It was not as exotic a locale as the crowded scene of Mecca during the annual pilgrimage where Conrad Muhammad, known as "The Hip-Hop Minister," faced a similar philosophical reversal. His pivotal moment came instead in the inauspicious setting of a Harvard Divinity School classroom, where he hungrily digested the ideas of the Baptist theologian Howard Thurman and changed the direction of his own life and work.
By April of 2004, Minister Conrad Muhammad had become the Rev. Conrad Tillard, a Baptist preacher, ordained by his new mentor, the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, the well-known pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.
With his 1998 departure from the Nation of Islam, Tillard, 40, left behind a coveted position as minister of Mosque No. 7 in Harlem-Malcolm X's former mosque-as well as the prominence of being the Nation's national youth minister. But the exodus also began what he describes as his "journey home."
Tillard grew up in the Baptist church in St. Louis. His stepfather was a Baptist minister, and his family had longstanding ties to their church community. In 1984 Tillard became a student activist, working for the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was running for president at the time. Tillard says that is the year when he "first got the call to ministry," a call that he assumed was leading toward Christian ordination.
He "didn't get far on that journey," though, he recalls. "I became disillusioned with politics and the notion of integration." When he asked people from his church questions about Islam, he was met with words like, "you should be ashamed of yourself," and "you'll go to hell." He says now, "That was the wrong conversation to have with me. My Christian experience was around people who meant well, and loved Jesus, but weren't open on any level to accepting the religiosity of others." Discouraged, Tillard "heeded the clarion voice" of Minister Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam.
From the time he became a Muslim, and adopted the name Conrad Muhammad, Tillard rose quickly through the ranks at the Nation of Islam. His mission, he believed-and still believes-was to connect to what he calls the "hip-hop generation," particularly African-American and Hispanic urban youth, and inspire them to become more socially and politically involved. His non-profit organization, A Movement for CHAANGE (Conscious Hip-Hop Activism Necessary for Global Empowerment), worked from a faith-based perspective to combat injustice and empower young people, regularly meeting with hip-hop record executives to urge them to avoid negative portrayals of African-American youth.
