres in New York State’s famous Catskills region, where the FBI with information from the New York Police Department had recently turned up the legal heat on him.
York was no stranger to legal heat. His first serious run-in with the law came in 1964 when he received probation as a 19-year-old for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. Later that year, however, he was sent to prison for three years for violating that probation along with weapons, resisting arrest and assault charges.
After York was freed, he set up shop by 1972 in Bushwick, a then-downtrodden Brooklyn, NY, neighborhood. There, he began writing pseudo-religious screeds and “employed” followers who sold and distributed them on the streets. With the money collected, York managed to buy approximately 20 Bushwick apartment buildings where up to 500 of York’s then-Ansaru Allah Community (AAC) followers eventually lived while adhering to semi-Islam-styled teachings of Black self-empowerment.
He also required his disciples to give up their personal possessions, sleep in gender-segregated rooms, and work for free, all while also operating a bookstore, gift shop, clothing store, and grocery store for him.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), York dictated who could or could not marry or maintain intimate relations while also demanding any woman in the group had to be made sexually available to him at will. Remarkably, AAC outlets also sprung up in several other U.S. cities and even foreign destinations such as Toronto and London.
After essentially enjoying police immunity throughout his early Bushwick years due to cleaning up the neighborhood, by the mid-‘80s York’s questionable enterprises, said to include arson, extortion, and intimidation – not to mention widescale fraud and continuing suspicion of underage sexual assaults – were wearing thin on local authorities.
That’s when York and his “disciples” made the move to “Camp Jazzir” in the Catskills, where York built a multi-million-dollar home for himself while his now-named “Nuwaubian” followers lived in nearby trailers.
With New York law-enforcement pressure mounting in the early ‘90s, York told the Nuwaubians they would soon head south, where they would establish their own nation, declare sovereignty from the United States, and promote Black superiority. And then, he and his followers arrived in Putnam County.
Longtime local residents no doubt remember Dwight York, who quickly made a legal name change to Malachi Z. York upon arrival, then added “Dr.” as a prefix. Over the decades, York went by several names, legal and otherwise, including Issa al Haadi al Mahdi, Supreme Grand Master, Nayya Malachizodoq-El, Pharoah Neter A’aferti Atum-Re, Chief Black Eagle of the Yamassee tribe, Grand Hierophant TuHuTi, and Man From Planet Rizq, among others. He also claimed to have at least 18 different personalities.
Likewise, his organization operated under various titles throughout its history. In addition to AAC and Nuwaubian, York led at various times the Holy Tabernacle Ministries, Al Mahdi Shrine Temple No. 19, and the Yamassee Native American Moors of the Creek Nation.
His “religious” teachings and trappings were similarly fluid, starting as a derivative Islamic doctrine, but including Christian, Jewish, and Native American influences. York also claimed at one time to be an extraterrestrial from the planet Rizq and suggested a spacecraft from the galaxy Illyuwn would visit Earth in 2003 to take away precisely 144,000 chosen people.
In Putnam County, though, he settled on a dominant Egyptian idolatry theme. This led to the creation of “Tama-Re,” the name for an Egyptian-themed compound on the Putnam County property that involved nearly 20 acres hard alongside Shady Dale Road.
The Tama-Re complex eventually was dominated by a pair of four-story tall pyramids, one black and one gold, plus large Ankh and Sphinx-like monuments, an Arc de Triomphe-like-guard gate, a seemingly Stonehenge-inspired structure, and plenty of artificial palm trees.
All the buildings and monuments were built of cheap pressboard covered by a stucco-like finish, then painted in colorful “Egyptian” designs.
Up to 200 Nuwaubian followers continued to be housed full-time in the now-familiar double-wide trailers, while York had a large, two-story home built on the southern side of the complex for his private use. He gradually took to spending most of his time at an upscale home in Athens, however, about 40 miles away.
Ultimately, it was one of Tama Re’s many structures, a supposed storage building being used as an illegal nightclub that led to York’s downfall.
A random finding of an advertising flyer in her Eatonton hairdresser’s shop by then county council member Sandra Adams in 1998 tipped her off to Club Rameses at Tama-Re. But Adams knew she’d never heard of an application, never mind approval, of any such venture on the Nuwaubian grounds.
So, Adams dispatched Eatonton’s building inspector to go visit the Nuwaubian compound, where he was turned away by an armed guard. That also drew the attention of recently elected Putnam County Sheriff Howard R. Sills, who after plenty of legal wrangling from both sides eventually returned to Tama Re with the inspector and promptly established the nightclub was not permitted, nor was it up to code even if it had been.
Within a month, Club Rameses was shut down and padlocked. The end of Tama Re and Dwight York had been put in motion – but it wouldn’t come easy.
To be continued: Part II next week will describe the final days of Tama Re and the Nuwaubians in Putnam County, as well as Dwight York’s fate.