Muhammad became known especially for his flamboyant rhetoric directed at white people, whom he called blue-eyed devils. In his later years, however, he moderated his antiwhite tone and stressed self-help among blacks rather than confrontation between the races. In abandoning their pursuit of integration, Malcolm stated, Black folks would need a nest egg so they could strike out on their own with a separate but appropriate share of the wealth they had helped accumulate in America. He is a notable black religious figure. The name of the man at the door was W.S. At no point during the meeting did the Muslim ministers refer to whites as devils, blue-eyed or otherwise, as was their usual practice. Under Farrakhans leadership, the Nation of Islam established a clinic for AIDS patients in Washington, D.C., and helped to force drug dealers out of public housing projects and private apartment buildings in the city. Mr. Fard established Temple No. In the early 21st century, the core membership of Farrakhans Nation of Islam was estimated at between 10,000 and 50,000though in the same period Farrakhan was delivering speeches in large cities across the United States that regularly attracted crowds of more than 30,000. At the same time, white political leaders such as Senator Al Gore Sr., began to denounce the Nation of Islam and hold hearings on alleged "un-American" activities. Elijah Muhammad was a religious leader, author, and self proclaimed Messenger of Allah (God) who led the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1934 until his death in 1975. A Mysterious Messenger Hence, in 1931, after hearing his first lecture at the Temple of Islam, Elijah Poole was overwhelmed by the message and immediately accepted it. Elijah served as the inspiration and mentor to several personalities, such as Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, and Muhammad Ali, who led the movement further. Among the many new members enrolled in the ranks of Islam included Brother Malcolm X and his family. Fellows, who had signed the telegram? His reforms were intended to bring the organization into line with traditional Sunni Islam and to move it away from the unique interpretation of Islam espoused by his father. Muhammad instructed Malcolm and Jeremiah to pitch to the Klan that white America owed Black people an allotment of land as partial payment for more than 300 years of slavery and Jim Crow exploitation and that the inability of the two races to coexist would be eased by Elijah Muhammads setting up of a Black separate state. Although a fixed amount of acreage was not specified, Malcolm was instructed to seek an opening to request Klan assistance in acquiring such designated land, or, at least, to negotiate a pact of noninterference with acquisition of land by other means. Corrections? He was known under many names, "Mr. Evans," his wife's maiden name, "Ghulam Bogans," "Muhammad Rassoull," "Elijah Karriem" and "Muhammad of 'U' Street. Malcolm X was the chief spokesman, the main recruiter; he brought the heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali into the movement. In 1934 Master W. Fard Muhammad departed the scene and left the Honorable Elijah Muhammad with the mission of resurrecting the Black man and woman. All rights reserved. Guests: Claude Andrew Clegg III Author An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad Professor of History, North Carolina A&T State University. CHICAGO, Feb. 25 Elijah Muhammad, spiritual leader of the nation's Black Muslims, died here today of congestive heart failure. The opportunity to be somebody was one of Mr. Muhammad's major offerings to black men and women who joined the Black Muslimsthe name given the group by Dr. C. Eric Lincoln, chairman of the department of religion, and philosophical studies at Fisk University. Following Elijah Muhammads death, the bank turned over the $3.3 million account to the Black Muslim movement, called the Nation of Islam, then headed by Warith Deen Muhammad. When Elijah Muhammad died in February 1975, the Nation of Islam fragmented. He tells you, 'You see what Allah has done.' In 1972, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad opened a $2 million mosque and school in Chicago. However, in 1982, Cook County Judge Henry Budzinski ruled that the money was given to Elijah Muhammad for his personal use and should be turned over to his children with the interest accrued. Both the Klan and the NOI, Muhammad summarized, opposed integration and race mixing. The stock market crash in 1929 was the gateway to economic misery that sparked the fuel of the "Great Depression" of the 1930s. In a faceoff with the most murderous white devils in America, the Nations separate state program sounded like a plea rather than the assertion that Malcolm envisioned. His doctrine included the