THEBLACKSCHOLAR The Nation of Islam: 1930-1996

Religious Heterodoxy and Nationalist Tradition: The Continuing Evolution of the Nation of Islam

by Ernest Allen, Jr.

NE OF THE MORE PROFOUND cultural and Islamic community with substantive ties to a O political phenomena of the late twenti- larger international community of religious eth century has been the religious conversion adherents. In October 1976 the NOI became of approximately one million African Ameri- the World Community of al-Islam in the West cans to Islam.' Encroaching upon a domain (WCIW) ; in its final incarnation, lasting over which Christianity held virtual sway for from May 1980 through May 1985, the orga- one and a half centuries, this recent turn of nization was known as the American Muslim events owes most of its influence to an organi- Mission (AMM), after which time it disband- zation known as the Nation of Islam (NOI) .2 ed. Today the work of Wallace Muhammad The NOI - both the original group and its - who now goes by the name of Warith offshoots - offers an intriguing example of a Deen Mohammed - is primarily evangelical, religious-oriented nationalist movement his constituency comprised basically of which, over a period of six decades, has come African American Muslims who regularly to embrace traditional Islam in halting and attend some 200 plus masjids throughout the contradictory ways. At times this embrace has United States . Within Islamic circles at home been direct and deliberate; at other times and abroad, Imam Mohammed's voice car- more indirect and pragmatic, in order that ries considerable influence; within the secu- central aims might be more effectively pur- lar world he rarely has been heard from in sued . Minor organizational discontinuities recent years, save for occasional interviews in aside, the NOI has proved to be the largest the press. Politically conservative and entre- and longest-lived institutionalized nationalist preneurially inclined, Imam Mohammed's movement among blacks in the United States, secular views correspond with the most far outstripping the widespread appeal and reserved elements of the black middle-class, influence of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro its business-oriented strata in particular. The Improvement Association which flourished political outlooks of his followers, however, during World War I and the immediate post- appear to follow diverse paths. war years. With the passing of its supreme leader, ERE THAT THE ONLY STORY TO TELL, it Elijah Muhammad, in early 1975, the Nation would be a remarkable one, indeed . of Islam reached a fundamental divide. Pro- AfricanW Americans now constitute the largest pelled by Mr. Muhammad's son, Wallace, the single "ethnic bloc" within a religious com- NOI quickly underwent fundamental munity comprised of millions of Muslims, changes in structure and belief, as well as in both immigrant and native-born, residing in name. From a large sect preaching nominal the United States. However, in 1978 the pic- Islam the group rapidly evolved into a Sunni ture was further complicated by the splinter-

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ing off of a new formation from the ranks of Lost Found Nation of Islam, the United the transformed NOI - then known as the Nation of Islam, and the Detroit-based WCIW. Distressed with the sweeping changes Nation of Islam also draw upon the "econom- in doctrine and organizational structure as ically challenged," the latter two groups, espe- well as the loss of economic empire amassed cially, take pride in preserving venerable NOI under the old group, Minister Louis Far- orthodoxy against any doctrinal or ritualistic rakhan led thousands of dissatisfied follow- changes, apostasies for which they occasional- ers into a newly constituted Nation of Islam. ly chastise Minister Farrakhan. Initially criti- Nor was Farrakhan the only defector. By cal of Farrakhan, the LFNOI, for its part, has far the most capable and charismatic leader sought a rapprochement with the NOI to emerge during the NOI/WCIW/AMM leader, with no reported success thus far.' transition period, he nonetheless has distant Without question, the principal "competi- rivals among others dissatisfied with the tion" for members on the African American course set by Warith Deen Mohammed . Islamic front now rests between the con- These include Silis Muhammad, who along stituencies represented by Warith Deen with Abu Koss subsequently established the Mohammed and Louis Farrakhan. The prima- Lost-Found Nation of Islam (LFNOI), based ry difference between the two, however, lies in in Atlanta; Brother Solomon (a.k.a. Royall X the realm of religious orthodoxy, social-class Jenkins) and his spokesperson, former NOI constituency, corresponding degree of mili- secretary Abass Rassoull, whose organization tancy, and organizational centralization. The at Camp Springs, Maryland is known as the followers of both tend to associate their eco- United Nation of Islam (UNOI) ; and John nomic successes - and how could they not? Muhammad, younger brother of Elijah, who, - with the righteousness of their respective while maintaining a distance from Farrakhan's spiritual trajectories . And both groups tend organization, has retained the NOI name for towards political conservatism . his Detroit temple.' The Five Percenters, an earlier but structurally amorphous spinoff "Up You Mighty Race": formed in Harlem, New York City in 1964, The Nationalist Legacy of the Universal continue to exert influence not only upon Negro Improvement Association inner-city youth, but college students as well - especially through the medium of rap S A RELIGIOUS-NATIONALIST MOVEMENT, what music. None of these groups have significant- Awere the ideological sources of the NOI's ly contested Farrakhan's leadership. nationalism, the constraints and compulsions Since his break, Louis Farrakhan's NOI by which its political and identity concerns has succeeded in expanding its membership, were given shape? A fundamental duality has reclaiming a portion of the economic hold- tended to beset African American communi- ings of the pre-1975 group, and amassing ties from the late 18th century to this day. On new enterprises as well. Retaining core ele- the one hand, black people have, from the ments of the old doctrine while selectively beginning of the republic, demanded full appropriating additional elements of tradi- social and political rights based upon their pre- tional Islam, the perennially militant NOI - sumed birth-right citizenship status. That status like its predecessor - finds principal sup- having been denied, they have often opted for port among economically dispossessed a political and economic self-determination African Americans, the number of which anchored in the renunciation, implicit or oth- appears to increase with each passing day. erwise, of American civic identity. This latter Doctrinally, the LFNOI devotes considerable tendency has sometimes blossomed into energies to scriptural prophecy, not least of demands for full political autonomy. Given the which is the supposition that Brother difficulties of securing an autonomous territor- Solomon of the LFNOI is identical to King ial base within the United States, however, Solomon of the Bible, whereas the UNOI's African American political nationalism - until overriding concern lies in its reparations the mid-1960s at least - tended to flow largely claims upon the U.S. government . While the through emigrationist channels.

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But the material barriers to emigrationism Garvey movement in the 1920s, resurfaced proved at least as great as obtaining self-deter- with neo-Garveyite groups and the original mination on Northamerican soil. From the Nation of Islam in the 1950s, and seems to outset of slavery in the early 17th century to have been put to rest only recently by .Minis- the present, relatively few people of African ter Farrakhan's endorsement of Jesse Jack- descent ever permanently departed the conti- son's presidential campaign in 1984. Gar- nent for other shores. But hard realities failed vey's Universal Negro Improvement to stifle the dreams of political autonomy Association (UNIA), a mass-based Pan- which continued to reverberate among sectors Africanist organization which peaked in the of the African American population . Only mid-1920s, paved the way for a complex with the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting assortment of nationalist groups which fol- Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 - measures lowed - including the NOI. which enforced the full citizenship status of Although linked to one another by their blacks in the United States for the first time respective quests for self-determination, it since Reconstruction - were the material would be erroneous to assume any overarch- underpinnings of emigrationist utopianism ing ideological connection between Gar- ultimately undermined. (In the wake of veyite and Islamic-oriented nationalisms. For "African independence" these "Back-to-Africa" example, where Garveyism upheld the politi- sentiments were subsequently accorded a coup cal and economic redemption ofAfrica as its de grace as a result of the continent's growing ideological centerpiece, the original Nation social problems .) Nonetheless, despite the of Islam limited its sights to the spiritual and existence today of an unprecedented number material redemption of African Americans. of black elected officials in the American (Indeed, it regarded the African continent as South, as well as a widespread election of a land inhabited by "uncivilized" beings.)'o northern blacks to office as a result of demo- Garvey, moreover, was an unabashed Christ- graphic changes, the state of U.S. "justice" ian who vigorously sought to subordinate continues to founder on the rocks of "racial" religious differences among blacks to the difference . Dual standards at all levels of law greater goal of self-determination, while the enforcement and the judicial system, and an NOI itself was founded along strict religious absence of economic democracy which no lines.'l Although both groups counseled sep- degree of electoral participation might dis- aratism in one form or another, emigra- semble, continue to fuel a fundamental and tionism was, for Garvey, a most pressing and enduring sense of African American alien- immediate matter, whereas the NOI ation from the broader society. (This alien- approached the issue mainly as a rhetorical ation, one might add, is shared, albeit on dif- question devoid of practical implementation. ferent grounds, by increasing numbers of For the UNIA as well as the NOI, the topic of marginalized Americans of all "ethno-racial" African American pride and self-respect lay backgrounds.) at the doctrinal core of each, but handled in different ways - the former championing a HE EMIGRATIONIST-SEPARATIST stream of Pan-African identity, the latter a complex of 20th-century African American national- religious and fictive ones. ismT differs significantly from its 19th and late-18th century counterparts due primarily HERE wERE MORE direct historical connec- to the influence of Marcus Garvey, who tions as well, including the legacy of sym- linked the quest for black self-determination bolic militarism initiated by the UNIA in the to a vigorous attack upon African American form of a disciplined, non-armed security claims to civil and political liberties within force. "Where is the black man's Govern- the United States! (The way had been pre- ment? . . . his army, his navy, his men of big pared, it is true, by Booker T. Washington's affairs?," inquired Marcus Garvey during the subordination of such claims to economic World War I era. "I could not find them, and development.) This dubious strategy lay at then I declared, `I will help to make them' ."" the core of controversies surrounding the Mr. Garvey's "army" assumed the form of the

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Universal African Legion, a phalanx of uni- able economically ; Garvey reasoned that formed black men, and the Universal Africa, as a strong nation-state, would be able African Motor Corps, comprised of uni- to protect the interests of diasporic blacks formed black women - both given to everywhere in the world.) In predicting that impressive public display, especially at UNIA blacks eventually would be driven out of the parades and conventions. This martial touch United States into a receptive African home- was variously replicated by Depression-era land, Garveyism also bore resemblance to nationalist organizations such as the St. the "catastrophic Zionism" of Max Nordau, Louis-based Pacific Movement of the Eastern who in 1920 envisioned a similar flow ofJews World, whose male members drilled weekly into Palestine following their expulsion from with wooden rifle stocks, and less ostenta- Europe."' The untenable character of Gar- tiously by the NOI's Fruit of Islam, to which vey's stance was manifest in his urging blacks all males of the group belonged." Porten- to be loyal to all flags under which they lived, tous symbol of African political indepen- while simultaneously declaring that "Ameri- dence, the red, black, and green banner of ca is a white man's country." Paradoxically, the Garvey movement would also spawn par- this militant conservative - indeed, reac- allels among future nationalist organizations tionary - stance vis-a-vis the U.S. domestic - including a slightly altered appropriation front stood in contrast to Mr. Garvey's pro- of the Moroccan state flag by the Moorish gressive, anti-colonial position regarding Science Temple of America (MSTA) and a African affairs as well as his support of trade more radically modified version of the Turk- unionism in the West Indies. But one thing is ish one on the part of the NOI.14 clear: fortuitously or otherwise, the eschew- ing of civil rights in the U.S. on the part of ORE SUBSTANTIALLY, a central aspect of blacks themselves has always tended to coin- the UNIA's legacy for future African cide with the outlook and needs of far-right American nationalist organizations and lead- segments of the dominant population . ers was Garvey's political conservatism regarding domestic social issues within the HEN MARCUS GARVEY added to his United States. Studies of late 19th-century Wexhortations of "race pride" a champi- black entrepreneurialism demonstrate a oning of "racial purity," for example, then close correlation between individual strivings punctuating this new emphasis with calls for towards capital accumulation and the exis- an African expatriation and a renunciation tence of political conservatism within black of domestic rights, his position then fairly communities. Garvey's general penchant complemented the outlook of some of the towards conservative values accelerated from most reactionary, race-baiting Negrophobes mid-1921 onwards, after having been tem- in the U.S. Indeed, the NOI's later coopera- porarily barred from re-entering the United tion with right-wing whites was prefigured in States following a trip to Central America Garvey's infamous meeting with Edward and the Caribbean. Prior to this time, the Young Clarke, Imperial Kleagle of the Ku UNIA had sought an amelioration of social Klux Klan, in 1922 ; in his subsequent affilia- conditions for black Americans in tandem tions with arch-racists John Powell of the with the goal of African liberation; subse- Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America and Earnest quently, in somewhat the same way that Sevier Cox of the White American Society; as Booker T. Washington "exchanged" the right well as the cooperation of neo-Garveyite of African Americans to enjoy full civil and groups such as the Peace Movement of political liberties for the right to pursue a Ethiopia with Mississippi Senator Theodore dollar, Garvey contextualized the liberation Bilbo's anti-black, African repatriation of the African continent as an alternative to scheme in 1939. Parallels assuredly can be the African American pursuit of human found in the invited appearance of Ameri- 17 rights within the U.S. (Washington argued can Nazi Party head George Lincoln Rock- that such liberties eventually would flow well at the NOI Saviour's Day observance in from the fact of making oneself indispens- 1962, and, sometime later, the explicit agree-

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ment reached between the NOI and the Ku establish mercantile relations between Klux Klan providing for the non-harassment "Africans at home and abroad," with the of NOI members in the South by racist African continent viewed as a source of pre- whites. In the mid-1980s Louis Farrakhan cious raw materials, the Americas as a manu- himself received public endorsements from a facturing base. An inherent difficulty which number of white extremist organizations, these intertwined goals of petitbourgeois eco- including the White American Political Asso- nomic advancement and political militancy ciation and the Posse Comitatus, which he faced, however, was that of separating the exi- chose (publicly, at least) to ignore . But mem- gencies of mass organizing from the day-today . Garvey's bers of the association, including its leader, functioning of business enterprises contracts from Tom Metzger, reportedly accepted an invita- efforts to secure shipping to negotiate tion to attend a September 1985 rally spon- major North American firms and sored by the NOI, to which they donated docking arrangements with colonial govern- $100. Farrakhan, moreover, has received ful- ments, while simultaneously proclaiming to some praise from Britain's National Front, the world the UNIA's ultimate aim to run and in 1990 NOI spokesman Dr. Abdul Alim western colonial powers out of Africa, offers a Muhammad reportedly addressed a confer- case in point! And because the UNIA's Black ence of Lyndon Larouche supporters . '9 Far Star Line was both an economic venture and a from constituting an anomaly, collaboration powerful symbol of black achievement, priori- such as the with reactionary forces appears to be a fun- ties were sometimes confused - damental feature of the right-wing national- diverting of ships laden with perishable cargo purposes . ism of the oppressed - witness the ill-fated to side destinations for propaganda collaboration of Zionists with the Third The pattern of rewards and attendant pitfalls Reich during the 1930s.2o Garvey's labeling accompanying the linking of mainstream eco- politics would of the United States as a "white man's coun- nomic activities to oppositional try" in 1922 would in no ways deter his par- be replicated by future African American ticipation in electoral politics . Two years nationalist organizations - and the Nation of later he founded the Negro Political Union, Islam especially. an effort which served as a precursor to later (but infrequent) forays by African American Islamic and Pseudo-Islamic Tendencies : nationalists into the electoral arena (for Ahmadism, Freemasonry, and example, MSTA involvement in Chicago Moorish Science ward politics in the latter 1920s as well as the unsuccessful 1990 Maryland political cam- HILE GARvEYISM CONTINUED TO SERVE as paign ofAbdul Alim Muhammad) . Wa model of political and economic self- What the Garvey movement had demon- determination for the NOI as well as other strated, above all, was the concrete possibility nationalist groups, examples of heterodox of organizing a mass-based African American Islam seem to have arrived from three princi- nationalist organization in the United States. pal sources: the Ahmadiyyah Muslim sect, Serving as a model - although not a partic- the African American Masonic offshoot ularly solid one - for a merging of the known as the Ancient Egyptian Arabic Order demands of African liberation with those of of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine of North and the Moor- an economic entrepreneurialism, the UNIA South America (AEAONMS), and Exported inspired African Americans to seek econom- ish Science Temple of America.21 Mufti ic and. political self-sufficiency in "a land of to the U.S. by Indian missionary Ahmadiyyah our own." But it was in the United States that Muhammad Sadiq in 1920, every the UNIA launched its economic undertak- Islam proved traditional in virtually of ings: short-lived economic enterprises such way - save for the declared prophethood Ahmadi as the Black Star Line, a handful of grocery its founder, Gulam Ahmad. The and millinery stores, and far more successful appeal fell most heavily upon African Ameri- ventures such as the Negro World newspaper. can urban dwellers; and the imaginations of Marcus Garvey's ultimate economic aim was to aspiring black religious leaders of all fringes

