Yusuf Bey

Yusuf Bey (December 21, 1935 – September 30, 2003), born Joseph Stephens, was a Black Muslim activist and leader.

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

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. In his first business venture he 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.

Yusuf Bey IV

Yusuf Bey IV (born 1986) is a convicted murderer and the son of Daulet and Yusuf Bey, the latter of whom was the founder of the iconic Your Black Muslim Bakery, a purportedly halal bakery in Oakland, California. Bey IV was born in Oakland in 1986. His life was marred by arrests and accusations of serious crimes. After his father's death, his brother's murder and the execution of an earlier successor, Bey IV assumed control of the bakery. But after a string of arrests ranging from traffic violations to forgery, grand theft, assault, and kidnapping, he was arrested and charged with ordering the murder of Oakland Post journalist Chauncey Bailey, who was preparing to publish a damaging article about the power struggle inside the bakery and its related businesses, and their impending failure. The crime occurred in 2007, and Bey IV was convicted of murder in 2011.

Biography

Bey IV lived a chaotic, violent life before his arrest for participating in the murder of journalist Chauncey Bailey.