legend of the tribe of Shabazz, the first black people on Earth who had been tricked out of their power by the evil scientist Yacub, the creator of the white devils. To throw off the yoke of white oppression, Muhammad told blacks, they had to follow Islam. Fellows went outside to call in several lean, middle-aged Klan colleagues. Ultimately, the charges were later dropped, and the officials were freed and Mr. Muhammad received six months' probation to take the Muslim children out of the Islamic school and put them under white Christian teachers. Deeply religious as a boy, he became active in the St. Cyprians Episcopal Church in his Roxbury neighbourhood. Everywhere he advises you to stay from, stay from. On the lecture circuit, Malcolm himself had often attacked King as a patsy of the white man and a sellout, and he would do so again. But by 1963 Malcolm X was disenchanted, while denying that he was a rival of Mr. Muhammad, for top leadership. He is the co-author, most recently, of The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X. Tamara Payne was the principal researcher and co-author of The Dead Are Arising. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Copyright 1997 NPR. He asked Malcolm and Jeremiah directly if the Muslims would reveal where King resided and supply the Klansmen a schedule of his habits and real-time movements when he was in town. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. 0312181531. After a period of small talk and offers of refreshments, Jeremiah reminded Fellows that he might want to invite the rest of his friends in, given the threat from the top of the meeting. Poole joined the organization in 1931, changed his name to Elijah Muhammad and soon became such a devoted disciple that Fard made him Chief Minister of Islam. He kept coming to work late, so I took a stick and whipped that n-----, Fellows said. Estimates of membership range from 25,000 to a high of 250,000 claimed by the movement. However, he never publicly detailed his meeting with the white knights at the kitchen table of Jeremiah Xs house. After World War II ended, Mr. Muhammad won his release from prison and returned to Chicago. 2, he praised and let it be known who his top helper was in his work. Minister Louis Farrakhan and the ministers of Islam defended the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam against these attacks in mass media in their public speeches, written editorials and other public relations thrusts. In 1976 Mohammed renamed the organization the World Community of al-Islam in the West; the name was changed again to the American Muslim Mission in 1978 and to the Muslim American Society in 1985. Spearheading the drive to enforce the ruling were such well-established organizations as the NAACP, the National Urban League, and the Congress of Racial Equality, as well as the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference, headed by the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. The Klan request embarrassed Malcolm, according to Jeremiah and his wife, and it likely disheartened and shamed him as well. The international media had made King a clear and present problem for Southern white segregationists, including the knights of the Georgia Ku Klux Klan. Upon his release from prison in 1946, Elijah Muhammad took over again as the leader of the Nation of Islam. But in a 1930 Depressionridden Detroit, The Prophet, as he was known to customers who bought the fabrics he peddled from doortodoor, created the Temple of Islam. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that after hundreds of years of slavery, the Black man in America is entitled to some land, free and clear, that he could develop and set up as a separate Black nation, Malcolm said by rote. Publisher. There were thugs, dope addicts and prostitutes in the Nation of Islam. Each car held three or four men. The Muslims viewed King as a chief rival. Disappointed that he was not named Elijahs successor, Farrakhan led a breakaway group in 1978, which he also called the Nation of Islam and which preserved the original teachings of Elijah Muhammad. Foreign branches of the Nation were formed in Ghana, London, Paris, and the Caribbean islands. The Muslim community, in addition to establishing religious centers of worship, began to start businesses under the aegis of economic development that focuses on buying and selling between and among Black companies. He visited the Holy City of Mecca where he performed "Umrah" (which is Pilgrimage to Mecca at a time other than the "Hajj season") during his trip to the Middle East in 1959 and advocated worldwide brotherhood and sisterhood. Farrakhan withdrew his support after Jewish voters protested his praise of Adolf Hitler, and he has been embroiled in a continuing conflict with the American Jewish community