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were no doubt stoked by its heterodox claims Cabalism, Gnosticism, Rosicrucianism, for an Islamic prophethood succeeding that Theosophy, and Astrology. Herein, believ- of Prophet Muhammad. The NOI's uninter- ers claimed, pulsed the subterranean roots rupted employ of Maulana Muhammad Ali's of an esoteric, hidden knowledge undergird- English-language translation of the Holy ing all religious thought, Islam included . Qur'an, as well as his numerous books and Over time - especially given the ignorance pamphlets devoted to Islam, suggests an of traditional Islamic practices in the U.S. - important Ahmadi influence, as does Elijah Islam and Freemason2 y occasionally came to Muhammad's employ of the pseudonym be identified as one. A practicing Freema- Gulam Bogans in the early 1940s. son for seven years prior to his joining the NOI, Elijah Muhammad once described the HE AEAONMS, ON THE OTHER HAND, was relation between Freemasonry and Islam in founded by 33° Prince Hall Masons in the following way: June 1893 at the Columbia Exposition in Before the coming of Allah [i .e . W. D. Fard], Chicago. For their rituals and texts, Black Islam was sold to the so-called Negroes in a secret Shriners drew upon materials quietly expro- order or society called the Masons . This order is made up of thirty-three (33) degrees and it is priated from their white segregationist coun- sold by degrees. If a member is eligible and able terparts, whose own organization was known to pay for all the degrees he may do so, but only as the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of those who take the thirty-third (33rd) are called the Mystic Shrine for North America. This Moslem Shriners .28 original Shrine was established as a Masonic Imprinted with Garveyite, Masonic, and, social organization in New York City in 1871, most likely, Ahmadi influences as well, the but in its irreverent legend lay claim to hav- Moorish Science Temple was responsible for ing been founded by "Kalif Alee" (Caliph ushering in the premier African American 'Ali ibn Abi Tabib), cousin and son-in-law of version of an Islamic-oriented nationalism. the Prophet Muhammad, Reportedly founded in Newark, New Jersey in the year of the Hegira 25 (A.D . 644) at Mecca, in 1913 by North Carolina native Timothy in Arabia, as an Inquisition, or Vigilance Commit- Drew - better known by his Shrine-inspired tee, to dispense justice and execute punishment name of Noble Drew Ali - the original upon criminals who escaped their just desserts orga- through the tardiness of the courts, and also to nization seems to have been linked to an ear- promote religious tolerance among cultured men lier formation known as the Canaanite Tem- of all nations. . . . The order is yet one of the most ple.29 Details of the MSTA's early years, not to highly favored among the many secret societies mention those of its founder, remain mired which abound in Oriental countries, and gathers around its shrines a select few of the best educat- in profuse legend, but by 1925 the organiza- ed and cultured classes. Their ostensible object is tion had firmly established itself on Chica- to increase the faith and fidelity of all 2true believ- go's South Side. Many of the MSTA's key ers in Allah (whose name be exalted! ) . ideas were absorbed by the fledgling NOI: Far from exuding spiritual solemnity, the the fictive notion of an "Asiatic" origin of Arabian-inspired "temples" of black and African Americans; the adoption of "Moor- white Shriners became playgrounds in a dou- ish" dress, including fezes worn by men;'o a ble sense: as "burning sandboxes" of Freema- healthy confusion of Islam with Freemason- sonry, where mirth and merriment reigned ry; the claim that Islam was the original reli- in contrast to the relatively staid dignity of gion of blacks prior to their having been lodge ritual ; and, since the red Turkish fez enslaved ;3' and a religious nationalism nomi- had been "adopted as a uniform style of nally infused with Islamic points of refer- head covering for all Nobles of the Mystic ence. In the entrepreneurial realm the influ- Shrine,"'-' as sites where one could "play at" ence of Garveyism was equally manifest in being a Turk or Egyptian - that is to say, a the activities of the MSTA and the NOI: for "Mohammedan." As Freemasons, moreover, example, a suite of "Moorish" health prod- Shriners were frequently versed in the meta- ucts, echoes of which would be seen in Min- physical rigors of the Egyptian, Eleusinian, ister Farrakhan's own beleaguered line of and Pagan Mysteries, as well as those of P.O .W.E.R. cosmetics, and in the desire for

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land. Striving towards economic self-suffi- trine. Finally, the NOI, with its claim to apoc- ciency at a most rudimentary level, the NOI alyptic truth, assumed far more of a mil- established farms in Michigan, Alabama, and lenarian character than did the MSTA. Georgia, paralleling the earlier existence of MSTA agricultural enterprises in Prince The Early Nation of Islam: 1930-1946 George county, Virginia; Long Island, New York; Woodstock, Connecticut; and the Berk- STABLISHED BY ONE W. D. FARD (pro- shires of western Massachusetts. nounced Fa-ROD) in Detroit in mid- 1930,E the Nation of Islam extolled a doctrine DEOLOGICALLY, the two organizations dif- which was Islamic only in name. NOI beliefs fered in important respects as well. The regarding the anthropomorphic nature of UNIA legacy included the placing of women God, the non-existence of the hereafter, and of substance - Henrietta Vinton Davis, polygenesis were sufficiently distant from not Maymie Leona Turpeau DeMena, and Amy only the teachings of the Qur'an and the Jacques Garvey come readily to mind - at Hadith or Sunna, but mainstream Christianity the top organization levels. Within the much as well." Forged in the midst of the Great more organizationally decentralized MSTA Depression, Master Fard's incipient religious could be found several female heads of local views sought to address two problematic areas branches known as "governors ." But despite of African American working-class life. On the the inclusion of at least one female minister, one hand lay the task of reinforcing a sense of Ava Muhammad, under the leadership of personal dignity; on the other, promoting Minister Farrakhan, the NOI, as in the past, individual material welfare. Like Noble Drew observes a strict, traditional division of gen- Ali, the path by which Fard chose to approach der roles." There were other divergencies . these twinned goals lay within as well as out- Where Noble Drew Ali preached "peace and side the prevailing Christian worldview of love" to all humanity, NOI founder Wallace African Americans. Unlike Ali, however, Fard D. Fard taught that all whites were "devils" learned to maneuver his own set of beliefs who eventually would be destroyed. And upon a sea of uncharted metaphysics. whereas the MSTA championed a national For Prophet Fard, the elevation of black identity comprised of Moorish, Islamic, and dignity and self-respect depended on the cul- Asiatic elements and an American civic iden- tivation of a special African American rela- tity (until Ali's death from tuberculosis in tionship with God, as well as a selective chal- mid-1929 the Chicago MSTA was deeply lenging of prepotent views bearing on the committed to Republican ward politics on origins of humanity and the beginnings of the South Side), the overlapping group iden- civilization . Existentially speaking, Fard's tities claimed by the NOI - Asiatic, Islamic, intent was to transport African Americans and Lost Tribe of Shabazz - were linked to from the periphery to the very center ; in this a repudiation of American citizenship and respect, of course, his aims were far less cos- an espousal of black political self-determina- mopolitan than the romantic nationalism of tion. Until the death of Drew Ali, at least, the his predecessor, Marcus Garvey. But the key Chicago MSTA was a very "public" organiza- to Master Fard's thought lay in the imagina- tion, in contrast to the early character of the tive way in which he responded to specific NOI, which remained far more "secretive" arguments of pseudo-scientific racism, bibli- and inward-looking until the latter 1950s. cal cosmogony, and racialist historiography And whereas the MSTA, up to the present - all within the context of late 19th-century day, has maintained its own, original "Holy upheavals in American Protestantism.3b Koran" cribbed largely from apocryphal, Christian-based scriptures, the Qur'an of the The Protestant Crisis: Faith v. Science, Prophet Muhammad was embraced - albeit Religion v Everyday Life nominally - by the NOI from the outset, its teachings gradually and selectively incorpo- RREPRESSIBLE DOCTRINAL (and institutional) rated into the overall organizational doc- difficulties confronted Protestant Chris-

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tianity toward the end of the 19th century: cans had turned to Hinduism or Buddhism, while an unremitting march of scientific not to mention Madame H. P. Blavatsky's knowledge now found itself in open conflict idiosyncratic version ofeastern spirituality with literal interpretations of the scriptures, Christianity's own strict dichotomizing of the S HE HEWED A SPIRITUAL-MATERIAL GATEWAY universe into the natural and the supernat- for African Americans stranded in the ural had conspired to render the idea of deepest recesses of the Great Depression, God irrelevant to everyday needs. Ensconced Prophet Fard evolved a complex response to on His heavenly throne, the Creator this still reverberating upheaval in Protestant appeared far removed from the surrounding thought. On one level he embraced the scien- material culture of urban industrial society. tific viewpoint - or perhaps more accurately, Confronting an unceasing clash of scientific its coattails - wholeheartedly. No one wishes and spiritual truths, fundamentalists con- to appear unscientific in a scientific age (as curred that the Bible bespoke absolute cer- the very names "Christian Science" and tainty, and that religion itself constituted the "Moorish Science" attest), and Nation of Islam highest form of science . Christian Science, theology bore the imprint of these unsettling with its emphasis on the spiritual healing of trends as well. In the name of science Fard physical ailments, promoted similar claims, denied the existence of spirit, be it manifested while Jehovah's Witnesses, for their part, as life in the hereafter or in the more exalted sought millenarian solutions to the problems form of what he called the "mystery God" of provoked by industrial unrest . Sensing that Christianity. He attacked prevailing Christian baptism was no longer sufficient to the con- teachings which offered the prospect of a version process, by the early 20th century good life only after physical death - a future members of newly formed Pentecostal and bliss shimmering in stark contrast to the mate- Holiness sects submitted to additional stages rial misery in which African Americans actual- of ritual spiritual purification, bringing God ly found themselves during the Depression . within themselves while clinging to the One's heaven and one's hell, Fard submitted, unerring sanctity of the Word. Mainstream were right here on this earth. Protestants, on the other hand, had begun But how was Master Fard able to reconcile to shy away from literal interpretations of the his evisceration of religion's spiritual dimen- Bible, often focusing instead on the life of sion with the ushering in of a new religious Christ as inspiration for everyday human faith - one which, by definition, would have behavior. Frequently they adopted a more to be rooted in some kind of belief in the pantheistic view of the Creator, seeking to supernatural? He overcame this basic impon- experience His presence in every aspect of derable, first of all, by simply keeping such daily life. Having first emerged in New Eng- thoughts totally isolated from one another. land in the 1840s as a belief in the power of Further obscuring this fatal, doctrinal flaw positive thinking to heal illness, New was Fard's attributing to science the mystical Thought, as it was called, later evolved into a qualities which he had formerly ascribed to set of variant religious doctrines which the God of Christianity, thereby allowing the sought to establish a greater unity between supernatural to resurrect itself in numero- God and humanity as well as the channeling logical garb. Forced to succumb to the power of God's spirit into practical solutions to of a transcendent science, spirit lay broken human problems . And, finally, through on the rack of enlightened contemplation ; implementation of the Social Gospel, Protes- resurrected in an adjoining cell, however, it tant ministers also sought to redirect the quietly entered the human realm, divinity church's attention to the material life of and humanity becoming as one. This fusion industrial workers and the poor. But the doc- of matter and spirit offered a thorough trinal breach between natural and supernat- reconstituting of the African American rela- ural realms could not always be healed within tionship to God, where "the Blackman" Christianity's perimeters; to secure that goal, vaulted beyond the status even of God's cho- for example, many white middle-class Ameri- sen few to became the Creator incarnate:

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"The Holy Qur'an or Bible is made by the atic blacks," thus avoiding confusion with what original people who is Allah, the Supreme he deemed to be the "uncivilized" ones of the Being or (Black man) of Asia." (Here one African variety. "Why does the devil call our finds echoes of Moorish Science theology.) people Africans?," asked Master Fard in Lost As the Blackman acquired divinity, on the Found Moslem Lesson No. 1. "Answer: To make other hand, that same quality was simultane- the people of North America believe that the ously distilled into a privileged human form. people on that continent are the only people In contrast to the "spook God" of Christiani- they have and are all savage." To the contrary, ty, the divine savior of black folk was said to remarked the NOI's Student Enrollment cate- be a living, breathing, anthropomorphic chism, "The Original Man is the Asiatic Black- entity in the person of W. D. Fard. Now, on man, The Maker, The Owner, the cream of different occasions, it is true, Fard had the planet earth, God ofthe Universe ." referred to himself as a prophet and the Son On another front, 19th-century scientific of Man, of whom "rain, hail, snow, and earth- challenges to the biblical version of Adam quakes" were incontestable manifestations . and Eve's creation had also led to pseudo-sci- The Son of Man, he declared, was the "true" entific affirmations of the existence of a prey and "only" God. Sharing the deific pan- Adamite, Negroid "race" of inferior stamp. theon, moreover, were twenty-three scientists Adam the White - or so the new fable went who also played a crucial but enigmatic role - was not the first man of creation but in the functioning of the cosmos . But not rather the most perfect one. Embracing this until after the prophet's disappearance in polygenetic construct in its general contours 1934 would an ensuing religious faction while reversing the assigned values, Fard ele- headed by Elijah Muhammad openly claim vated black Americans to the position of that Fard himself was Allah, the supreme "original people" of the planet, the Lost God, to whom was subordinated the com- Tribe of Shabazz. The corollary of the asser- monplace godliness of the rank-and-file tion that "all black men are Gods" and of Blackman . No more the worse for its indeter- primeval origin was that white folk, the per- minacy than the idea of the Christian Trinity, sonification of Satan on earth, were said to this dualistic notion of the divine would have been created thousands of years later remain a pillar of NOI belie£38 through a grafting process perfected by an evil black scientist named Yakub. The Origins of Humanity and Civilization Fard's version of scientific knowledge thus cast an ambivalent shadow, containing as it EGARDING CIVILIZATION'S ORIGINS, biblical did the example of "science run amuck" in tradition had bestowed all glory on the foreboding machinations of Dr. Yakub, as Mesopotamia, cradled by its twin river-val- well as what he considered to be a more salu- leys. On the secular side, mislabeled 19th tary and disalienating process represented by and 20th-century "world histories" also con- the transcendence of matter over spirit. But sidered "western Asia" or the Near Orient - there were other apparently useful facets as by which was usually meant Mesopotamia or well. "The planet earth is the home of Islam Egypt - to be the veritable seedbed of uni- and is approximately twenty-five thousand versal culture. At the same time, the disem- miles in circumference," he instructed . And boweling of Egypt from Africa's geographical because the black man "makes history or mappings, reinforced by a sublime igno- Qur'an to equal his home circumference," rance of cultures south of the Sahel, had Islam thus renews "her history every twenty- resulted in a banishing of the African conti- five thousand years." What also passed for sci- nent to the darkest recesses of the western ence within NOI circles often was transmitted imagination .39 Faced with the enormity of in the form of mathematically oriented puz- these "pro-Asiatic" and anti-African senti- zles, the solutions to which did not ordinarily 2 ments, W. D. Fard (again following Moorish translate into anticipated, arithmetic terms: Science lead) opted to promote the fictive "After learning Mathematics, which is Islam, identity of African Americans as civilized "Asi- and Islam is Mathematics, [it] stands true, you

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can always prove it at no limit of time," the of the Holy Qur'an as it was a peculiar notion NOI founder once claimed. "Then you must of Islam which would attract NOI followers learn to use it and secure some benefit while and messengers alike for years to come. Com- you are living - that is, luxury, money, good pared to the extended body of arguments homes, friendship in all walks of life ." elaborated by Elijah Muhammad beginning in Although genuinely concerned with the mate- the latter 1950s, Fard's theological legacy was rial progress of his followers, there is no evi- both fragmented and thin - albeit endur- dence that Master Fard advanced an overarch- ing.'6 Following the latter's departure from the ing program of economic entrepreneurialism scene in mid-1934, after which the organiza- - unlike later developments within the NOI. tion spun into decline, it was left to Muham- On the other hand, his instilling of pride and mad to evolve a full-blown theology for the self-respect among his flock (leading to their group - now variously known as the Allah greater employability), coupled with his rec- Temple of Islam (ATOI) or the Holy Temple ommendations regarding the practice of fru- of Islam - based upon the rudimentary gal life styles and proper eating habits, did lessons left by his teacher. But the ATOI's lead toward notable improvements in their institutional reawakening 44 would have to await material existence. Messenger Muhammad's release from prison in 1946, after nearly four years of incarcera- 48 ERE, CLEARLY, lay the ingredients of a tion . Following his discharge, Muhammad H novel religion, one tailored to the made successful efforts to transform the Allah needs of newly arrived black southern Temple from a small, inward-looking group to 49 migrants to the Midwest during the Great a major mass organization. Depression . Like his fin-de-siecle Christian counterparts, Master Fard was led to adjust In Transition : 1946-1958 his religious thinking to the march of scien- tific progress while at the same time essaying RECENTLY ARRIVED SOUTHERN MIGRANTS to fuse the gap between natural and super- comprised the NOI/Allah Temple's natural in the context of quotidian experi- bedrock constituency from the Great Depres- ence. With respect to the Great Depression sion through the early 1950s. The NOI had era, his efforts were not radically unlike reached a height of some 8,000 members those of Father Divine, who embraced New under W. D. Fard's leadership, but by the Thought dogma, declared himself to be the early 1950s the ATOI's main temple in incarnation of God, and also encouraged the Chicago claimed fewer than 300 adherents. taking of new names by4followers as a sign of However, the arrival of Malcolm X in 1952 spiritual regeneration . Fard's mission, on following a six-year prison term was to trans- the other hand, was not exactly one of rescu- form everything. By his own account, Minis- ing Christianity either from science or from ter Malcolm was largely responsible for itself. Actually, for the NOI founder to have expanding the membership from approxi- claimed that his doctrine, with all its curiosi- mately 400 to 40,000 persons, and the number ties, somehow belonged to Christian tradi- of temples 5n U.S. cities from four to well over tion would have burdened even his most a hundred. While it is indubitably true that credulous proselytes. But Islam also claimed Malcolm X, at this stage, was hardly capable of a holy book, the content ofwhich was conve- developing the organization on his own, it niently imperspicuous to the overwhelming seems equally clear that without the energetic majority of African Americans. Ultimately assistance of his bright, young, and articulate the teachings of Master Fard would be new minister, Mr. Muhammad would have received by his followers as knowledge been hard pressed to expand his group gleaned from Islamic scripture, notwith- beyond the status of a store-front religious 52 standing the doctrinal incongruities between operation . Under the latter's overarching the two or the lack of any mention of the leadership there occurred a steady growth of Prophet Muhammad in NOI catechisms. ATOI-affiliated economic enterprises on a Thus, it seems, it was not so much the Islam scale eventually extending far beyond Garvey's

