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Former Nation Of Islam HQ To Become New Home Of Vineyard Church

By Sam Cholke | March 23, 2016 6:04am
 The Vineyard Church has raised $380,000 as a down payment to buy the former Nation of Islam headquarters at 5335 S. Greenwood Ave.
Nation of Islam Mosque for sale fixed
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HYDE PARK — Vineyard Church has announced it will buy the former Nation of Islam headquarters building in Hyde Park after raising $380,000 in eight days.

The church currently sharing space with the Lutheran School of Theology has raised enough for a down payment on the the former Nation of Islam headquarters at 5335 S. Greenwood Ave. after putting out a call to its members to raise $800,000.

The Rev. Rand Tucker announced on Facebook that the church raised $380,000 in the first eight days of fundraising.

“We have a lot ahead of us, we still have a lot of need,” Tucker said in a video announcement posted on Facebook. “This hasn’t been about a building, this has really about having a home base for us to continue doing what we have been doing — for 18 years we’ve been in rented facilities.”

According to Tucker, an anonymous alumnus of the church pledged $53,000 if the congregation could raise matching funds.

He said the church needed to raise a minimum of $200,000 to get a loan for the new building.

The building went on the market in mid-February after Envision Unlimited, a services center for adults with disabilities, moved out. Curbed Chicago first connected the building to the Nation of Islam. 

The building had an earlier life as a Muslim parochial school, the University of Islam Temple No. 2, opened in 1962 by John Ali, a top-ranking member of the Nation of Islam and a close friend of Malcolm X, and later rumored to have been an FBI informant.

The building was long associated with the Nation of Islam, with its address printed on nearly every publication put out by the group in the ‘60s.

The building is a large open room on the second floor and offices and kitchen on the first floor.

“For 18 years, we have been looking for a property that would be within a certain area of Hyde Park, at a price that we could afford, and zoned for religious use,” Tucker said in a February letter to the congregation. “This is the first time that we have found any property that fits all three of these criteria.”

Tucker was not immediately available on Tuesday to answer questions about when the church would close on the property and move in.

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