because of his making allegedly anti-Semitic statements; Farrakhan has denied being anti-Semitic. This would be the first of many publications he would produce. Because of Muhammads separatist views, his most prominent disciple, Malcolm X, broke with the group and, before his assassination in 1965, helped to lend an identity to the group (once known as the American Muslim Mission and now part of the worldwide orthodox Muslim community) that split from the Nation of Islam after Muhammads death in 1975. Cross-burning Klan rallies were staged in open fieldsmostly on Friday or Saturday nights, to attract the largest working-class crowds, some bringing along their children for the fireworks. Elijah Muhammad, the most prominent leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI), was born Elijah Poole in Sandersville, Georgia, on October 7, 1897. It was the name the white slave-master of my grandfather after the so-called freedom of my fathers.". Preemptively, he announced that the Black Muslims were not in favor of the established, legal policy of Jim Crow segregation. Again rejoining in 1974, he assumed leadership of the movement when his father died in 1975. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Fellows, and he was a local Klansman. Give us something we can call our own. Elijah served as the inspiration and mentor to several personalities, such as Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, and Muhammad Ali, who led the movement further. This undercover man would dutifully file notes on the Muslim meeting, dated January 30, 1961, with his control agent at the FBI Atlanta Field Office. Economic development combined with moral and spiritual renewal began to show signs of progress with the establishment of farms, livestock and vegetable cultivation, rental housing, private home construction and acquisitions, other real estate purchases, food processing centers, restaurants, clothing factories, banking, business league formations, import and export businesses, aviation, health care, administrative offices, shipping on both land, sea and air, and men's and women's development and leadership training units. He rejoined the following year but was excommunicated in 1969 and again in 1971. While this pact promised Klan-approved safe passage for Jeremiah and other Muslims in the South, it also committed the NOI to secret cooperation with the death-dealing white knightswho, among their contemporary atrocities, had even openly proposed killing MLK. The Klansmen in the kitchen feigned to grasp the point Malcolm struggled so painstakingly to register. Instead of sending his ministers striding into the Klan meeting with their bow bent, the Messenger was dispatching them with a begging bowl. By 1935, Mr. Muhammad faced many new challenges. At the time of the meeting, race relations in America had been rocked by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, which had outlawed school segregation. Neighbors on adjacent porches and other Black people strolling along the paved street scampered out of sight, some glancing back over their shoulders at the long column of four-door sedans. His parents were Baptist sharecroppers. While in prison he studied the Qurn and the Bible and considered the words of the sentencing judge: The boy is dominated by his father.. One of his sons named Warith Deen Mohammed succeeded him as the leader of the group. By the mid-sixties, Mr. Muhammad's ever-growing Islamic movement extended itself to more than 60 cities and settlements abroad in Ghana, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America among others places, according to the Muhammad Speaks newspaper, the religion's chief information apparatus. We hear him every week, and I say continue to hear our Min. The Klan saw him as a dangerous threat to white hegemony. Although he had registered as a conscientious objector with the Selective Service, he refused, at his fathers insistence, to accept alternative service, and in 1961 he was sentenced to prison for draft evasion. The seventh son of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, Mohammed was marked for leadership of the society even before his birth. Elijah Muhammad was a mystic. Mr. Muhammad quickly became an integral part of the Temple of Islam. Each of the groups, he repeated, was to take care of its own traitors and hypocrites. Elijah Muhammad was born Elijah Poole, the son of a Georgia sharecropper. Now get something for yourself.. It is possible, of course, that the informer himself, especially given his scant report on Klan maneuvers at the meeting, purposefully omitted this, along with other damning information, or, possibly, his account of the King threat resides in some yet undisclosed FBI report. . We know he lives around here somewhere, but we dont know where, said Fellows, in