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entrepreneurial legacy. By 1956 the Chicago unchanging, marginalized social status of mil- headquarters boasted a temple, a grade lions of unskilled and semi-skilled black work- school, a restaurant, bakery, grocery store, ers, North as well as South, soon led to a and an apartment building. Chicken and beef questioning of the process by which civil sold in the grocery store were raised on the rights leaders were pursuing the goal of black ATOI's 140-acre farm at White Cloud, Michi- equality. Exploiting these various contradic- gan. Additional businesses were in place by tions, the Nation of Islam counterposed the 1958, including an auto repair and paint shop, goal of "separation" to the one of "integra- a laundry, a cleaning plant, and dress and hab- tion" espoused by mainstream civil rights erdashery establishments . groups; upheld the superiority of self-defense The Allah Temple's attraction to econom- measures over the tactics of passive resis- ic entrepreneurialism lay in a desire for not tance;" and, as a counter to the prevailing only economic self-sufficiency, but also the American and Christian identities of Black isolation of its followers "from the wicked Americans, continued to lay claim to "Asiatic" people and impure life as much as possi- and Islamic ones. The NOI doctrine of eco- ble." But a decade later organizational nomic and political self-sufficiency was growth had inspired overtures to the outer increasingly touted as the "alternative" to world as well as a return to the original African American demands for civil rights - group name. Each Wednesday and Friday rights which NOI leaders unfairly but effec- the public was invited to nightly forums ; tively characterized as "begging ." As with Mar- marking a major turning point, the Nation cus Garvey (with parallels to Booker T. Wash- of Islam's first truly public convention was ington before him), fundamental citizenship held in 1957.55 Beginning in June 1956 and demands were bartered against quests for an continuing through August 1959 when the African American political and economic paper changed ownership, articles written by autonomy which would never arrive ." Mr. Muhammad appeared in a weekly col- umn published in the nationally distributed EANWHILE, Elijah Muhammad's intense African American newspaper, the Pittsburgh M period of Qur'anic study seems to Courier. Thereafter, other newspapers, have bolstered an expansive self-confidence including Muhammad Speaks (founded by on another front. In early 1959 the newly Malcolm X in May 1960), picked up the established public relations department of slack in the propagation of the NOI word. the NOI issued biographical sketches describing him as "The Messenger of Allah" HE NOI's RAPID GROWTH, marked by a and "Spiritual leader of the Moslems in the modest influence of traditional Islam, United States." Within the tiny, Northamer- coincidedT with a now enlarged vision of the ican Islamic community, the most vociferous organization's domestic as well as interna- challenge to such claims came from the tional roles . Domestically, the NOI held Ahmadis, who possessed little clout in the claim to a more "dignified" way for Black larger Islamic world and who domestically, Americans to secure justice than that pro- by this time, had been out-organized by the posed by existing civil rights organizations, NOI . Belying his domestic critics, in late and asserted the superiority of (nominal) 1959 Mr. Muhammad undertook a successful Islam over Christianity as the religion of visit to Mecca and the Middle East, an indica- choice . On the international plane the NOI tion of the degree to which pragmatic ele- sought to become the recognized leader of ments within the Arab world were prepared all Muslims on the Northamerican continent. to embrace the rise of Islam, however Ironically, the NOI's accelerated expansion unorthodox, in the United States . occurred at a time when substantial civil Doctrinally speaking, the NOI's growth in rights gains by blacks were beginning to be membership and economic clout during the effected in the American South. But the bru- latter Fifties was paralleled by increasing ref- tal backlash directed against black demon- erences to the Qur'an in the public writings strators and their supporters, set against the and speeches of Elijah Muhammad . After

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advertising for an Arabic instructor for the operations was something else again . NOI's grade school known as the University Although the social backgrounds of new of Islam, Muhammad received a response ministers recruited by Malcolm X from the from a Palestinian Muslim by the name of mid-1950s onward had begun to reflect a Jamil Diab, who was to spend several years greater degree of formal education (with teaching at the institution. Out of the close some even having undergone college train- personal relationship which formed between ing), the same could not be said for the Diab and Muhammad, the latter was rank-and-file - at least immediately.64 Lack- exposed to the more traditional forms of ing an educated constituency, the rapid Islam: conversance with the Fatiha (opening growth of the organization's economic enter- chapter of the Qur'an), mudu' (ablution), prises resulted in pressures to recruit outside salah (the five daily prayers), as well as a technical and managerial staffs . Due to greaser respect for the Prophet Muham- ongoing tensions with immigrant Arab Mus- mad. This new orientation was reflected in lims who often disagreed with Mr. Muham- the weekly articles which Elijah Muhammad mad's heterodox Islamic doctrine, the most wrote for the Pittsburgh Courier at the times' acceptable and readily available source of But the Messenger's omra, or small hajj, personnel, it turned out, would be found to Mecca would lead to a decisive change within the black middle class. In March 1958 in direction, according to W. Deen Mr. Muhammad publicly appealed to black Mohammed. During the 1930s Master Fard intellectuals to join NOI efforts to develop apparently had misled his followers into African American self-sufficiency. His call for believing that the streets of Mecca were a "united front" of black men four months paved with gold, and that once qualified to later made clear his ambitions to become a visit the Holy City the believer would be secular as well as religious leader of Black offered a dazzling choice of mansions in America. Although Muhammad's larger which to reside. What Elijah Muhammad dis- aims seem to have gone unrealized, eventual- covered in pre-OPEC Mecca, however, was ly African Americans representing ideologi- little more than a "rude awakening" : cal views ranging from hard-shelled national- unpaved roads; unadorned stone edifices, ist-oriented to Old Left were tapped for none taller than three stories; and an econo- various NOI positions. Christine Johnson my built upon the bazaar trade of peregrina- took charge of running the Chicago-based tors. Visits to other cities of the Middle East University of Islam and preparing its curricu- by this quintessentially American tourist did lar materials; Dick Durham, John Woodford, little to disabuse him of such impressions of and Leon Forrest at various times held the rudimentary economic life. Although full of top editorial posts at the weekly newspaper praise for leaders such as Egypt's Gamal Muhammad Speaks; former SNCC leader Abdel Nasser and others, he no longer Diane Nash Bevel became the newspaper's regarded the Arab material world as a fit librarian; and journalists Charles P. Howard, example for black Americans, who assuredly Joe Walker, Charles Simmons, and numerous would have to "do for self" others played prominent roles as correspon- dents. Although such individuals were Secularization and Leftward salaried employees, not converts, over time Leanings: 1958-1964 the organization did manage to attract a larger percentage of "middle-class" blacks ROM 1958 TO 1964 THE NOI entered a into its actual membership. more secular phase as well, dominated by The physical layout of Muhammad Speaks concernsF with worldly matters and revolu- itself followed the successful format estab- tionary political discourse. To be sure, the lished in the Pittsburgh Courier and other sim- NOI had placed emphasis on material suc- ilar black publications: one article (or, as in cess since the time of W. D. Fard, where Muhammad Speaks, the centerfold) set aside heaven and hell were judged to be "right for the weekly scriptural teachings of Elijah here on earth!" But the expanding scale of Muhammad, the remaining sections devoted

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primarily to secular news items and regular lacked institutional conviction, and it was left commentary bearing on women's interests, to the Black Panther Party to carry his "pre- health, and international events. As the mature" call for armed struggle on U.S. soil paper steered to the Left under its exem- to a disastrous end. plary editorship, the presence of Messenger Muhammad's apocalyptic and occasionally FFICIALLY DEPARTING THE NOI in March rambling articles on the center pages, sur- 1964, Malcolm X perpetuated the rounded by news stories devoted to anti-colo- 0NOI's spiritual/secular dichotomy by estab- nial struggles, workers' strikes, anti-war lishing autonomous, short-lived religious and demonstrations, and the plight of political secular organizations - the Muslim Mosque prisoners, appeared incongruous at best. Incorporated (MMI) and the Organization Nonetheless, the formula proved successful: of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), respective- far broader in scope than any black main- ly By subsequently seeking to join the civil stream publication, Muhammad Speaks rights movement in a meaningful way he also remained a source of hard-core news, intro- sought to break with the NOI's past practice spective commentary, and spiritual suste- of "talking tough, but never doing nance for literally hundreds of thousands of anything." Malcolm's assassination in Feb- devoted readers for over a decade . ruary 1965 seems to have led to a significant falling off of NOI recruitment until the latter ODIFIED IN NEWSPAPER LAYOUTS, the doctri- part of the decade, when the organization nal division between secular and sacred made a substantial comeback. (This revital- wasC more significantly reflected in the ization, it should be noted, arrived at a time respective public roles of Malcolm X and Eli- when civil rights and black power organiza- jah Muhammad from the late 1950s onward. tions were in terminal decline.) Whereas Elijah Muhammad's writings and Having had insufficient time to consolidate speeches occasionally touched upon secular the MMI and the OAAU following his break themes, most thoughts which he cultivated with the NOI, what Malcolm X left to future for public consumption tended to be generations was a five-fold ideological legacy. expressed in spiritual - generally apocalyp- The first involved his imparting a sense of tic - terms. And where the earliest public integrity, honesty, and genuine pedagogy to discourses of Malcolm X revolved largely African American leadership which, sad to say, around spiritual issues, by the 1960s the sub- has remained unparalleled since his death . ject of religion, in his public teachings at Second was his vow to pursue African Ameri- least, was mentioned mostly in passing: "You can liberation by "any means necessary." Third aren't oppressed because you're a Baptist or was the gift of NOI demonology, which contin- a Methodist," Malcolm chided his African ues to be recycled in numerous reprintings American audiences, "you're oppressed and reproductions of Malcolm's earlier because you're black." Increasingly moved by speeches and taped lectures. Fourth was his the socialist revolutions successfully under- conversion to Sunni Islam, a dramatic moment taken in China and Cuba, as well as the which' scored a deep imprint upon NOI mem- ongoing anti-imperialist struggles taking bers and non-members alike. And finally, El- place in other parts of the "non-white" devel- Hajj Malik el-Shabazz bestowed upon African oping world, Malcolm X sought to cast the Americans a triple broadening of horizons African American struggle for human rights regarding the concept of their struggle: from in a more encompassing, revolutionary light. civil rights to a more fundamental demand for Thus while Messenger Muhammad's reli- human rights; from the strictures of domestic gious precepts remained invariant, Minister politics to a genuine internationalism, bearing Malcolm's secular call for the political trans- implications for global alliances with others formation of the U.S. was pushed to the facing similar oppression; and from a narrow outer limits. Despite the private sanction notion of civil rights where the sanctity of pri- given this direction by Muhammad, Mal- vate property was never deeply interrogated, to colm's revolutionary, rhetorical flourishes one of socialist revolution ."

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Economic Development and HE NOI'S EXPANDING ECONOMIC CRISIS Bourgeoisification: 19641975 coincided with a further deterioration in TElijah Muhammad's health and the effective THE NOI'S THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION control of NOI money affairs on the part of ATin 1959 Elijah Muhammad announced a coterie of Chicago-based individuals known a $20 million project to construct a mosque, affectionately as the "royal family": FOI-head school, and hospital on six city blocks - an Raymond Sharrieff, Elijah's son-in-law; Has- endeavor which was never realized .7' But san Sharreff, grandson; and sons Herbert building upon earlier acquisitions, by the Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad, Jr.'S early 1970s the NOI had managed to accrue With the NOI's growing bourgeoisification some $14.5 million in Chicago property, endorsed by Elijah Muhammad himself, the including a string of small bakeries and organization in early 1972 embarked upon a cleaners, some 40-odd rental units, a control- $2 million project involving the construction ling interest in the Guaranty Bank and Trust of five homes on South Woodlawn Avenue to Co, a newspaper with annual profits of $3 be built for families of NOI officials at orga- million, and a supermarket which cleared nizational expense. While some NOI mem- $325,000 on sales of $1.7 million. The group bers felt such gifts to be well deserved, oth- also ran a $22 million fish import business ers took note of a widening economic gap and held title to 20,000 acres of farm land in between leaders and followers. In earlier Michigan, Alabama, and Georgia - some years the NOI had prided itself on holding $6.2 million worth. standards higher than those of the Christian Although overall organizational assets church ; now outsiders and some insiders as were often reported to have been as high as well began to question whether the differ- $70 or $80 million, that figure was much too ence between Muslim ministers and their generous, according to Wallace Muhammad, stereotypical Christian counterparts was root- who estimated the NOI's net worth in 1976 in anything .73 ed more than narrow doctrinal to be around $46 million On the debit disagreements. side, for example, there had existed three Responding to the corruptive "rise to years earlier some $9.4 million in long-term power" of Mr. Muhammad's heirs apparent, debt; losses accruing from the farm opera- a rebel group of young Muslims, described as tions alone came to almost $700,000 yearly; "all in their 20s," took matters into their own and millions of dollars in back taxes were hands. In October 1971 Raymond Sharrieff owed the Internal Revenue Service. Other was the target of a botched assassination problems cited concerned sub-minimum attempt; shortly thereafter several dissidents wage salaries for employees as well as lapses were found murdered .;~ The following in social security payments to the federal month, the group initiated a planned tour of government . Due to a severe lack of cash NOI temples in some 16 cities, ostensibly for flow, an absence of technical and managerial the purpose of forming a new organization . skills, and a downturn in the U.S. economy, But the trip ended tragically in Baton Rouge, at its early 1970's peak the NOI's financial Louisiana in early 1972, where the insur- empire already lay in jeopardy. In a frantic gents had held a rally which culminated in effort to obtain cash, the organization the deaths of two white deputy sheriffs and turned to Arab countries and, reportedly, to an equal number of NOI adherents. From crime. A$3 million loan - used for the pur- his Chicago headquarters, Elijah Muham- chase of a Greek Orthodox Church subse- mad denied any knowledge of the incident. quently transformed into a mosque - was But further incidents of bloodshed - for obtained from Libya in 1973, but reported which calculated efforts at destabilization efforts to secure funds from other Arab cannot be ruled out as a contributing factor nations in exchange for the NOI's relaxing - would continue to mar the NOI's public of its racial policies and the embrace of a image.79 A year later, in Washington, D.C., a more traditional Islam, ended in failure. group of NOI disciples murdered seven 74 Libya later refused a second loan request. members of a Hanafi Muslim sect, including

