Ida Hakim-Lawrence

Ida Hakim-Lawrence was born in 1946 in rural South Dakota, daughter of a schoolteacher and a farmer/pastor. Named Ida Mae Johnson, she grew up in a rural setting and married at age 18. She had two sons and remained married for nine years, living in Minneapolis. The marriage ended in divorce. She raised their two sons by herself for several years until, when they reached their teens, they began living with their father. Ida moved to California to seek a career as a songwriter.

After several years of creating music, in 1983, Ida met and married Khallid Hakim (Wilson Lawrence) and begin assisting him in teaching martial arts and running a martial arts school. They had two sons, and lived in Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Chicago and Atlanta. Sympathetic with her husband’s desire to be involved with the Muslims, Ida wrote to Mr. Silis Muhammad for his thoughts on how she could help her husband and not hinder him. Mr. Muhammad answered that she could support and advocate reparations.

Ida began attending reparations events and sought out information on reparations from QM Dorothy Benton Louis and N’Cobra. In 1992 Mr. Muhammad asked Ida to seek NGO status for Afrodescendants to intervene at the UN. Ida created an organization called Caucasians United for Reparations and Emancipation (CURE). CURE members wrote two anthologies; Reparations the CURE for America’s Race Problem and The Debtors: Whites Respond to the call for Black Reparations. Ida and several other CURE members did numerous radio and television interviews, and the organization grew to 120 members. CURE gained UN Consultative Status in 1997.

Beginning in 1997 the organization facilitated the interventions of leaders at various UN bodies 30 times over a period of nine years. In the year 2000 the name of CURE was changed to All for Reparations and Emancipation (AFRE). In the year 2006 the UN reorganized and eliminated the three bodies of experts that were helping Afrodescendants. The NGO went into a rest period, while maintaining its status. Ida is now serving as an advisor for the reengagement of AFRE with the UN and serving on the Board of Advisors for ACT for Unity. Ida has eight wonderful grandchildren and she lives in Georgia, USA.