a whisper. Elijah Muhammad believed that the white race was created by Yakub, a Black scientist, and that Allah had allowed this devilish race to hold power for 6,000 years. As a white man unaccustomed to Black resistance, and with his Klan cohort cutting their eyes, Fellows maintained the air of a man who had every right to expect compliance. Elijah Muhammad, as one of the assistanats, became very close to Mr. Fard, and after Mr. Fard disappeared in 1934, Elijah Muhammad became the Minister of Islam. He is remembered for having acted as the Nation of Islam (NOI) leader. After getting expelled from the Muslims three years later, Malcolm would in passing attack the Klan from the podium. Louis Farrakhan, in full Louis Abdul Farrakhan, original name Louis Eugene Walcott, (born May 11, 1933, Bronx, New York, New York, U.S.), leader (from 1978) of the Nation of Islam, an African American movement that combined elements of Islam with Black nationalism. The willingness of Elijah Muhammad to overlook the long, bloody history, as well as the mounting terror of the Klan struck his national spokesperson on a deeply personal level. He entered Mercy Hospital Jan. 30. Elijah Muhammad. Elijah Muhammad was born on October 7th, in 1897. Elijah Muhammad's ascent is another instance of a black man from a small Southern town who achieved national eminence as a religious leader. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. The first biography of Muhammad's life traces his humble beginnings . The details of the Klan telegram, and the events that resulted, have never been fully disclosed. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The negative view was shared by most blacks described by the press as black leaders. But a black conservative, George Schuyler, a columnist for The Pittsburgh Courier, held the view more common to many among the black masses. With barely a college degree among them, each group worked through the sit-down as self-appointed diplomats for its entire race. Although Mr. Muhammad personally enjoyed disasters that befell whites, seeing them as Allah's work, he sought to prevent any public expression of Muslim enjoyment of the event. Resorting to the cover of NOI doctrine, he implied that there would inevitably be violence between the races one day, especially if Black people in America didnt acquire some land and separate from the white man. These principles caught the imagination of thousands of mostly young, male and female, lowerclass black American former Christians who became followers of Mr. Muhammad. Moreover, Muhammad allowed for no hierarchy among Caucasians on the issue of white supremacy; from the sitting U.S. president to the imperial wizard, all were slammed as white devils. Accordingly, the Messenger told his two ministers in Chicago that day that the Muslims and the Klan indeed had similar goals but with different shading. As many as 2,000 paid FBI informants were operating inside the Klan, it later would be revealed. Elijah Muhammad, its spiritual and supreme leader, established the group's headquarters in Chicago (Mosque No. NOI was a select group of black Muslims who believe in black pride and . On July 4, 1930, the long awaited "Saviour" of the Black man and woman, Master W. Fard Muhammad, appeared in this city. 7. It is a terrible thing for such people to charge me with teaching race hatred when their feet are on my people's neck and they tell us to our face that they hate black people. Later, he was released on bail. The son of sharecroppers and former slaves, Muhammad moved to Detroit in 1923 where, around 1930, he became assistant minister to the founder of the sect, Wallace D. Fard, at Temple No. In 1955 Walcott joined the Nation of Islam. Islam was a science and a way of life, not a religion, he said. The Klan did not normally send its messages to Black people by day or post them in writing. At an NOI gathering in Atlanta, 33-year-old Jeremiah X rushed up and handed over over the message, as if passing along a burning ember. 20072023 Blackpast.org. The time was ripe for revamping segregation so that it no longer fixed Blacks at an unacceptably low end of the totem pole. Similarly, he was a religious mentor to the likes of Muhammad Ali, Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X. Give us ours and you have yours. It also worked with gang members in Los Angeles. We want ours more or less free and clear. Malcolm X was Elijah Muhammad's most prominent apostle. Riding Freedom: 10 Milestones in U.S. Civil Rights History, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Farrakhan, BlackPast - Biography of Louis Abdul Farrakhan, Spartacus Educational - Biography of Louis Farrakhan, Black History in America - Louis Farrakhan, Southern Poverty Law Center - Louis Farrakhan, The HistoryMakers - Biography of Louis