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80 propaganda organs : the organization's five children . Four months later Hakim A. beliefs were becoming fully consonant with Jamal, cousin of the late Malcolm X and an those of Sunni Islam. Prophet Muhammad outspoken critic of Elijah Muhammad, was was declared to be seal of the prophets; the executed in his Roxbury, Massachusetts Holy Qur'an the last book. Henceforth the home . The following September James group would observe the Five Pillars of Shabazz, minister of the Newark mosque, Islam, the yaum aljumu'a (Friday congrega- was assassinated by former NOI members tional prayers), as well as the practice of tra- said to belong to an insurgent group known ditional salats or prayers, for which seats as the New World of Islam, a tragedy which were ripped out of the former temples in led to the subsequent murder and decapita- 84 order to provide appropriate space. tion of four other African American Muslims in Newark. HE FINANCIAL TURMOIL resulting from Eli- jah Muhammad's having died intestate The Passing of Elijah: From Nation to T claims of some family members World Community pitted the against those of the organization . For years, LIJAH MUHAMMAD'S DEATH in February cash had been taken in with no accountabili- E 1975 set into motion a chain of events ty; in many instances Elijah Muhammad's which would change the face of Islam in the personal holdings proved inseparable from United States. Taking firm charge of the those of the NOI . As a result, some of the NOI, Wallace Muhammad instituted theolog- properties, including Your Supermarket, ical and structural changes at a dizzying The Fish House, Salaam Restaurant, and the pace. Four months after taking command he Shabazz Bakery, were divided among the announced a change in policy permitting family; others went to the organization . In whites to join the group ; around the same the process the state did its best to withhold time the first female minister was appointed. as many resources as possible from the Harlem Temple No. 7 on 116th Street was NOI. In mid-1986 a Chicago probate court renamed after Malcolm X, and a new temple ruled that a $5.7 million Poor Fund Account opened in Spanish Harlem in an effort to belonged not to the former Nation of Islam, increase the number of Hispanic members. but to Mr. Muhammad's personal estate . Awarding the amount to his twenty-two docu- Legal fees for NOI members accused of ,87 crimes were no longer to be automatically mented children the court ordered the paid. The NOI's stringent dress code was repository for the account, Dai-Ichi Kangyo relaxed, its security force, the Fruit of Islam, Bank (formerly First Pacific Bank) of Chica- abolished. No longer celebrated, as in the go, to relinquish the funds.$$ past, as a commemorative religious holiday, Inheriting an economic morass which was Saviour's Day, 1976 was made the occasion of years in the making, Wallace Muhammad the first-year anniversary report; the follow- announced to his followers in 1976 that "You ing year the observance became known as are in debt, debt, debt. ""9 With the selling off Survival Day. By early 1978 it was reported or leasing of NOI properties, millions of dol- that every top-ranking administrative post lars of inherited financial obligations were had been changed at least twice, with minis- eventually retired. Stepping down as leader ters placed on fixed salaries at $150-$300 per of the WCIW in 1978, Muhammad noted week, instead of being able to set their own that the organization's "image has been rate. The ministers - now designated as changed from one of financial empire to imams - were removed from business opera- one of a real religious movement and I hope tions, and unprofitable enterprises it remains that way" But the claim was not .88 scrapped In line with these structural trans- quite accurate : although the WCIW had formations, a most fundamental change dropped the rhetoric of economic national- occurred within NOI doctrine as well. No ism and involuntarily liquidated many of its longer would the racialized elements of NOI properties, the quest for economic empire eschatology issue from its gatherings and seems to have burned just as strongly as

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ever.9' Early the following year, American Chicago's Michigan Avenue bearing Ameri- Pouch Foods, Inc. (APF), a joint economic can flags and posters affirming their patrio- venture begun by the WCIW and members tism : "America Is Hope," "Races Unite!," of Chicago's Chinese business community, "Build One Nation! "96 "How can we better signed an 18-month initial contract with the serve this country?," Imam Mohammed was Defense Department to produce "MRE" asked in a later interview. "We cannot make (meal-ready-to-eat) plastic and foil pouches, much of a contribution to the country as citi- replacing the "C-rations" formerly used by zens," he replied, "if we ourselves don't have U.S. combat troops . After missing two deliv- those healthy sensitivities that the citizens have for the future of the country in politics ery dates, its $21 .3 million contract (the ,97 largest ever awarded a minority-controlled and even in business. Mohammed's "sensi- firm) was canceled, and APF folded . Despite tivities" were later reflected in his support for this setback, by 1986 enterprises under conservative Republican political candidates Warith Deen Mohammed's command throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, claimed properties worth $12 million. including his backing of George Bush over Bill Clinton in the last presidential election.98 N ORDER TO CUSHION THE RAPID PACE of ideo- His highly publicized leading of the U.S. logical and structural changes occurring Congress in prayer has been depicted by Iwithin the organization, a series of transition- some as a decisive, symbolic victory for Islam al stages was undertaken by leadership. in the United States, by others as a shameful Beginning in early 1976, as a sop to repressed sellout to the Great Satan! Despite undeni- nationalist undercurrents within the organi- able changes in secular as well as religious zation, members were referred to as Bilalians, orientation, Mohammed remains wedded to after the devout Abyssinian Muslim, Bilal ibn earlier NOI precepts of self-sufficiency, eco- Rabah, whom the Prophet Muhammad nomic entrepreneurialism, and political con- appointed as the first muezzin. Thereafter, servatism. Today he has become the most newspaper became prominent spokesperson for Islam in the Muhammad93 Speaks Bilalian News. Later that year the NOI name was United States, but his direct constituency is changed to the World Community of al-Islam much smaller. "I represent my supporters in the West, a move which emphasized the who are mostly African American Muslims of internationalist ties of Muslims over the one history and one aim - excellence,"9" nationalistic bonds of African Americans, or Imam Mohammed recently affirmed . Precise ummah over `asabiya.94 In the spring of 1980 figures are still hard to come by, but in 1986, the group renamed itself the American Mus- by his own account, that represented some lim Mission, an identification retained until 25,000 to 30,000 active supporters . The fact its dissolution five years later. At that point of Mohammed's wide-ranging influence was formerly affiliated mosques were urged to not lost on Islamic states eager to gain influ- "associate and collaborate with other Islamic ence over U.S. foreign policy. But he has groups of all races and ethnic origins."95 rejected any lobbying role for himself, along with an unprecedented opportunity to ITH CHANGES IN RELIGIOUS ORIENTATION employ the international pressure of Arab came a new-found focus on American states to improve the social conditions of patriotismW : "The problem is," affirmed Wal- Black Americans. lace Muhammad in 1978, "we don't identify with America. . . . We haven't been raised to ARuffling of Ill Winds: believe that citizens have a voice and power." The Rebirth of the NOI It was, of course, the centuries-old suppres- sion of the "voice and power" of African N EARLY 1977 WALLACE MUHAmmAD claimed Americans which, for many of them, had that only five or six ministers had depart- soured any sense of devotion to the state . Ied the organization as a result of his newly But onJuly 4, 1979, with optimism ringing in implemented policies .l0l Significantly, howev- the air, thousands of Bilalians marched down er, old-guard administrators John Ali, Abass

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Rassoull, and Raymond Sharieff had been the real organizational takeoff had to await O' ousted .' Minister Silis Muhammad departed Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign in the organization soon after it was opened up 1984. From that point forward the NOI to whites, as did Minister Jeremiah Shabazz. enjoyed a meteoric rise which has resulted in Independently of one another, Muslim chap- the presence today of some 120 mosques in ters in Culver City, California and Dothan, U.S. urban centers and several international- Alabama began publishing newspapers bear- ly, as well as the edification of a multi-million ing the name of Muhammad Speaks after the dollar economic empire dependent,ndent, in large 103 original organ was renamed Bilalian News. measure, on public funds. Included are Then, beginning in early 1978, the WCIW not-for-profit organizations such as the Final reportedly suffered a plunge in membership, Call newspaper, Muhammad University of an event given impetus, no doubt, by the Islam, and a network of mosques which official departure of Abdul Aleem Far- themselves engage in business, but also prof- rakhan, the name by which Louis Farrakhan it-making enterprises privately held by mem- was then known . Details are lacking, but it bers of Minister Farrakhan's inner circle. was apparently this deteriorating state of The latter include companies engaged in affairs which forced the resignation of Wal- soap and cosmetics distribution, pharmaceu- lace Muhammad as organizational head in ticals, media ventures, restaurants, clothing, the fall of that same year, and his replace-ce- and, most lucratively, apartment-complex ment by a regional council of six imams. By security firms tied to government funding. May 1985 the group, after having gone by the name of the American Muslim Mission Old Teachings v. New Realities for a period of five years, elected to disband, allowing its several hundred masjids to go T IS APPARENT, IN RETROSPECT, that in the their own way. late 1970s and early 1980s conditions allowing a return to an unmodified NOI ide- INISTER FARRAKHAN'S BREAK with the ology and practice were far from conducive. WCIW became known to the general At the forefront lay challenges spawned by public in March of 1978, but he had already the triumphs of the civil rights movement as indicated plans to reestablish the Nation of well as the mounting social problems of Islam that previous November, despite hav- African countries in the wake of formal ing been offered back his former position as decolonization . Second, the collapse of head of the Harlem mosque several months inner-city economic life wrought by the dein- earlier. 105 When dissatisfied followers of W. dustrializing of America had undercut the Deen Muhammad departed the WCIW, how- dreams of traditional entrepreneurial ever, they did not do so in order to attach nationalism. Third, fueled by immigrant themselves to a reconstituted NOI, for there forces as well as African American conver- was no public organization to join, no open sions, an unprecedented dissemination of proselytizing on Farrakhan's part - a cau- traditional Islam throughout the U.S. had tionary lesson gleaned, no doubt, from Mal- taken place. And, finally, there existed a dou- colm X's tragic departure from the parent ble problem bearing upon Farrakhan's own organization fourteen years earlier. The new legitimation. One concerned his relation to movement began subterraneanly, reproduc- both the Prophet Muhammad and Elijah ing itself in temporary storefronts and Muhammad, after his having initially makeshift back rooms. As one observer endorsed the direction taken by the WCIW. notes, "Not until 1980 did the Minister start The other arose with respect to the mori- picking up momentum with a national tele- bund civil rights establishment, which phone conference call to followers. The first involved obtaining its blessings for his ability Saviour's Day convention in 1981 attracted to rally grass-roots blacks while remaining an estimated 5,000 to 8,000 people . A per- aloof from actual civil rights projects. Com- wasn't acquired until the Final pared to the earlier climate of corporate lib- manent office lob Call building was purchased in 1982." But eralism, however, the rise of ultra-right politi-

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cal formations in the eighties posed no clear ing these rights, and especially so given disadvantages to a reconstituted NOI which, today's conditions . For the NOI, the col- like its predecessor, embraced a highly con- lapse of inner-city economic life in the 1980s servative social outlook. revealed a two-fold edge: on the one side, a growth in the numbers of disaffected African ASSAGE AND SUBSEQUENT ENFORCEMENT Of Americans who would become potential can- the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in didates for NOI recruitment; on the other, P1964 and 1965 transformed the domestic evaporating community resources that a revi- political landscape in numerous ways. The talized NOI could no longer draw upon in its effect upon African American nationalism in attempt to regain and even surpass Elijah particular was 'to lay to rest a principal source Muhammad's former economic empire. Sim- of African American political alienation : the ply put, the time-tested entrepreneurial suppression of black voting rights in the nationalism of former decades was no longer South. Many African Americans - particular- sufficient. Despite five million dollars in ly those undergoing socialization in subse- start-up capital from Libyan Colonel Muam- quent years - would begin to think of them- mar Gaddafi, Farrakhan's P.O.W.E.R. line of selves as undisputed citizens of the United Clean & Fresh toiletries remains in a state of States. Then too, as time went by, the mount- economic limbo - not quite moribund, but ing social difficulties of'nominally indepen- not exactly thriving either. The NOI's fish dent African states - as measured in out- importation business, Blue Seas, was dis- breaks of famines, plagues, and ethnically solved in 1982; its successor, Blue Seas Chica- based political strife - rendered increasingly go, faced an identical fate ten years later. '13 bleak the utopian vision of an African Ameri- Faced with uninspiring returns from such can "return" to the continent. The overall ventures, Minister Farrakhan, following the result could only be a further undermining of lead of W. Deen Mohammed, began to solic- traditional African American arguments for it government contracts - a complete turn- domestic territorial autonomy as well as emi- about from earlier NOI practices. grationism.'O' Adjusting to these new realities, In the late 1930s NOI members had Minister Farrakhan declared in 1985 that: refused social security identification num- God wants us to build a new world order. A new bers, regarding them as the "mark of the world order based on peace,justice and equality. beast." In soliciting funds from the "white Where do we start? . . . [P]hysical separation is folks' government" half a century later, Far- greatly feared [by whites], and it is not now rakhan could no longer portray federal and desired by the masses ofblack people, butAmeri- ca is not willing to give us eight or ten states, or state agencies as undistilled repositories of even one state. Let's be reasonable. . . . What we satanic influence. The new trajectory began propose tonight is a solution that is in between with the NOI's successful attempt to rid a two extremes. If we cannot go back to Africa, and Baltimore housing project of drug dealers; America will not give us a separate territory, then thereafter the NOI sought federal and local what can we do here and now to redress our own grievances? . . . [W]e propose that we use the monies for similar purposes in Washington, blessings that we have received from our sojourn D.C., Los Angeles, Dayton, Pittsburgh, Chica- in America to do for ourselves what we have been go, and elsewhere. The irony is that the asking the whites in this nation to do for us."' positive cash flow to security firms privately What "doing for self" meant, in Far- owned by members of the Farrakhan family rakhan's words, was the "redirecting of our circle depends upon the continued existence 204 billion dollar purchasing power." But at of inner-city crime. the close of the 20th century, such a strategy could only mean a return to the program of NDER ELIJAH MUHAMMAD the NOI devel- economic nationalism advanced by Booker oped modest retail and service enter- T. Washington a century ago, with its atten- prisesU centered around its urban mosques, as dant downplaying of civil and political rights . well as an unprofitable, small-scale agribusi- Such an outlook remains problematic even ness. But as one commentator noted, the without the NOI's former policy of denounc- organization "never entered such lucrative

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middle-level retailing, wholesaling, among us is hih enough to tie the shoelaces fields as ,?10- manufacturing, insurance, and investment." of Wallace Since a direct endorsement Recently, following what has been character- from Elijah Muhammad was no longer possi- ized in the press as a three-year plan, the NOI ble, Farrakhan was forced to pursue a more opened a five million dollar food-service com- symbolic route to legitimation. By purchas- plex, called Salaam Restaurant, on 79th Street ing the Messenger's former homes in Chica- in Chicago - a dramatic, albeit local, achieve- go and Phoenix, as well as the NOI's original 117 ment in substance as well as symbol. Also mosque and school on South Stony Island in planned is the expansion of the NOI's truck- Chicago, he has placed himself literally at ing firm, restaurant outlets infour U.S. cities, the seat of former power. Second, by gradu- and a 2,000-seat auditorium ."' Such ventures ally reassembling the economic empire of his are not impractical to attain, despite the pre- former teacher he is showing himself to be sent economic climate, but will nonetheless the Messenger's equal in secular affairs - a require onerous tithing of devoted followers. claim which, of course, could never be stated Yet there also have been economic moves openly without dissolving the mystique of which seem far more symbolic than substan- Mr. Muhammad's proffered omniscience. tial. For example, while Farrakhan's partial Fortuitously, the critical endorsement reclaiming of former NOI land in southwest which once seemed impossible, eventually Georgia in early 1995 clearly indicated his came to pass. In the fall of 1989 Minister Far- determination to reassemble the NOI's for- rakhan revealed that while visiting Mexico mer economic empire, the reality was that, four years earlier he had received a vision in under Elijah Muhammad's direction, the which he was transported inside the NOI's farms had amassed debts of nearly three-quar- Mother Plane (better known as Ezekiel's ters of a million dollars per year. Presently the Wheel of the Old Testament) . There, via a NOI is said to own 2,000 acres of land in loudspeaker, the voice of Elijah Muhammad Michigan and Georgia, with plans to acquire came to him bearing a cryptic warning 8,000 more . But the question remains as to regarding U.S. plans to wage war on Libya. whether the present-day NOI has truly man- But it appears that the more important aged the art of running a small-scale agribusi- objective of Farrakhan's thoroughly remark- ness, or whether it has allowed its economic able press conference on the subject- cap- vision to be clouded by nostalgic yearnings.ll9 tured on videotape and widely circulated by the NOI in pamphlet form as well - was to Legitimation: Responses to Tradition demonstrate an unassailable affirmation of and Orthodoxy Elijah Muhammad's support for him!"

