Nuwaubian Nation / Dwight York

York's group cycled through institutional identities before Tama-Re: the Ansaar Pure Sufi (c.1967), the Nubian Islamic Hebrew Mission (1969), the Ansaaru Allah Community (1973), the Holy Tabernacle Ministries (1992), and the United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors (1993). At the Brooklyn commune, members lived communally in single-sex quarters; newcomers turned over money and property, and mothers were encouraged to claim welfare benefits handed to the organization. Children were separated from their parents and raised communally, taught Arabic, Hebrew and Nubic, York's own invented language. Male members worked as street "propagators" under fundraising quotas, with failure met by chastisement or, in some cases, beatings; men who met their quotas were rewarded with access to their assigned female "mate" in the group's "Green Room." By the 1990s the community owned roughly thirty New York City buildings, and a 1993 FBI assessment concluded the group was "a criminal enterprise masquerading as a religious community," with its internal security force, the mujahid, functioning as a protection racket.

York's own claimed identity escalated alongside this structure: initially presenting himself as a descendant of the 19th-century Sudanese Mahdi, he began in 1983 speaking of "Yaanuwn," an intergalactic being who occupied his body, and by 1988 was telling followers "I am an extraterrestrial incarnated." In 1993 the movement relocated to Eatonton, Georgia, building the Egyptian-themed Tama-Re compound on 475 acres over the following years; York recast followers as "Yamassee Native American Moors," claiming descent from ancient Egyptians who walked to the Americas before continental drift, a claim the Bureau of Indian Affairs rejected on the group's tribal-recognition bid. By 2002 roughly 400 people lived at Tama-Re.

Acting on ex-members' molestation allegations investigated by the FBI since 1997, over 300 federal, state and county agents raided Tama-Re on May 8, 2002 and arrested York, initially charged with 116 counts of child molestation (reduced to 114), with racketeering charges added that November. A January 2003 guilty plea York entered for a reduced 15-year sentence was rejected by the presiding judge. At trial in Brunswick, Georgia -- relocated after the original jury pool was found tainted by publicity -- prosecutors presented abuse allegations dating to 1988; York's defense argued a lack of physical evidence and alleged a conspiracy tied to a York son's personal grievance. In 2004 the jury convicted York on four counts of racketeering and six molestation-related charges (out of the far larger original indictment), and Judge C. Ashley Royal sentenced him to 135 years, served at the ADX Florence federal supermax; the Eleventh Circuit upheld the conviction in 2005, and Tama-Re was seized and demolished. Three prosecution witnesses later recanted their testimony, including the state's star witness, who then rescinded her own recantation; supporters, including figures from the New Black Panther Party, held solidarity meetings maintaining his innocence. Remnant online and bookstore communities, now called United Sabaeans Worldwide, persist as of 2024.