Farrakhan, Louis Farrakhan - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Malcolm X Reloaded: Who Really Assassinated Malcolm X? Still, like Elijah Muhammads request for Klan assistance in land acquisition, the issue was left dangling. Malcolm faced a major conflict of conscience. The meeting began with a telegram that was delivered from the Klan at the end of 1960. Omissions? ("Biography"). Also, it did not escape Malcolms notice that, in contrast to the Christian Reverend King, the Black Muslims drew not a jot of ire from the one white group in America that was universally despised as devils by all Black people, including Malcolm himself. Farrakhan also said that he wanted all Nation of Islam members to become auditors, practitioners of Scientologys one-on-one counseling process that is meant to facilitate individuals handling of their engrams, which, according to the practices of Scientology, are mental images of past experiences that produce negative emotional effects in ones life. You just tell them devils that.. We just wish all n-----s would be glad to be n-----s. His previously puzzled colleagues shook their head in firm agreement. He died on February 25, 1975 in . Members and mosques continued to be attacked by whites in Monroe, La., Los Angeles, Calif., and Flint, Mich., among others. During the 1950s, Mr. Muhammad promoted Min. Malcolm X to the post of National Spokesman, and began to syndicate his weekly newspaper column, "Mr. Muhammad Speaks," in Black newspapers across the country. The death of the 77yearold Messenger of Allah, as his followers called him, came as thousands of Muslims were gathering in Chicago for their biggest annual religious celebration, Saviour's Day, scheduled for tomorrow. And finally, internal turmoil within the Detroit temple caused Mr. Muhammad to move to Chicago, where he established Temple No. Yes, sir, answered the minister at the screen door. He assured the two Muslim ministers that his group would take care of the dirty work, that nothing would be traceable to their organization. We want white robes., Returning to the stalemate over racial segregation versus separation, Malcolm chided the Klansmen that they shouldnt be able to segregate him and give him what they want him to have, instead of what he should have. Dispassionate as usual when asserting NOI doctrine, Muhammad stated that his battle was not against whites but for the lost hearts and minds of Black people. Actually, the concepts preached and practiced by Mr. Muhammad were handed to him by the founder of the Nation of Islam, W. D. Fard, or Master Farad Muhammad. He announced and preached that God is One, and it is now time for Blacks to return to the religion of their ancestors, Islam. I tell you what, Malcolm, Fellows finally said, we can get yall some purple robes., Oh, no, no, no. said Malcolm, unwilling to let the opposing leader slip the leash. Real Media. "He's a very humble man. In Washington, D.C., Mr. Muhammad delivered his historic Uline Arena address and was afforded presidential treatment, receiving a personal police escort. Each group determined that its involvement in this cross-racial affair must be kept secret. ELIJAH MUHAMMAD (October 7, 1897 - February 25, 1975), leader of the Black Muslim group, the Nation of Islam, for more than forty years. He was on a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 about the heroin trade, and he was a finalist for the award for international reporting two years later for an 11-part series on South Africa. at the best online prices at eBay! Their time was up in 1914, and the 20th century was to be the time for Black people to assert themselves. In 2010 he publicly embraced Dianetics, a practice of Scientology. After a near-death experience in 2000 resulting from complications from prostate cancer (he was diagnosed with cancer in 1991), Farrakhan toned down his racial rhetoric and attempted to strengthen relations with other minority communities, including Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. News spread all over the city of Detroit of the preachings of this great man from the East. However, he was quickly arrested again this time he was imprisoned for four years at the Federal Correctional Institution situated in Michigan. