Yusuf Bey

Yusuf Bey (born Joseph Stephens; December 21, 1935 – September 30, 2003) was an American Black Muslim activist and leader who was a member of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, an offshoot of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam (NOI).

After discovering the teachings of Elijah Muhammed in the 1960s, he adopted the name Yusuf Bey and moved to Oakland, California, and then Santa Barbara, California, where in 1968 he opened a bakery. The bakery moved to Oakland by 1971. Renamed Your Black Muslim Bakery, it became the center of a local Black nationalist community. Held out at the time as a model of African-American economic self-sufficiency, the business fell apart after Bey's death and a series of murders linked to criminal activities.

Biography Early years Bey was born and raised in Greenville, Texas. As a student in the early 1950s, he moved with his family to Oakland, California, where he attended Oakland Technical High School, and then enlisted for four years in the U.S. Air Force. He first obtained a cosmetology degree and ran beauty salons in neighboring Berkeley and then in the southern city of Santa Barbara before going into the bakery business instead. Having converted to Islam in 1964, Bey founded the Islamic bakery in Santa Barbara in 1968. The group was not affiliated with Louis Farrakhan's movement, the Nation of Islam, though early connections and similarities were evident. Nation of Islam minister Keith Muhammad, of East Oakland's Muhammad Mosque #26, stated that the two organizations are distinct and separate.

Prior to establishing Mosque No. 26B, Joseph Stephens (he had not yet changed his name to Bey) and his brother, Minister Billy X, opened a mosque in Santa Barbara, California. He became the Secretary of the mosque and his brother was the minister.

Together with Bey's brother, Minister Billy X Stephens, the two men then received permission to establish a new congregation, Mosque No. 26B, in Oakland. Around that time the two Bey brothers associated with a single young woman named Capt. Felicia X, who was the head of a training program for women in the San Francisco mosque. Felicia X then defected to the brothers' new Mosque No. 26B. Minister Henry Majied, the leader of Mosque No. 26, then retaliated with charges against Felicia X, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two mosques.

On September 19, 2002, Bey turned himself in when a warrant was issued for his arrest, charged with 27 counts in the alleged rapes of four girls under the age of 14. One of the victims gave testimony that Bey had begun to rape her when she was only 8. The cases were pending trial into the following year.

Bey's first attorney in the criminal case was Andrew Dósa, who also represented him in a companion family law case for custody and support brought by the woman. Attorney Lorna Patton Brown represented Bey in the criminal case at the time of his death.

Death On September 30, 2003, before trial began on the first case, Bey died from cancer at the age of 67 in Oakland, California.

Related figures Yusuf Bey IV Bey's son Yusuf Bey IV has been the subject of a series of civil claims and criminal investigations. Investigative reports in 2006 and 2007 uncovered his links to at least three murders, widespread housing and welfare fraud, indentured servitude, and physical and sexual abuse. In 2011, Bey IV was convicted of ordering three murders, including the murder of Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Sayyed Yusuf Bey Sayyed Yusuf "Weedy" Bey was one of Yusuf Bey's older sons and his mother was Shamsun. Sayyed graduated from Elijah Educational Center in 1994. He worked as a cameraman, filming his father's weekly television program True Solutions. Sayyed also worked as a master baker at landmark family business Your Black Muslim Bakery. In 1997, he moved to Los Angeles and worked with the Wayans family to run and eventually own Quick N Shine Auto Detail. On February 24, 2009, after becoming gravely ill, Sayyed took his own life and was found in his home on Burnside Ave by his ex-girlfriend. His body was shipped to Oakland, California and due to the nature of his head trauma, the family had a closed casket ceremony. Sayyed was buried next to his father and brothers Akbar and Antar in a Rolling Hills, California Cemetery.