N ELECTING TO RETURN to the old teachings, QUAL IN IMPORT to the partial civil rights Farrakhan faced a two-fold problem of E victories of the 1960s was an amend- legitimation: finding acceptance among the ment to the U.S. Immigration and Nationali- NOI faithful as the Messenger's rightful heir, ty Act, effective at the very end of 1965, on the one hand; and on the other, cultivat- which sparked the entry of foreign-born ing a sense of ambivalence, if not approval, Muslims into the U.S . by the hundreds of within traditional Islamic circles regarding thousands. From 1965 to 1986 the number his spiritual authenticity. Formidable obsta- of Muslim immigrants admitted to the U.S. cles blocked Minister Farrakhan's belated each year (most of whom hailed from the bid to insert himself in the direct line of Middle East, North Africa, and Asia) would leadership succession to Elijah Muhammad. multiply by a factor of eight. By the latter For three years, after all, the world was made year the total number of Muslims living with- understand that Wallace Muhammad, son in U.S. borders would be estimated at 4 mil- to 121 of Elijah, had been chosen by the Messenger lion. Carried past immigration checkpoints of Allah as his successor. And had not Louis by an unprecedented wave of adherents, tra- Farrakhan himself proclaimed that "No ill ditional Islam rapidly spread to key U.S. winds will ruffle this divine nation . No one cities, further narrowing the possibilities for

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the Nation of Islam to pass off its private doc- developing these political liaisons was subse- trine as being synonymous with Qur'anic wis- quently uprooted by public outrage over dom. The pressure on Farrakhan to drop, or continuing antiJewish remarks made by at least to modify, basic NOI beliefs would Minister Farrakhan and one of his associates become formidable . (now former spokesman), Khallid Abdul Muhammad.128 Questions remain as to why NE OF THE MOST VISIBLE BREECHES Of Farrakhan resorted to antiJewish diatribes in O Islamic tradition existed in the form of the first instance, and why he continues to prayer originally taught by Master Fard. In hold his ground on the issue despite a resul- order to close the ritualistic gap, a West tant undermining of his business enterprises African sheikh was subsequently brought in and political alliances. to instruct the faithful in matters of tradi- 113 tional prayer. Regarding the vast difference Anti-Semitism and the Clash of between its projected doctrine and tradition- Right-Wing Nationalisms al Islam, however, the NOI has resorted to a number of explanations, including a Cabalist NCE AGAIN, the history of the UNIA twist affirming the existence of two Qur'ans O proves instructive. When the political - the exoteric, manifest version with which content of Garveyism shifted to the right in all Muslims are familiar, and a more pro- mid-1921, its characterization of the chief found, esoteric one whose meaning can be enemy of black liberation in the U.S. under- divulged only through numerological analy- went a transmigration as well - from the 124 sis of the former. But when all else fails the dominant classes, government, craft unions, organization reverts to Elijah Muhammad's and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, to stock explanation: the NOI version of Islam black people themselves . "Having had the wrong is tailored to African American conditions, education as a start in his racial career, the while that of Arabs is excessively ethnocen- Negro has become his own worst enemy," tric, if not tainted by racism. (See accompa- wrote Garvey in 1923, responding to formi- nying sidebar, "Africa 1994: Saviour's Day, dable attacks which had mostly to do with his Ghana") . In contrast to an earlier era, on the repudiation of civil rights for black Ameri- other hand, the demonizing of Euro-Ameri- cans. In this way, the UNIA's African Amer- cans has been more or less downplayed, ican detractors conveniently served as an bringing the NOI that much closer to the external threat contributing to the organiza- universal ideals portrayed in the Qur'an .125 tion's internal cohesion, as well as a ready Facing potential isolation due to the grow- scapegoat whenever UNIA plans failed to ing numbers of traditional Muslims in the evolve as anticipated. Moreover, the militant, U.S., Minister Farrakhan has sought alliances public condemnations and threats which with black secular organizations in a way Garvey unleashed upon such critics not only reminiscent of the earlier, fruitless outreach- stoked his mass popularity, but also tended es of Elijah Muhammad. Also, his attempted to obscure the conservative political content links to the Congressional Black Caucus were of his domestic message. Needless to say, his likely viewed as according greater potential attacks upon civil rights advocates also access to government contracts. Moreover, endeared him to trenchant Negrophobes given the demonstrated reality of African who, when all was said and done, had no American citizenship and the apparent lack more use for Marcus Garvey than for those of political alternatives, participation in elec- whom he publicly chastised. toral politics (an issue which Elijah Muham- mad had treated equivocally in earlier years, DENTICAL FACTORS HOLD TRUE with respect but without actually ever having endorsed a to Minister Farrakhan's effective charac- 126) candidate would be increasingly difficult Iterizing of Jews as a principal enemy of for Farrakhan to avoid, especially given the African Americans, beginning in mid-1984. overt political activities of W. Deen Muham- It is worth remembering, however, that when mad. The careful groundwork laid in criticisms of Jews arose within the old NOI,

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Africa, 1994 : Saviours' Day, Ghana

Mo- N EGYPTIAN COLUMNIST NOTED that Minister Far- tional message that comes after the prophet,6 rakhan first made press headlines in Africa in hammed, is not proper and must be rejected .' Athe mid-1980s as a result of his "much publicised call to Islam in Africa also raised the friendly relations with the Libyan leader Muammar issue of white supremacist attitudes among Arab Qaddafi." Broadening those African connections, Muslims: "to my Arab brothers and sisters," ex- the NOI's First International Saviours' Day was held claimed Farrakhan on International Saviours' Day, in Accra, Ghana from October 6 through 9, 1994. you have to be very careful about how you spread NOI leaders were accompanied by some 1,500 to Islam. You cannot spread a cultural imperialism in 2,000 black Americans on the trip, including the rap the name of Islam. . . . If you feel that Islam is the group Public Enemy and other musicians. There true path, then ask me to accept Islam but don't try Farrakhan called for a new vision which would bring to make me an Arab when I am African. Allow me about economic self-sufficiency for the African con- to keep my African personality, my African culture. tinent .2 At the end of the conference the NOI's Min- What has happened in Africa is that the seed of ister of Health announced plans to construct a $20 white supremacy is even seen in Islam in the way million factory in Ghana to manufacture medical some of my Arab brothers treat their African broth- ers in Islam. They are not treated as equal. They are supplies - syringes, drugs, and drug containers - as somebody who joined a faith that doesn't for local use as well as export. High on the project's treated belong to them.' agenda was the introduction of a device for HIV screening known as target HIV, "whose results could Anti-black Arab racism is indeed a problem. But by be read visually and obtained within five minutes. criticizing Arab Muslims, and thereby seeking to un- The NOI has had no prior experience in running dercut the role of traditional Islam in Africa south of such an operation, however, and it remains to be the Sahara, Minister Farrakhan appears to ignore seen whether the enterprise will get off the ground . the region's twelve-century-old Islamic legacy - There were Ghanaian supporters as well as de- which includes the wide-ranging historical influence tractors of International Saviours' Day, and it would of indigenous African Muslim leaders such as Al-Hajj be unfair to draw up a balance sheet based upon Omaru and Usuman dan Fodio.s Given the histori- newspaper accounts alone. The arguments of some cal background, it remains to be seen just how Min- of these contrary voices, however, were not without ister Farrakhan's approach to Islam, tied to the ballast. Declaring itself in opposition to "racialized" theme of oppositional culture, will be received in politics, for example, the Ghanaian Chronicle af- West, Central, and East Africa. firmed that: - Ernest Allen, Jr. We do not care about some phantom White man sit- ting in down town Santa Barbara or in Accra or Notes Harare. We do not care about the colour of an op- 1 Carnal Nkrumah, "Nation Among Nations," Al-Ahram pressor or tyrant. A tyrant is a tyrant, and it is more Weekly (28July-3 August 1994). painful when the oppressor happens to be black and African. Unfortunately, that is the situation in 2 Ghanaian Times (October 10, 1994) : I, 3; [Accra] Daily most of black Africa which has been enslaved by Graphic (October 10, 1994) : 1, 9; Final Call (November 2, military men of stunted intelligence who overnight 1994) : 2-3, 7-8,34 . turn into four-piece wearing, agbada clad teflon de- 3 Ghanaian Times (October 10, 1994) : 8. cnocrats and terrorise their own citizenry. 4 Ghanaian Chronicle (October 10-12, 1994) : 5. Many o£ Africa's problems were created by white colonialists, conceded the editorial, "But 90 percent 5 Ibid. of our problems are down to the kind of leaders we 6 Ibid. have in place today who allow themselves to be used. And we find it utterly repulsive for Minister Far- 7 Final Call (November 2,1994): 31 . rakhan to give succor to them, and not spare a 8 Edward Wilmot Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro thought or a word of counsel to them."' The NOI's Race (1888; rpt. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1994); see Islamic heterodoxy was also attacked by Sheikh M. M. also Peter B. Clarke, West Africa and Islam: A Study ofReli- Gedel, Secretary General of the Supreme Council for gious Developmentfrom the 8th to the 20th Century (London: Islamic Affairs, who remarked that "any other addi- Edward Arnold, 1982) .

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they tended to do so within specific contexts . antiJewish character."' The continued prolif- One of these was experientially based, cen- eration of anti-Semitic rhetoric has placed tering on the economic exploitation of principled Jewish organizations in a quandary. blacks by Jewish landlords and merchants Any reluctance on their part to respond to (usually in cities of the northeastern United anti-Semitism is to invite its spread; but to over- States) . Another concerned the negative react, on the other hand - for example, by impact of Israel, backed by the economic presumptuously demanding that African and military might of the U.S., on Middle American organizations repudiate any connec- East Islamic states. And a third was tied up tions with Farrakhan - is to risk providing with revelations of Israeli government sup- ammunition for Farrakhan's classic, anti-Semit- port for South African apartheid. But Elijah ic claims of `Jewish domination and control." Muhammad's NOI was never overly con- However, in much the same way that Minister cerned with the subject of Jews: "We make Farrakhan has offered a distorted portrait of no distinction between Jews and nonJews so Jews as the principal enemy of blacks, right- long as they are all white," Malcolm X once wing Jewish institutions such as the Anti- stated. "To do so would be to imply that we Defamation League have themselves dishonest- like some whites better than others . This ly characterized blacks as the most dangerous, would be discrimination, and we do not single bloc of anti-Semites in the United 114 believe in discrimination .""I However, what States . As one perceptive journalist Farrakhan was to learn in the 1980s, perhaps remarked, "One can only speculate on the rea- by happenstance, was that his verbal attacks sons why so much time and energy are wasted upon Jews carried the same political advan- savaging Farrakhan, especially when there are tages as had Marcus Garvey's diatribes white fascist paramilitary organizations run- against his black critics in the 1920s, includ- ning around the country dedicated to the ing the support of the ultra-right. Just as Gar- physical extermination of their many 'ene- vey had elicited the support of Negrophobes mies,' most prominently American Jews." for his attacks on civil rights advocates, so Fortunately or otherwise, the issue of did Farrakhan gain the approval of powerful "black anti-Semitism" as the main danger to right-wing, anti-Semitic forces for his verbal Jewish Americans took a back seat following assaults against Jews. For example, shortly the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal after the minister's antiJewish campaign building by (apparent) members of an ultra- took hold in the mid-1980s, the organ of the right paramilitary group, only one of many ultra-right National States Rights Party which seem quite prepared to use force to denounced a recent publicizing by the eliminate Jews and African Americans (not media of Martin Luther King's proJewish to mention government agents of whatever statements of the 1960s: "The future leader ethno-racial background) from the face of of the blacks will not be a King who bows to the earth . And, most recently, Farrakhan's the Jews," one of its articles concluded, "IT approaches to Jews have tended to be vacilla- WILL BE A FARRAKHAN WHO HAS THE tory and equivocal, intermixing anti-Semitic GUTS TO STAND UP TO THEJEWS!""' outbursts on one day with violin concerts of atonement on the next. For Farrakhan as for FARRAKHAN'S ANTI-JEWISH STANCE brought Garvey, the challenge of reconciling compet- additional benefits as well: a generating ing demands of mass organizational dynam- of publicity disproportionate to the actual ics and primitive capital accumulation instances of such remarks uttered in public, appears to be an onerous one. as well and an appeal to anti-Zionist ele- ments throughout the Arab world. Aside The Million Man March and Its Aftermath from those instances where his remarks were twisted or edited by the media to make them ONSTITUTING ONE OF THE MOST UPLIFTING appear what they were not, Jewish Americans media events of the 20th century, the had every reason to be offended by his MillionC Man March held on October 16, numerous, confirmed statements bearing an 1995 marked the highest point of Minister

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Louis Farrakhan's tenure over the Nation 136 of black community, for example, the fire- Islam. Celebrated as a "Holy Day of Atone- bombing of homes by youth gangs this past ment and Reconciliation," the purpose of winter was met by African American public this Washington, D.C. pilgrimage, according pressure organized by the local march com- to Farrakhan, was to "reconcile our spiritual mittee, thereby (arguably) contributing to a inner beings and to redirect our focus to curtailing of gang activities. To cite yet developing our communities, strengthening another positive example closer to my own our families, working to uphold and protect locality, NOI Mosque No. 13 in Springfield, our civil and human rights, and empowering Massachusetts, under the leadership of Min- ourselves through the Spirit of God, more ister Yusuf Muhammad, has enrolled a large effective use of our dollars, and through the cross-section of the Springfield black com- ,137 power of the vote. As a symbolic gather- munity in its Million Man March Committee, ing, the Million Man March was an unquali- which meets regularly to flan proactive fied success. But the real measure of its sig- interventions in local affairs. nificance would lie in its "follow-up" Judged by the effusive rhetoric of the Mil- activities, the presence or absence of which lion Man March, one would think that the would determine whether the march would NOI's national leadership might have be enshrined as an perennial "feel-good" poured considerable resources into such symbol, or more hopefully function as a cata- Local Organizing Committees, identifying lyst for a genuine grassroots movement capa- those which have been most successful in ble of fulfilling its stated aims. The answer community outreach projects and publiciz- would rest in the quality of programs and ing their specific successes as well as organiz- mechanisms that march leaders would put ing techniques . To the contrary, three into operation, as well as in their determina- months following the march Louis Far- tion to carry them out. A year following the rakhan embarked on a World Friendship Million Man March, the balance sheet offers Tour which carried him to some twenty decidedly mixed results. countries in Africa and the Middle East. This tour became, in essence, an international HE ORGANIZATIONAL VEHICLES assigned to evangelical crusade, the aim of which was to transforming the energies of the march "take the spirit of the . . . Million Man March Tinto coordinated activity`at the grassroots to Africa and establish an international Day level were the some three hundred forty of Atonement, Responsibility and Reconcilia- ,141 Local Organizing Committees which origi- tion . (However, the quixotic content of nally brought the march into being (and Minister Farrakhan's World Friendship Tour which were reportedly composed of local theme, not to mention his subsequent role political, religious, business, and community as apologist for General Sani Abacha's brutal leaders), and the National African American military regime in Nigeria, should not be Leadership Summit (NAALS) chaired by for- allowed to obscure the noteworthy fact that mer NAACP head Benjamin Chavis . Organs Minister Farrakhan is the first African Ameri- such as the Final Call tend to carry little can since El-Haaj Malik el-Shabazz to be information on the progress of such groups, received by African and Middle East govern- and independently tracking their work is a ments as a defacto head of state.) difficult task. However, charges did arise just Last October, at an observance held in months following the march that NAALS, front of United Nations headquarters to although conceived as a collective black lead- commemorate the first anniversary of the ership forum, was not truly functioning in 1311 march, Minister Farrakhan declared that the that spirit. On a more positive note, even purpose of the anniversary was to "atone for mainstream media most hostile to Farrakhan violence, murder, and war, and to call the have conceded that the positive spirit gener- kings and rulers of the earth to atonement ated by the Million Man March has inspired for violence, murder, and war; and to call the a greater participation of black men in the members of the human family, and our affairs of their communities. In the Denver Black family, in particular, to the spirit and

Page 24 THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 26, NO. 34

process of atonement for violence in the Farrakhan also remains the militant voice of world and in our communities and the lust the downtrodden, the dispossessed among to kill that pervades this society, and per- African Americans, while his more traditional vades the earth." But even if "violence, counterpart tends to represent that of the .rel- murder, and war" are not endemic to the atively more economically secure.145 The long- human condition, it is clear that Farrakhan's range indications of both tendencies appear unfocused "soul-saving" crusade is a goal to be that African American Muslims as a without a foreseeable end. On a more tangi- whole will remain a conservative political ble plane, on the other hand, march organiz- force wedded to the vision of economic ers also convened a National Political Con- empire. From either perspective, the upward vention - the agenda of which included a economic mobility of black Americans is call for transforming American politics to a scheduled to arrive in the form of capital "God-centered system" - on September 27- accumulation by brute force, large proceeds 29 at St. Louis. But outside sources claimed a of which are actually destined for private gathering of only some 400 to 600 delegates, bank accounts, zakat notwithstanding. The with an additional 5,000 persons in atten- alternative, one admittedly difficult as well as dance at Minister Farrakhan's keynote dangerous, is a collective assault upon the address. Where Minister Farrakhan may go structures of institutionalized inequity. If a from here is anyone's guess, but his direction large-scale, more socially progressive African at this time would seem to be other than American Islamic movement is ever to towards the strengthening of grassroots com- emerge, its most likely point of departure will munity organizations over which the Nation not be from within existing organizations, of Islam would have difficulty exerting direct but rather a splintering off of new groups control, and therefore away from some of from such bodies against the backdrop of an the more tangible mandates of the Million emerging, broad-based secular movement for 143 Man March. social change in the United States .

