Fayetteville Mayor To Withdraw Proclamation For Moorish American Week

Fayetteville Mayor Tony Chavonne has learned a valuable lesson. If you're going to issue a proclamation in honor of a group, you better know something about that group. Chavone issued a proclamation for Moorish American Week. Problem is, the group Moorish Americans has tried to file court documents that claim members have sovereignty from the U.S, the Fayetteville Observer reports. Chavonne now plans to retract the proclamation. "In any event, it is confusing and embarrassing," Chavonne wrote to City Council in an email. The Fayetteville Observer also reports that Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx signed a similar proclamation. So did the mayors of Chicago and Baltimore, the paper reports. Moorish Americans are part of the Moorish Science Temple of America. The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote about the group last fall. The article says the group appeals to a growing number of black Americans who subscribe to an antigovernment philosophy so extreme that some of its techniques, though nonviolent, have earned the moniker "paper terrorism." Communicating through social media and learning from an ever-expanding network of websites and online forums, they perplex and often harass law enforcement officials, courts, and local governments across the country."