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. He was the son of sharecropper and Baptist minister Wallace Poole and his wife, Mariah. Its all the same thing to us, Fellows said finally. It proposed a meeting between the two groups and implied that they had a lot in common. The Klan invitation led to a meeting in Chicago between Jeremiah, Malcolm and NOI leader Elijah Muhammad, also called the Messenger by adherents, where they mulled over what such a meeting might look like. Elijah Muhammad appeared to have other ideas entirely. Elijah Muhammad was born on October 7th, in 1897. Although these changes were welcomed by many, a dissident minority led by Louis Farrakhan split from Mohammed in 1978 and reestablished the Nation of Islam according to the precepts of Elijah Muhammad. Seeking a point of agreement, Fellows extended an invitation for the Muslims to join the Klan in fighting this gathering scourge of integration., And then, revealing a key item on their agenda, Fellows expressed grave concern over the growing influence in the South of Martin Luther Coon.. When Elijah Muhammad died in February 1975, the Nation of Islam fragmented. He was succeeded by his son Wallace, who led the Nation of Islam to a more Orthodox Islam. Canting his head to look around Jeremiahs shoulder, the Witch Hat inquired, Are you that Malcolm X? The reply rang just as determinedly, Yes, sir.. In 1931, Elijah Muhammad crossed paths with Wallace D. Fard while he listened to his Islamic preaching and the empowerment speeches that he has to the black community. If he can carry you across the lake without dropping you in; he don't say when you get on the other side, 'You see what I have done?' Detroit was a bustling upwardly mobile city with its burgeoning auto industry. In the wake of the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott that the SCLC had launched in December 1955, the Klan had stepped up its campaign against desegregation with night-riding attacks, lynching of Black people and bombings of homes and churches. The slavemaster has given you all he could give you. Muhammads branch of the Nation of Islam took on the name American Muslim Mission after Louis Farrakhan split with the group in 1977. BlackPast.org is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and our EIN is 26-1625373. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. He has been featured in Ebony Magazine's December 2017 issue and has earned 120,000 followers on Instagram. In later speeches he blamed the U.S. government for what he claimed was a conspiracy to destroy Black people with AIDS and addictive drugs. His parents were sharecroppersand former slaves. Elijah Muhammad Birth Name: Elijah Poole Occupation: Politician Born In: GA Birthdate: October 7, 1897 Age: 125 years old (as of 2023) Ethnicity: Multiracial Nationality: American Sexuality: Straight Elijah Muhammad was born on the 7th of October, 1897. Like many of his fellow migrants, Poole found a job in the automobile industry until the Depression forced his family to go on relief for two years. 7 and as the National Representative of the Nation, the second in command of the organization. Surprisingly, the Nation's leadership chose Wallace Muhammad (now known as Warith Deen Mohammed ), the fifth of Elijah's six sons, as the new Supreme Minister. Never had he imagined that this nonviolent Baptist minister, who preached Black kindness and charity for ones enemies, could evoke such toxic venom, such genuine hatred from the very grassroots whites whom King continually encouraged his followers to love. 9780312181536. eBay Product ID (ePID) Early Life Elijah Muhammad was born Elijah Robert Poole on October 7th, in 1897. At least one of the Klansmen was an FBI informer (a fact likely unknown to the other vigilantes, including Fellows). There were rumors that he had even taken on armed guards. New York . Inside the bizarre, secret meeting between Malcolm X and the Ku Klux Klan. He assumed the name Elijah in honor of his [] Farrakhan to come before the religious community and then the following announcement while digressing from his previously stated remarks: "I want you to remember, today, I have one of my greatest preachers here-what are you hiding behind the sycamore tree for brother? Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. 1. He was previously married to Clara Evans. After the meeting, the 10-car convoy took Fellows and his three dozen henchmen across town and emptied them out at the two-story Tower Theater at 583 Peachtree Street. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Warith-Deen-Mohammed, BlackPast - Biography of Warith Deen Mohammed, Independent - Warith Deen Mohammed: Imam who preached a moderate form of Islam to black Americans, PBS - This Far by Faith - Warith Deen Mohammed. 2023 Nation of Islam. (He chuckled)-c'mon around here where they can see you. Well make yall like a partner, Fellows explainedlike an auxiliary. 7 in Harlem, where he emerged as the protg of Malcolm X, the minister of the temple and one of the most prominent members of the Nation of Islam. In April 1923, Elijah Poole moved his young family from Macon, Georgia, where he worked for the Southern Railroad Company and the Cherokee Brick Company to Detroit, Mich. Black families, like the Pooles, were leaving the south, at that time, in search of better economic and social circumstances.