Acknowledgments

VER A HALF-CENTURY AGO, Sociologist I wish to express my appreciation to Muham- Doane Beynon likened the Erdmann mad al-Ahari, Robert L. Allen, Joseph Ben- groups of similar mien 0Nation of Islam and nett, John H. Bracey, Jr., Claude A. Clegg, to a tree which grew out of conditions faced Prince-A-Cuba, David Du Bois, Scot Ngozi- by migrant blacks in northern urban centers. Brown, Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, H. Khalif "After one branch has grown, flourished, Khalifa, Akbar Muhammad, Andrew J. Rosa, and begun to decay, another shoots up to Preston Smith, Vernis Wellmon, and John begin over again the same cycle, though Woodford for their generosity in providing always with an increasing degree of race-con- with information used in this study, how- sciousness and anti-Caucasian prejudice .""' me have interpreted any ofit. With the southern black migratory wave long ever wrongly I may having reached a termination, but with A special thanks to Robert Chrisman, Claude hopes for African American economic jus- A. Clegg, and John Woodford for their com- tice throttled by a slowly decaying "post- ments on an early draft. industrial" capitalism, offshoots of African American millenarian movements continue to increase, multiply, and divide. The pre- sent-day NOI continues to attract adherents who, after achieving some degree of eco- nomic parity, may yet pass into the ranks of a more traditional Islamic constituency in the United States. A far more charismatic show- man than Warith Deen Mohammed, Louis

THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 26, NO. 3-4 Page 25

Notes Gnosis 25 (Fall 1992) : 56-63; Prince-ACuba, ed., Our Mecca Is Harlem: Clarence 13X (Allah) and the Five Per- cent (Hampton, VA : U.B . & U.S . Communications Sys- 1 Carol L. Stone, "Estimate of Muslims Living in Amer- tems, 1995); YusufNuruddin, "The Five Percenters: A ica," in The Muslims of America, ed . Yvonne Yazbeck Teenage Nation of Gods and Earths," in Muslim Com- Haddad (New York : Oxford University Press, 1991), munities in North America, ed. Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad 27. andJane Idleman Smith (Albany, NY State University 2 Earlier influences came, of course, from enslaved of New York Press, 1994), 109-32 ; and Ernest Allen, African Muslims during the antebellum period; how- Jr., "Making the Strong Survive: The Contours and ever, between life in the slave quarters and that of Contradictions of `Message Rap'," in Droppin' Science: 20th-century African American communities, no Critical Essays on Rap Music and HipHop Culture, ed . demonstrable continuity of Islamic institutions can William Eric Perkins (Philadelphia: Temple Univer- be found. From 1920 onward a more durable, albeit sity Press, 1996), 159-91 . heterodox source of Islamic teachings was available 5 And there are those who have chosen to remain, through the Ahmadiyyah movement. See Allan D. more or less, on the sidelines, opting instead to pre- Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America: Proud serve and propagate the original teachings of Elijah Exiles (New York : Routledge, forthcoming 1997) ; Muhammad in their pristine form: for example, in Michael A. Gomez, "Muslims in Early America," Jour- Chicago, the Committee for the Remembrance of nal of Southern History 60 (November 1994): 671-710; the Honorable Elijah Muhammad [CROE], led by Clyde-Ahmad Winters, "Afro-American Muslims - Munir Muhammad; United Brothers and United Sis- From Slavery to Freedom," Islamic Studies, 17 .4 ters Communications Systems, based at Hampton, (1978) : 187-205 ; and Richard B. Turner, "The Virginia and headed by H. Khalif Khalifah, publisher Ahmadiyya Mission to Blacks in the United States in of the newspaper, Your Black Books Guide, as well as the 1920s, "Journal of Religious Thought 44 (Winter- numerous books and pamphlets; in Atlanta (recently Spring 1988) : 50-66. relocated from Cleveland) the group Secretaries 3 Information for most of these groups is extremely MEMPS [Messanger Elijah Muhammad Propagation sketchy. The LFNOI, with some twenty mosques Society], publisher/distributor of Message to the Black- located mainly on the eastern seaboard and in the man: The Magazine, audiotaped speeches by Elijah South, was founded in August 1977 and has pub- Muhammad, and other works, led by Minister Nasir lished its newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, since 1984 . Makr Hakim; and Sam Shabazz Muhammad's Publisher of the weekly newspaper, Your Muhammad African-American Genealogy Society, located in Speaks, and in existence at least since 1992, the Compton, California, which has reproduced, in two UNOI also claims mosques in Missouri and Con- volumes, many of Elijah Muhammad's c. 1950s news- necticut . From the Highland Park enclave of Detroit, paper articles . Michigan, John Muhammad's organization publishes 6 Abass Rassoul, "What Must Be Done . . . After the its own newspaper, Muhammad Speaks Continues. H. Coming of God!," It's Time to Know! [UNOI] 2 (Fall Khalif Khalifa reports the existence of some ten 1994) : 14-17; Reparations Petition for United Nations independent organizations (the aforementioned Assistance Under Resolution 1503 (XLVIII) on Behalf of groups comprised) bearing the NOI name in one African-Americans in the United States of America form or another, including a mosque in Cleveland, (Hampton, VA: U.B . & U.S . Communications Sys- Ohio, two in Richmond, Virginia, and one in the tems, 1994). The equating of Brother Solomon and Bronx, New York City. Details concerning the LFNOI King Solomon is not unlike the practice accorded and its ideology have recently become available in Elijah Muhammad, who was often held to be the Peter Noel, "One Nation?," Vibe (February 1996), 73 ; prophet Muhammad of the Qur'an as well as the and Mattias Gardell, In the Name ofElijah Muhammad: prophet Elijah of the Bible. Most recently, however, Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam (Durham, in a leaflet advertising UNOI meetings in Kansas City North Carolina : Duke University Press, 1996), 215- in July 1995, Brother Solomon claimed the mantle of 23 . For further, brief information on the UNOI, see "Allah ." Peter Noel, "The Final Call: Power Struggle in the : AJan- Nation of Islam," Village Voice (February 15, 1994) : 7 Your Black Books Guide 5 (February 1994) 9-10. 23, 29 ; for John Muhammad's NOI see Aminah Bev- uary 1994 issue of Muhammad Speaks [LFNOI] erly McCloud, African American Islam (New York and reportedly carried a public apology from LFNOI London : Routledge, 1995), 83-84. head Silis Muhammad to Louis Farrakhan for past criticisms of the latter's policies . 4 An event virtually unnoticed outside New York City at the time, in 1964, after departing the NOI, Clarence 8 For a panoramic, historical view of African American 13X formed a group of approximately 200 youths nationalism through primary sources, see John H. recruited from the streets of Harlem and Brooklyn . Bracey, Jr., August Meier, and Elliot Rudwick, ed ., Popularizing the NOI's esoteric, internally-held doc- Black Nationalism in America (Indianapolis, IN : Bobbs- trines as its own, the Five Percenters, as the loosely- Merrill, 1970) . knit group came to be called, would have far-reach- 9 By way of contrast, in 1854 a convention of African ing effects on black popular culture of the 1980s. American emigrationists declared - notwithstand- See Prince-A-Cuba, "Black Gods of the Inner City," ing their conviction to depart the U.S . for a more

Page 26 THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 26, NO . 34

hospitable territory - "That as men and equals, we 16 See Ernest Allen, Jr., "The New Negro: Explorations demand every political right, privilege and position in Identity and Social Consciousness, 1910-1922," in to which the whites are eligible in the United States, 1915: The Cultural Moment ed. Adele Heller and Lois and we will attain to these, or accept of nothing." Rudnick (New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Herbert Aptheker, comp . and ed ., A Documentary Press, 1991), 48-68. History of the NegroPeople in the United States:From Colo- 17 In this light, the question as to whether or not the nial Times through the Civil War (New York: Citadel UNIA believed in either a partial or wholesale black Press, 1951), 365. Whether resulting from a fear of American emigration to Africa proved irrelevant : deportation or simply callousness on his part, Gar- unable to realize either goal, the principle issue for vey's status as a British subject was undoubtedly a fac- those who remained in the U.S. was that of securing tor in his cavalier dismissal of black rights in the U.S. full civil and political liberties - an aim which Gar- 10 As NOI founder W. D. Fard noted in his Lost Found vey derided time and time again. Moslem Lesson No. 1, "The original people [ofAfrica] 18 See Max Nordau, Max Nordau to His People (New live on this continent and they are the ones who York : Scopus, 1941), 199; Edwin Black, The Transfer strayed away from civilization and are living a jungle Agreement: The Untold Story of the Secret Agreement life ." In a criticism of African American cultural Between the Third Reich andfewish Palestine (New York: nationalists made four decades later, Elijah Muham- Macmillan, 1984), 76-77. For a brief comparison of mad could write: "For nearly forty years I have been the "Zionisms" of Theodore Herzl and Marcus Gar- preaching to the Black man in America that we vey, see Arnold Rose, The Negro's Morale. Group Identi- should accept our own; and instead of the Black ty and Protest (Minneapolis : University of Minnesota, man going to the decent side of his own, he goes 1949), 43-44. Africa, and the way they did back seeking traditional 19 Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions, 2:71, 260-61 ; E. David way you see in some uncivilized in jungle life and the Cronon, Black Moses. The Story of Marcus Garvey and Fall of America (Chicago : parts of Africa today." The the Universal Negro Improvement Association (Madison, No . 2, 1973), 150. Muhammad's Temple of Islam WI : University of Wisconsin Press, 1955), 188-90; The 11 See Randall KBurkett, Garveyism as a Religious Move- Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Associ- ment: The Institutionalization of a Black Civil Religion ation Papers, edited by Robert A. Hill (Berkeley: Uni- (Metuchen, NJ : Scarecrow Press and American The- versity of California Press, 1985), IV: 679; Ethel Wolf- ological Library Association, 1978). skill Hedlin, "Earnest Cox and Colonization : A 12 Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, ed . Amy White Racist's Response to Black Repatriation, 1923- Jacques-Garvey, dbl. vol. (New York : Atheneum, 1966," unpublished Ph .D . dissertation (Duke Univer- 1969), 2:126 . sity, 1974), 106-107; Theodore G. Bilbo, "An African Negroes," The Living Age, 358 (June 13 See Ernest Allen, Jr ., "Waiting for Tojo : The Pro- Home for Our 330; Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy, Japan Vigil of Black Missourians, 1932-1943," Gate- 1940): 328, Here (New York : Hill and Wang, 1966), way Heritage 16 (Fall 1995) : 50 . During the 1940s the Anyplace But Malcolm X: The Last Speeches (New York : NOI's Fruit of Islam apparently drilled with wooden 208-211 ; Press, 1989), ; Edwin Black, "Far- rifle stocks as well; such paraphernalia were among Pathfinder 122-24 (June/July items seized from the organization by federal author- rakhan and the Jews," Midstream 32 3, 1985): 19 ; ities during WorldWar II. 1986) : 3-4; New York Times (October Washington Post (October 5, 1985): 11 ; Time (October 14 The Moroccan and MSTA flags are defined by a 14, 1985) : 41 ; Washington Times (November 11, green, five-pointed star placed against a red back- 1985) : 7; Mattias Gardell, "The Sun o£ Islam Will drop. The Moroccan star is drawn in the form of Rise in the West : Minister Farrakhan and the Nation thick, overlapping line segments, whereas that of the of Islam in the Latter Days," in Muslim Communities MSTA is solid in color. Both Turkish and NOI flags in North America, 38-39. consist of a white star and crescent inscribed on a Agreement, esp. 71-82; see also field of red. However, the concave edge of the cres- 20 See Black, The Transfer The Vladimirfabotinsky Story; cent faces to the right on the Turkish banner, where- Joseph B. Schechtman, Early Years (New York : T. as that of the NOI's faces left. Additionally, the NOI Rebel and Statesman: The 399-415. flag displays the letters F, J, E, and I (Freedom, Jus- Yoseloff, 1956-1961), tice, Equality, Islam) sequentially at each of the cor- 21 However, a debate concerning the appropriateness ners, beginning counter-clockwise at the upper right. of Islam did occur within the UNIA in 1922, and organization 15 See August Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880- Ahmadis made minor inroads into the First: The 1915: Racial Ideologies in the Age of Booker T. Washing- the following year. See Tony Martin, Race Struggles of Marcus Gar- ton (Ann Arbor, MI : University of Michigan Press, Ideological and Organizational Association 1963) ; Kenneth Marvin Hamilton, Black Towns and vey and the Universal Negro Improvement 75-77; Negro Profit: Promotion and Development in the Trans- (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976), 12 ; (September 8, 1923) : Appalachian West, 1877-1915 (Urbana, IL : University World (September 2, 1922) : of Illinois Press, 1991) ; Robert L. Factor, Black 10 . Response to America: Men, Ideals, and Organizationsfrom 22 The Ali translation contains four explanatory foot- Frederick Douglass to the NAACP (Reading, MA: Addi- notes referencing the anticipated coming of the son-Wesley, 1970) Messiah, which may explain the NOI's preference

THE BLACK SCHOLAR VOLUME 26, NO. 3-4 Page 27

for this particular version of the Qur'an . As Zafar Christianity, &Freemasonry (Jersey City, NJ : New Mind Ishaq Ansari, "Aspects of Black Muslim Theology," Productions, 1985) . Studia Islamica 53 (1981) : 170 n2, has indicated, the 29 See Peter Lamborn Wilson, "Shoot-Out at the Circle Ahmadi-NOI connection deserves further research . Seven Koran: Noble Drew Ali and the Moorish Sci- See also Turner, "The Ahmadiyya Mission to Blacks" ence Temple," Gnosis, 12 (Summer 1989) :'44-49; and, for general insight, Yohanan Friedmann, Peter Lamborn Wilson, Sacred Drift: Essays on the Mar- Prophecy Continuous : Aspects of Ahmadi Religious gins of Islam (San Francisco : City Lights Books, Thought and Its Medieval Background (Berkeley: Uni- 1993), 15-50; Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad andJane Idle- versity of California Press, 1989) . man Smith, Mission to America: Five Islamic Sectarian 23 Joseph A. Walkes, Jr., History of the Shrine: Ancient Communities in NorthAmerica (Gainesville, FL: Univer- Egyptian Arabic Order, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Inc. sity Press of Florida, 1993), 79-104 ; Arthur Huff (Detroit : AEAONMS, 1993), 15 . For information on Fauset, Black Gods of the Metropolis: Negro Religious Prince Hall Masonry, see Charles H. Wesley, Prince Cults in the Urban North (Philadelphia: University of Hall : Life and Legacy (Washington, DC : United Pennsylvania Press, 1944), 41-51 ; Bontemps and Supreme Council, Southern Jurisdiction, Prince Hall Conroy, Anyplace But Here, 205-208; McCloud, African Affiliation, 1977) ; Loretta J. Williams, Black Freema- American Islam, 10-11 . sonry and Middle-Class Realities (Columbia, MO : Uni- 30 E. U . Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism: A Search for versity of Missouri Press, 1980) ; Joseph A. Walkes,Jr., Identity in America (Chicago : University of Chicago Black Square and Compass: 200 Years of Prince Hall Press, 1962), 77 n37. 1989); Freemasonry (1981; rpt. Richmond, VA: Macoy, 31 But in explaining the reason for the transatlantic William A. Muraskin, Middle-Class Blacks in A White slave trade in his English Lesson C1, W. D . Fard Society: Prince Hall Freemasonry in America (Berkeley: invoked not the argument of a "fall from grace" on University of California Press, 1975) . A social history the part of Africans -a view held by Noble Drew Ali of black Freemasons is still sorely lacking. - but gullibility on the part of the enslaved them- 24 George Livingston Root, Ancient Arabic Order of the selves: deceived by a slave trader in Africa into think- Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for North America, rvsd. ed. ing that they would receive gold, blacks foolishly (San Antonio, TX : 1916), 9. Ali actually held the allowed themselves to be captured . position of Caliph from 656 to 661 A.D . 32 For information on MSTA farms see Richmond Times- 25 Constitution and Lam of the Imperial Council of the Dispatch (April 11, 1943) and Berkshire Eagle (Febru- Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for ary 10, 1944) . North America (1896), 11 . 33 See Honor Ford Smith, "Women and the Garvey 26 See, for example, Albert Pike, Morals andDogma of the Movement in Jamaica," in Garvey : His Work and Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry Impact, ed. Rupert Lewis and Patrick Bryan (Tren- (Charleston, SC: 1871) ; Manly P. Hall, An Encyclope- ton, NJ : Africa World Press, 1991), 73-83. For a dis- dic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosi- cussion of relative female autonomy within the crucian Symbolical Philosophy (1928; rpt. Los Angeles: Newark, Philadelphia, New York City, and Baltimore Philosophical Research Society, 1988) . A critique of branches of the NOI, see Cynthia S'thembile West, a number of these metaphysical currents within Nation Builders: Female Activism in the Nation of Islam, Freemasonry can be found in Henry W. Coil, Conver- 1960-1970s (New York: Garland Press, forthcoming, sations on Freemasonry (Richmond, VA : Macoy, 1976). 1997). A section from West's original dissertation is 27 This identification, which gathered steam in the early reproduced in this present issue as "Revisiting 19th century, was the product of the imaginations of Female Activism in the 1960s: The Newark Branch Orientalists, Freemasons, and secret-society conspira- nation of Islam." cy buffs in their studies of esoteric Islamic sects; of 34 Both the Aquarian Gospel offesus the Christ (1907; rpt. documented affinities between Bektashi Sufis and Marina Del Rey, CA : DeVorss & Co ., 1991) and Infi- Freemasons throughout the Middle East ; and, nite Wisdom (Chicago : deLaurence, 1923) [distrib- towards the latter part of the century, the actual uted by the Rosicrucian Order under the title Unto membership of numerous grand viziers and other Thee I Grant (1925; rpt. San Jose, CA : Supreme Ottoman functionaries in the Masonic lodges of Grand Lodge of AMORC, 1968) ], principal works Anatolian Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, and Europe. from which the MSTA "Holy Koran" drew its texts, 28 Elijah Muhammad, The Secrets of Freemasonry (Cleve- bear unsubstantiated claims of having been discov- land: Secretarius Publications, 1994), 39 . See also ered in Tibetan monasteries. For a trenchant cri- Hatim A. Sahib, "The Nation of Islam," unpublished tique of the Aquarian Gospel see EdgarJ. Goodspeed, M.A. dissertation (University of Chicago, 1951), 90; Famous Biblical" Hoaxes (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Elijah Muhammad, "The Truth," rpt. in Sam Shabazz Book House, 1956), 15-19. The NOI's millenarian Muhammad, comp ., The Truth, Book #1 (Compton, character is analyzed thoroughly in Martha Lee, The CA: African-American Genealogical Society, n.d .), 4; Nation of Islam: An American Millenarian Movement and Elijah Muhammad, The Theology of Time (Hamp- (1984; rpt. Syracuse, NY Syracuse University Press, ton, VA : U.B . & U.S . Communications Systems, 1996). 1992), 282-86 . For a critique of Freemasonry from 35 See Ansari, "Aspects of Black Muslim Theology," 137- an Islamic perspective, see Mustafa El-Amin, Al-Islam, 76, for the best comparative analysis of early NOI

