El Rukn and the Moorish Science Temple of America. Fort reportedly hoped that an apparent affiliation with a religious organization would discourage law enforcement. 1980–2000s In 1984 the Chicago congregation bought a building from Buddhist monks in Ukrainian Village, which continues to be used for Temple No. 9. Demographic and cultural changes have decreased the attraction of young people to the Moorish Science Temple. Only about 200 members attended a convention in 2007, rather than the thousands of the past. In the early 2000s, the temples in Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., had about 200 members each, and many were older people. 21st century On July 15, 2019, Philadelphia mayor Jim Kenney, as part of a diversity program, proclaimed July 15 to be "Morocco Day". The city mistakenly invited members of the local Moorish Science temple to the ceremony, believing them to be of actual Moroccan descent. Moorish sovereign citizens During the 1990s, some former followers of the Moorish Science Temple of America and the Washitaw Nation formed an offshoot of the sovereign citizen movement which came to be known as Moorish sovereign citizens. Members believe the United States federal government to be illegitimate, which they attribute to a variety of factors including Reconstruction following the U.S. Civil War and the abandonment of the gold standard in the 1930s. The number of Moorish sovereign citizens is uncertain but possibly ranges between 3,000 and 6,000 organized mostly in small groups of several dozen. Moorish sovereign citizens, who consider that black people constitute an elite class within American society, are in the paradoxical situation of using an ideology which originated in a white supremacist environment. In addition to the Moorish Science Temple doctrine that Black Americans are of Moorish descent, Moorish sovereign citizens claim immunity from U.S. federal, state, and local laws, because of a mistaken belief that the Moroccan–American Treaty of Friendship (1786) grants them sovereignty. In reality, the 1786 treaty was primarily a trade agreement. Some also believe that Black Americans are indigenous to the United States. The Moorish sovereign citizen movement has also expanded to include a few whites. The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies Moorish sovereign citizens as an extremist anti-government group. Tactics used by the group include filing false deeds and property claims, false liens against government officials, frivolous legal motions to overwhelm courts, and invented legalese used in court appearances and filings. Various groups and