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theology and traditional Islam. Also useful is Mustafa well as by claims of the existence of black civiliza- El-Arvin, The Religion of Islam and the Nation of Islam: tions in Asia on the part of 19th-century commenta- What Is the Difference? (Newark, NJ: El-Arvin Produc- tors such as Godfrey Higgins. See Frank M. Snow- tions, 1 .990). den, Jr ., Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the MA : Belknap 36 See Henry F. May, Protestant Churches and Industrial Greco-Roman Experience (Cambridge, Godfrey Higgins, Anaca- America (New York : Harper & Brothers, 1949) ; Paul Press, 1970), vi-vii, 10407; of the Saitic Isis A. Carter, The Spiritual Crisis of the Gilded Age (Dekalb, lypsis: An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil Nations and IL : Northern Illinois University Press, 1971) ; or An Inquiry Into the Origin of Languages, Brooklyn, NY: A&B Winthrop S. Hudson, Religion in America (New York: Religions, 2 vols . (1836; rpt. Scribner's, 1965), 291-315 esp. Books, 1992), 1: 51-59. 41 See, for example, Griffin Lee [Paschal Beverly Ran- 37 See, for example, Carl T Jackson, The Oriental Reli- Race, gions and American Thought: Nineteenth-Century Explo- dolph], PreAdamite Man: The Story of the Human : Sinclair rations (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1981) ; Wendell from 35,000 to 100,000 Years Ago (New York or, A Thomas, Hinduism Invades America (New York: Bea- Tousey, 1863) ; Alexander Winchell, Preadamites; Before Adam; con, 1930); Charles Samuel Braden, Spirits in Rebel- Demonstration of the Existence of Men Condition, Antiquity, lion, The Rise and Development of New Thought (Dallas: Together with a Study of Their Dispersion over theEarth Southern Methodist University Press, 1963); Stephen Racial Affinities, and Progressive For critiques of such views, Gottschalk, The Emergence of Christian Science in Ameri- (Chicago : Griggs, 1886). Gould, The Mismeasure of Man, rvsd . can Religious Life (Berkeley: University of California see Stephen Jay . . 1996) ; George M. Press, 1973) ; M. James Penton, Apocalypse Delayed: ed . (New York : W W Norton, White Mind : The Debate The Story ofjehovah's Witnesses (Toronto : University of Fredrickson, Black Image in the and Destiny, 1817-1914 Toronto Press, 1985) ; Richard Hughes Seager, The on Afro-American Character all 19th-centu- World's Parliament of Religions: The East/West Encounter, (New York: Harper & Row, 1971) . Not subject in a Chicago, 1893 (Bloomington : Indiana University ry works on pre-Adamites cast their for example, Press, 1995); Bruce F. Campbell, Ancient Wisdom racialized context. Isabella Duncan, of earth to Revived: A History of the Theosophical Movement (Berke- considered the first human inhabitants held them to ley: University of California Press, 1980); Peter Wash- have been angels, whereas James Gall Pre-Adamite Man, 3rd ington, Madame Blavatsky's Baboon : A History of the be devils. See Isabella Duncan, 1860) James Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits Who Brought Spiritualism ed. (London: Saunders, Otley, and Co ., ; of the to America (New York : Schocken Books, 1995). Gall, Primeval Man Unveiled: or, the Anthropology Bible (London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co ., 1871) . 38 Q& A 4, Lost Found Moslem Lesson No. 1; Q& A l, 8- puzzles can be found in Bon- 11, Lost Found Moslem Lesson No . 2. Taken into cus- 42 Examples of Fard's Here, 220-21 . tody by Detroit police in late November, 1932, Mr. temps and Conroy, Anyplace But Fard reportedly told detectives that he was the 43 Prophet W. D. Fard, This Book Teaches the Lost Found "supreme being on earth." But the surprise regis- Nation ofIslam (n .p., n.d.), Problem 13 . tered by one of his followers after reading this 44 So much so, it seems, that during the economic account in the newspaper appears to leave intact the upswing which took place from the late 1930s claim that the fractious issue of Fard's divinity sur- through World War II, the small, gainfully employed faced within the NOT only following his departure group which constituted the Detroit NOT was report- from the Midwest in 1934 . Detroit Free Press (Novem- edly far less militant than its Chicago counterpart. ber 24, 1932) : 2; Beynon, "The Voodoo Cult," 897. See Erdmann Doane Beynon, "The Voodoo Cult The lack o£ hierarchy implicit in the notion that "all Among Negro Migrants in Detroit," American Journal black men are gods" contributed no doubt, to inter- of Sociology, 43 (May 1938) : 905-906. in nal challenges to Noble Drew Ali's leadership 45 See Jill Watts, God; Harlem U.S.A.: The Father Divine plethora of Moorish early 1929, as well as to the Story (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992) . over the MSTA fol- "gods" who claimed suzerainty Marcus Garvey, too, had internalized certain aspects year. lowing Ali's death from tuberculosis that same of New Thought. See Robert A. Hill and Barbara organizational author- Seeking to solidify the lines of Bair, ed ., Marcus Garvey : Life and Lessons ( Berkeley : 1934, when Muham- ity following Fard's departure in University of California Press, 1987), xxviii-xxix. mad declared Fard to be Allah, he made certain to 46 See, for example, Beynon, "The Voodoo Cult," 900- emphasize his own role as Allah's Messenger. See my 901 . related discussion of the Five Percent worldview in Message to the "Making the Strong Survive," 165, 187 n17. 47 See, for example, Elijah Muhammad, Blackman in America (Chicago : Muhammad's Temple 39 See, for example, James H. Breasted, The Conquest of No . 2, 1965) ; The Fall of America (Chicago: Muham- Civilization (New York: 1926) ; Hendrick Willem van mad's Temple No . 2, 1973) ; Our Saviour Has Arrived Loon, The Story of Mankind (New York: Boni & Liv- (Chicago : Muhammad's Temple No . 2, 1974) ; The eright, 1921) . Theology of Time (Hampton, VA: U.B . & U.S. Commu- 40 See The Holy Koran of the Moorish Science Temple of nications Systems, 1992) . America (1927), Chapt. 45 :1 . Such a notion was rein- 48 In May 1942 Muhammad was arrested in Washing- forced, no doubt, by references to "Asiatic blacks" ton, D.C. for failure to register for the draft. Out on and "African blacks" in the work of Herodotus, as bail, he returned to Chicago where he was re-arrest-

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ed the following September on additional violations Africa in the vaguest of terms, allowing that if the of the Selective Service and Training Act, including U.S. government would not pay for their transport, that of sedition . In late November he was convicted that it should set aside a separate territory in the and sent to prison on the initial charge ; having southern states for black settlement. Neither choice achieved the goal of wartime incarceration, authori- proved viable . But Garvey at least purchased ties then dropped the second set of indictments. steamships, only one of which may have been suit- Memorandum from SAC, Detroit to Director, FBI, able for transatlantic travel ; there exists no concrete JrAugust., 9, 1957, FBI file 105-24822-25 ; Ernest Allen, evidence of emigrationist plans on the NOI's part, "When Japan Was `Champion of the Darker however. Privately, Elijah Muhammad admitted as Races' : Satokata Takahashi and the Flowering of such . See Louis E. Lomax, When the Word Is Given Black Messianic Nationalism," The Black Scholar 24 (Westport, CT : Greenwood, 1963), 79 . (Winter 1994) : 23 . All FBI records cited in the pre- 58 Pittsburgh Courier (January 17, 1959) : 8. In a message sent study were secured under the Freedom of Infor- to the African-Asian Conference meeting in Cairo mation Act. the previous year, Mr. Muhammad proclaimed him- 49 The most complete source on Muhammad's life and self the "Leader, Teacher and Spiritual Head of the thought is Claude A. Clegg, III, An Original Man: The Nation of Islam in the West." Pittsburgh Courier (Janu- Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad (New York : St. ary 18, 1958) : 5. Martin's Press, forthcoming February 1997) . See the 59 Some of these challenges came in the form o£ ad present issue for a reprint of his fifth chapter, enti- hominem attacks; see, for example, New Crusader tled "Rebuilding the Nation : The Life and Work of (August 15, 1959): 1 . See also Essien-Udom, Black Elijah Muhammad, 1946-1954." Nationalism, 80 n45, 311-17 ; and C. Eric Lincoln, 50 Beynon, "The Voodoo Cult," 897; Sahib, "The Nation The Black Muslims in America, rvsd . ed. (Boston: Bea- of Islam," 99, 108; Autobiography of Malcolm X (New con Press, 1973), 184. York: Ballantine, 1973), 219. 60 Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism, 275; Lincoln, Black 51 Malcolm X, Autobiography, 290; Clifton E. Marsh, Muslims, 246. From Black Muslims to Muslims: The Transition from Sep- 61 Information in this section concerning Diab and aratism to Islam, 1930-1980 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Muhammad, as well as the latter's Middle East tour, Press, 1984), 72 . is based on an account given by Warith Deen 52 Throughout the 1950s the respective leadership skills Mohammed, "Race Relations in America: An Islamic of Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad fairly comple- Perspective," videotaped speech delivered at the mented one another. But most African Americans University of Massachusetts/Amherst, November 16, remained unaware of Messenger Muhammad's deep- 1993 . Despite such negative impressions, after er wisdom until Malcolm X had endlessly extolled returning to the U.S . Elijah Muhammad subsequent- his leader's virtues in public. ly referred to NOI temples as "mosques ." Malcolm 53 Pittsburgh Courier (April 14, 1956) : 3 [mag . sect.] ; X, Autobiography, 263. Report of [agent name deleted], December 27, 62 On the other hand, the NOI continued to observe 1956, FBI file 105-24822-13, p. 30 ; Pittsburgh Couri- Ramadan in December instead of March (undoubt- er (February 22, 1958): 8; and (March 15, 1958) : 5 edly for the purpose of challenging the pervasive [mag. sect .] . Malcolm X noted a "sharp climb" in the influence of Christmas) ; the form of prayer taught number of Muslim-owned small businesses by 1961, by Master Fard - a slight cupping of the hands with but did not distinguish between privately and organi- palms facing upward -was unknown to the interna- zationally owned enterprises. Malcolm X, Autobiogra- tional Muslim community; nor was the practice of phy, 263. jumah observed . What also remained were Fard's 54 Sahib, "The Nation of Islam," 84. basic teachings concerning the nature of God and 55 However, the second openly advertised convention in Spirit, polygenesis, and a fundamental disregard for February 1958 was publicized as the "ninth," which the prophet Muhammad . As a result, Sheikh Diab would date the very first (but apparently closed) ultimately and bitterly dissasociated himself from the convention meeting back to 1950 . Pittsburgh Courier NOI. See Lincoln, Black Muslims, 183-84 . For a brief (March 8,1958) : 4-5 [mag . sect.] . description of pre-1978 NOI prayer rituals, see also Lasin6 Kaba, "Americans Discover Islam through the 56 Coincidentally, the emphasis on self-defense Black Muslim Experience," in Islam in North America: occurred during a period when armed, anti-colonial, A Sourcebook, ed . Michael A. Koszegi and J. Gordon anti-imperialist struggles on the continents of Africa, Melton (New York : Garland, 1992), 32. Asia, and Latin America were in the ascendancy, a situation which led many African Americans - 63 These articles were subsequently reproduced in the above all, Malcolm X - to blur the notion of armed form of topical fragments in two volumes known as self-defense with that of violent political revolution . The Supreme Wisdom, published in the latter 1950s, 57 Elijah Muhammad's early writings spoke of a and wholly in Message to the Blackman in America and "return" to the East and to "best lands," which origi- other works. nally meant the Nile Valley as well as Mecca; later he 64 Marsh, From Black Muslims to Muslims, 73 ; Malcolm X, called for a physical "return" of Black Americans to Autobiography, 249-50.

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65 Pittsburgh Courier (March 8, 1958): 7; (July 19, 1958) : 74 Chicago Tribune (March 1, 1976) : 1; (March 12,1995) : 8. In a repeat of this pattern, in late 1972 Elijah 16; New York Times (December 6, 1973) : 37; (Febru- Muhammad requested a meeting of five hundred ary 26, 1976) : 14 ; Bruce Michael Gans and Walter L. New York black business and professional leaders to Lowe, " The Islam Connection," Playboy Magazine discuss the expansion of NOI activities. Anticipating (May 1980) : 130. In a Muhammad Speaks interview c. a genuine dialogue, several participants expressed December 1973, and at a press conference as well, disappointment at having been lectured to by Mr. Minister Farrakhan steadfastly denied that Muslims Muhammad as if they had no ideas themselves to had engaged in crime in order to bolster sagging contribute . New York Times (October 2, 1972) : 24. NOI revenues . A reprint of the interview can be in 7 Speeches by Minister Louis Farrakhan (New- 66 For insights into the running of the newspaper, see found John Woodford, "Testing America's Promise of Free port News, VA: Ramza Associates & United Brothers Communications Systems, 1974), 43-64; see also New Speech : Muhammad Speaks in the 1960s, A Memoir," Times (December 11, 1973) : 74 . More recently Voices of the African Diaspora [CAAS, University of York Michigan] 7 (Fall 1991) : 3-16 ; rpt. as "Messaging the an internal FBI report transmitted surreptitiously to Blackman," in Voices from the Underground, 2 vols ., the Anti-Defamation League's domestic intelligence ed . Ken Wachsberger (Tempe, AZ : Mica Press, operation claimed - perhaps deceptively - that had 1993), 1 :81-98, Relocations of the Spirit (Wakefield, RI high-ranking members of the present-day NOI purpose of and London: Asphodel Press, 1994), 66-116 . In the engaged in white-collar crime for the men- early 1960s assessments of the Nation of Islam by the improving the group's cash-flow. Specifically violations, cred- Communist Party U .S .A's black leadership were tioned were instances of federal tax the last-men- divided. Based in Chicago where the party had estab- it-card fraud, and bank-loan scams, NOI lished a rapport with the NOI, Claude Lightfoot was tioned being an offence for which former generally supportive ; in New York City where it had minister Khallid Abdul Muhammad actually served not, James E. Jackson was highly critical. See Claude prison time . Equally troubling was the inference that Lightfoot, "Negro Nationalism and the Black Mus- that 41 members of the New Orleans-branch NOI lims," Political Affairs 41 (July 1962) : 3-20 ; and James had offered cash and other items to food-stamp E. Jackson, "A Fighting People Forging Unity" Politi- recipients in exchange for their stamps, which would cal Affairs 42 (August 1963) : 41-46. then be redeemed at a substantial profit from local banks. "San Francisco Police Affadavit in Support of 67 The success of these early recruitment efforts is Warrant for A.D .L . Offices," April 1993 . See noted by Malcolm X in his Autobiography, 262 ; see Search also Robert I. Friedman, "The Enemy Within," Vil- also Marsh, From Black Muslims to Muslims, 73. The lage Voice (May 11, 1993): 27 ff. growing inclination on the part of the NOI to recruit more of its members from the middle class also may 75 See Marsh, From Black Muslims to Muslims, 74 . Nation- have had to do with cultivating a wealthier con- al SecretaryJohn Ali appears to have played an advi- stituency from whom more substantial revenues sory role with respect to this privileged inner circle . could be tithed . In his "The Rise of Louis Far- In his When the Word Is Given, 82, journalist Louis rakhan," The Nation (January 21, 1991): 54, Adolph Lomax identifies John [X] Ali as a former FBI agent. Reed, Jr. has noted a connection between the NOFs 76 Chicago Tribune (January 14, 1972): 2, sect. 1D . Per- middle-class recruitment and its drive for economic haps to silence anticipated criticisms of this ostenta- growth in the early 1970s. tious measure, Elijah Muhammad simultaneously 68 For a discussion of the OAAU's significance, see announced plans for the construction in Chicago of William W. Sales, Jr., From Civil Rights to Black Libera- 100 single-family, low-income homes financed by the tion : Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American NOI. The latter project does not seem to have mate- Unity (Boston: South End Press, 1994) . rialized, however. Chicago Tribune (January 15, 1972) : 69 Malcolm X, Autobiography, 289. 1. 70 Lawrence Mamiya has advanced a convenient para- 77 Chicago Tribune (January 13, 1972): 2, sect. 113; (Janu- digm to characterize the difference between Louis ary 14,1972) : 2, sect. 1D . Farrakhan and W. Deen Mohammed as that of a pre- 78 [New Orleans) Times-Picayune (January 11, 1972): 1, 2; hajj "Old Malcolm" to that of a post-hajj "New Mal- (January 12, 1972) : 1, 2; (January 13, 1972) : 2, 3; colm ." This framework holds true, however, only if Chicago Tribune (January 14, 1972) : 18 ; (January 15, one limits oneself to the domains of religion and 1972) : 1; (May 1, 1973) : 1, 3; New York Times (January racial nationalism. See Lawrence H. Mamiya, "Minis- 21, 1972): 1, 21 ; (May 1, 1973): 35; (April 1, 1975) : ter Louis Farrakhan and the Final Call : Schism in 25 . Nine Muslims were eventually found guilty of the Muslim Movement," in The Muslim Community in murder, but the convictions were overturned on a North America, ed . Earle H. Waugh Baha Abu-Laban technicality. and Regula B. Qureshi (Edmonton: University of 79 Nor was the NOI image helped by the fact that Alberta Press, 1983,`., 234. African Americans affiliated with Dar Ul Islam, a tra- 71 Pittsburgh Courier (February 28, 1959) : 4-5 [mag . ditional Islamic organization based in Brooklyn, sect.] . were also involved in a deadly gun battle in early 72 Chicago Tribune (March 12, 1995) : 16. 1974; to the general public, to be black and Muslim 73 Newsweek (March 15, 1976): 33. was to be a "Black Muslim," or NOI adherent. See

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New York Times (February 6, 1974) : 44. 89 Newsweek (March 15, 1976): 33 . See also New York 80 Its leader, Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, had recently sent a Times (August 8, 1976) : 34 . second series of letters to ministers of NOI mosques 90 Chicago Tribune (September 13, 1978): 1, sect. 3. In urging them to reject the teachings of Elijah later years Muhammad would interpret the zakat, or Muhammad . New York Times (January 19, 1973): 1, tithe, as a responsibility to engage in commerce : "busi- 13 ; (January 31, 1973) : 10 . ness is a religious obligation . It is a religious obliga- 81 New York Times (May 3, 1973) : 26. Authorities claimed tion for Muslims." Muslim Journal (February 7, that Shabazz was killed because he taught that Elijah 1986) : 2. Muhammad was the messenger of Allah, contradict- 91 Even as Wallace Muhammad announced the exis- ing the dissident group's belief that he was Allah in tence of $900,000 in short-term and $4.5 million in person . New York Times (September 5, 1973): 50 ; long-term debt some two years earlier, the NOI con- (May 3, 1974) : 3. tinued to purchase Chicago properties. Chicago Tri- 82 See Zafar Ishaq Ansari, "W. D. Muhammad: The Mak- bune (March 1, 1976) : 1. ing of a `Black Muslim' Leader (1933-1961)," Ameri- 92 Chicago Tribune (January 7, 1979) : 6; Black Enterprise canjournal ofIslamic Social Sciences 2.2 (1985) : 245-62 ; (March 1981): 20 ; MuslimJournal (April 18, 1986) : 7; C. Eric Lincoln, "The American Muslim Mission in Lincoln, "American Muslim Mission," 229. the Context of American Social History," in The Mus- 93 New York Times (February 26, 1976): 14 . Bilalian News lim Community in North America, 215-33 ; Lawrence H. subsequently became the American Muslim journal, Mamiya, "From Black Muslim to Bilalian : The Evolu- and then simply the Muslimjournal. tion of a Movement," Journalfor the Scientific Study of Religion 21 (1982) : 138-52 ; and especially Lee, The 94 New York Times (October 19, 1976) : 33 . For a discus- Nation ofIslam, 98, 101. sion of ummah and `asabiya see McCloud, African American Islam, 45 . 83 Time (June 30, 1975) : 52 ; New York Times (June 17, 1975) : 9; (February 26, 1976) : 14 ; Chicago Tribune 95 Chicago 73ibune (May 3, 1985) : 1, 24. (March 1, 1976) : 1; (February 19, 1976) : 1, sect . 2; 96 New York Times (May 25, 1978) : 20 ; James Emerson (March 1, 1976): 1; New York Times (March 7, 1978) : Whitehurst, "The Mainstreaming of Black Muslims: 18. Healing the Hate," Christian Century (February 27, 84 Time (March 14,1977) : 59 . 1980) : 229. 85 Muslim Journal (January 10, 1986): 2; (February 11, 97 MuslimJournal (February 21, 1986): 2. 1986): 2; (March 21, 1986) : 8 [WNE sect .] . 98 New York Times (May 3,1993) : B7. 86 It was also the intention of the Federal Bureau of 99 MuslimJournal (March 17, 1995) : 15 . Investigation to generate "factionalism among the 100 Muslim Journal (April 18, 1986) : 6. This number is contenders for Elijah Muhammad's leadership or to be distinguished from weekly attendance figures through legal action in probate court on his death." at "affiliated" mosques during the same period, See excerpts from FBI memorandum in MuslimJour- which has been reported in the hundreds of thou- nal (April 4,1986) : 4. sands. 87 Fourteen of the children were conceived outside of 59 his marriage to Clara Muhammad . Devotees contin- 101 Time (March 14,1977) : . ue to represent Mr. Muhammad's acts as having ful- 102 New York Times (February 26,1976) : 14. filled a prophetic role, and the secretaries with 103 Chicago Tribune (January 7,1979): 6. whom he had entered into carnal relations as his 104 Chicago Tribune (September 13, 1978) : 1, sect . 3; "wives ." Others point out that, under the NOI code Christianity Today 23 (October 6, 1978) : 45 . of conduct, lesser ranking members had been sus- pended from the organization for engaging in simi- 105 "BBB Interviews Minister Abdul Farrakhan," Black lar activities . True, Elijah Muhammad himself called Books Bulletin 6 (Spring 1978) : 45, 71 ; Gardell, 'The the Bible a "poison book" for its having overtly Sun of Islam Will Rise," 25 . See also Mamiya, "Min- depicted the moral lapses of prophetic figures, but ister Louis Farrakhan and the Final Call," 234-53 ; whether he considered the "poison" to be in the and Jabril Muhammad, This Is the One: The Most Honored Elijah Muhammad, We Need Not Look for doing or the telling is a matter of conjecture. Another!, rvsd . ed. (Phoenix, AZ : Book Company, 88 Chicago Tribune (July 11, 1986): 1-2. The fact that the 1993), 154. NOI had deposited approximately $20 million in a Japanese bank is of more than passing interest . In 106 Black, "Farrakhan and the Jews," 6. See also Mad- the early 1960s Japanese businessman Seiho Tajiri hubuti's instructive account, "The Farrakhan Fac- "arranged for a major Japanese food company to tor," regarding Farrakhan's use of Chicago-based provide for the fish sold in the Nation of Islam's nationalists to build his initial following. Haki R. shops and restaurants." But Elijah Muhammad's pro- Madhubuti, Claiming Earth: Race, Rage, Rape, Nippon leanings can be traced back thirty years pre- Redemption : Blacks Seeking A Culture of Enlightened vious. See Frank McCoy, "Black Business Courts the Empowerment (Chicago : Third World Press, 1994), Japanese Market," Black Enterprise (June 1994) : 216; 71-98. and Allen, "WhenJapan Was Champion," 25, 32. 107 Time (February 28, 1994) : 26 .

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108 See Chicago Tribune (March 12, 1995): 1 ff. Minister Muhammad, initially claimed that interferon thera- Farrakhan's fiery riposte to the Tribune's series of pies had "cured" significant numbers of people sensationalist exposes of his operations failed to afflicted with AIDS. Following an outcry from the dislodge the claim that many NOI-affiliated firms scientific community, he subsequently scaled back were privately owned. this claim to the more credible assertion that inter- helped AIDS patients gain weight . There 109 There was by now, of course, the promise (or feron complaints from the black gay communi- threat) of an African American domestic homeland were also members of which claimed that turning advanced by ultra-right wing paramilitary groups ty, some medical testing over to the anti-homosexual such as Posse Comitatus and Aryan Nation, who AIDS fabled black scientist evinced a desire to partition the United States into NOI was akin to turning the Washington Post (July 29, racial enclaves . To be sure, such plans smacked Yakub loose in a nursery! 29, 1993): DI, 5; New York more of a Bantustan or concentration-camp gover- 1993) : 25; (September Final Call (October 6, nance than of genuine autonomy ; and Farrakhan, Times (March 4, 1994) : 10; (March 14,1995) : 1, 10 . despite his apparent ties to such groups, has 1994): 7; Chicago Tribune declined to endorse such plans publicly. See Wash- 116 Benjamin, "The Attitude Is the Message," 25 . ington Times (November 5, 1985): 7. 117 New York Times (March 1, 1995): C1, 10 . 110 Back Where We Belong: Selected Speeches by Minister 118 Business Week (March 13,1995) : 40 . . D. Eure and Richard M. Louis Farrakhan, ed Joseph 119 A more recent report on NOI economic activities Jerome (Philadelphia: PC International Press, paints an even bleaker picture. See Washington Post, Farrakhan confesses publicly 1989), 154-56. Here national weekly edition (September 9-15, 1996): 6- earlier admitted in private. what Elijah Muhammad 11 . Shipp, "The Road Not 111 See, for example, Sigmund 120 Cited in New York Times (June 17,1975) : 9. Taken: Alternative Strategies For Black Economic 121 Louis Farrakhan, TheAnnouncement: A Final Warning Development in the United States," Journal of Eco- to the U.S. Government (Chicago : FCN, 1989) . W. nomic Issues 30 (March 1996) : 79-95. During the Deen Mohammed, one notes, has never reported Reagan years, black petit-bourgeois elements experiencing a similar vision. However, Abass Ras- evolved another strategy to replace the traditional soull of the UNOI claims to have been recently "ghetto nationalism" of earlier epochs : corporate informed by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in interventionism. Farrakhan has not followed their person that "Minister Farrakhan had been properly lead . For a dissection of this particular tack, see relieved of the post of sitting in The Messenger's Earl Picard, "The New Black Economic Develop- chair on September 30, 1989 ." ment Strategy," Telos 60 (Summer 1984) : 53-64. 122 Annual Report of the Immigration and Naturalization 112 Time (February 28, 1994) : 26 . Service, 1966 (Washington, DC : U.S . Government 113 When Farrakhan was still minister of the Harlem Printing Office, 1967); Stone, "Estimate of Mus- in the 1970s, he oversaw operations of the mosque lims," 25-36. Fish Force, a NOI fish-import business . For an 123 Gardell, "The Sun of Islam Will Rise," 32 . account of the latter's business activities see Playthell Benjamin, "The Attitude Is the Message," 124 Ibid ., 34 . Village Voice (August 15, 1989) : 25, 27. 125 This liberalizing tendency already had begun under Muhammad around the 1972-1973 period . 114 The situation was roughly analagous to that which Elijah arose the demonizing of Jews . See Marcus Garvey faced in 1922, in the wake of the In its stead E. Curry, "Farrakhan,Jesse &Jews," Emerge post-World War I recession. Several years earlier the George (July/August 1994): 3435. UNIA had been awash in self-sufficient funds gar- nered from a black working-class constituency ; in 126 See, for example, Muhammad, Message to the Black- the face of massive employment losses occasioned man, 173, 316. by the recession, Garvey produced a pamphlet enti- 127 For Farrakhan's views on the efficacy of politics, see tled "Appeal to the Soul of White America," "Farrakhan : Some Straight Talk and a Few Tears requesting monies from whites to support his pro- for Malcolm from the Minister," interview by gram of African expatriation . Garvey, Philosophy George E. Curry, Emerge (August 1990) : 34 . Reflect- and Opinions 2: 1-6. ing the implicit assumption that blacks are indeed 115 "The Muslims to the Rescue," Ebony (August 1989): Americans, Farrakhan claimed in a recent work 136, 138, 140; LosAngeles Times (July 2, 1992) : BI, that "Over 30 million Americans live in poverty, 3; (November 2, 1992) : Bl ; (December 27, 1992): and 10 million of those are black." Louis Far- BI, 6; U.S. News and World Report (September 12, rakhan, A Torchlight for America (Chicago : FCN, 1994) : 40, 42-43; New York Times (March 4,1994) : 1, 1993), 15 . Where Elijah Muhammad had outright 18 ; Chicago Tribune (March 12, 1995): 1, 16-17; denied the existence of an American identity for (March 13, 1995) : 1, 10 . Success has also been blacks, Louis Farrakhan now implicity assumes its forthcoming to the NOI in obtaining government existence. The NOI's initial venture into establish- contracts to treat AIDS patients at its Washington, ment politics occurred with its support of theJack- D.C. clinic, but the victory was also marred by con- son presidential campaign in 1984 . Six years later, troversy . The clinic's director, Dr. Abdul Alim rather than throw its weight behind individual

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black politicians over whom it exercised no real rakhan for his verbal transgressions . Then began control, the NOI decided to run its own candidates the next round of a ritual of which a good many directly. Entering the Democratic primary race in African Americans have grown weary. To para- Maryland's 5th District, Dr. Abdul Alim Muham- phrase an ancient African proverb: "When two mad sought to unseat a well-heeled U.S . Congress- right-wing zealotries clash, only rational people get man seeking a fifth term. Outspent in the cam- trampled." paign by a factor of ten-to-one, Muhammad 135 Benjamin, "The Attitude Is the Message," 24 . received only 21 % of the vote, thus once again 136 See Ernest Allen Jr., "Toward A `More Perfect putting on temporary hold direct NOI participa- Union' : A Commingling of Constitutional Ideals tion in electoral politics . Capturing the NOI's and Christian Precepts," Black Scholar 25 (Fall attention was the fact that the black population of 1995): 27-34. Prince George's county, the greater portion of 137 Louis Farrakhan, "Why A Million Man March?," which was located within the 5th District, had Final Call (August 30, 1995) : 19. grown to 50% of the total, thus offering the possi- bility of a successful run for office based upon a 138 George E. Curry, "After the Million Man March," direct nationalist appeal . The assumption proved Emerge (February 1996): 48 . An exception to the incorrect. During the same period, NOI members meager availability of information on the LOCs was Shawn X. Brakeen sought a school board post, and the October 22, 1996 Final Call, celebrating the George X. Cure a delegate's seat, in the District of first anniversary of the Million Man March. Columbia . Washington Post (August 2, 1990) : D2 ; 139 New York Times (March 25,1996) : Al, 12 . (September 12,1990) : A21. 140 [Springfield] Sunday Republican (June 30, 1966) : Al, 128 For perceptive views on the power struggle within 13, 18 ; The Spirit [Official Newsletter of the Springfield the Nation of Islam, see Peter Noel, "To Kill A Chapter of the Million Man March Committee] 1 (Octo- Brother Minister : Khallid Muhammad Versus the ber 16, 1996). Nation of Islam," Village Voice (August 2, 1994) : 21 141 Final Call (January 31, 1996): 3. ff. ; Noel, "The Final Call," 23 ff.; and Sylvester 142 Louis Farrakhan, "Can the U.N . Avert the War of Munroe, "Khallid Abdul Muhammad," Emerge (Sep- Armageddon?," Final Call (November 5,1996): 21 . tember 1994): 40-46. Both authors have no trouble 143 Divided reactions to march follow-up activities are in identifying Khallid Muhammad's constituency reflected in interviews conducted by Darrell outside the NOI, but his specific base - if any - Dawsey, "In Their Footsteps, Emerge (October within the organization remains unclear. 1996) : 46-49. 129 Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions, 2: 133. That is not 144 Beynon, "The Voodoo Cult," 906. to say that many of Garvey's enemies were not also motivated by petty jealousies or strong pro-govern- 145 See Mamiya, "Minister Louis Farrakhan and the ment bias as well . Final Call," 24-55-51 esp. 130 The saga began after presidential candidate Jesse Jackson was accused of uttering a slur against Jews. See Curry, "Farrakhan,Jesse &Jews," 30. 131 Cited in Lincoln, Black Muslims, 176. 132 Thunderbolt 309 (n .d ., c. 1985): 5. 133 For examples of deliberate distortions of Far- rakhan's remarks, see Curry, "Farrakhan, Jesse & Jews," 37, 40 . 134 By 1985 a symbiotic relationship of sorts appeared to develop between Farrakhan and his right-wing, nationalist counterparts within the American Jew ish community. First, Farrakhan would utter an out- rageous remark concerning Jews, for which Jewish organizations would then expend tens of thou- sands of dollars denouncing him in full-page news- paper ads. This free publicity only further endeared Louis Farrakhan to black communities coast to coast, increased NOI membership, and, for better or for worse, made Farrakhan's name a household word . Such negative publicity also attracted the attention of "checkbook Zionists" (as they are known within theJewish community), who would then proceed to pour hundreds of thou- sands of dollars into Jewish protective organiza- tions. These groups would subsequently demand that prominent blacks denounce Minister Far-

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