Evelyn Sell
I.
Superficially the Black Muslims are markedly different from most other Negro organizations in America, The other groups are often forced to have an all black membership because of racial segregation patterns. The Black Muslims are all black by choice. No whites may join, attend their temples of worship or participate in their activities. Most Negro organizations are struggling to achieve integration. The Black Muslimst goal is the separation of the races and the ocrea=tion of an independent black nation on either American or African soil.
The world has been stirred by the Negro sit-in movement, the picket lines, boycotts and mass demonstrations, The Black Muslims do not engage in such actions, Thousands of Negro freedom fighters. have been thrown into jail in their struggle against racist laws and the racist-controlled police power, The Black Muslims are pledged to obey all constituted authority. The only exception is their refusal to serve in the armed forces because this violates their religious teachings. Their belief in Allah as the Supreme Being is, also, a feature which sets them apart from most American Négroes who are Christians,
The ideas and actions cf the Black Muslims would seem to run counter to the whole drive of the Freedom Now. revolution, yet they are undoubtedly an increasingly important factor to be reckoned with by the Negro community, the white capitalist power structure and revolutionary socialists,
Their significance lies in the fact that they articulate most clearly and symbolize most dramatically important new attitudes among American Negroes, The Black Muslims are the most radical expression of the new moods of self-reliance, self-confidence and racial solidar~ ity in the struggle against white capitalist oppression, They are the most advanced interpreters of the Negroes! rejection of the American Way of Life.
Seek Independence
They insist (and prove in their temples and businesses) that black people can lead themselves and develop themselves socially, economically and intellectually without the direct guidance of white men, In their schools and publications they emphasize the true history of black people in America, the past record of black peoplest contributions to world culture and the present struggles and achieve-= ments of colored peoples throughout the world.
Their religious beliefs and fervent nationalism may seem bizarre or reactionary but they do serve to link the Muslims with their co-
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religionists and racial brothers in the east, to provide a substitute sulture for the hated American Way of Life and to gain a feeling of being part of the world-wide majority of colored peoples.
Their repudiation of the white mants religion and the slave mas~ terst country is a part of their rejection of the crippling and corruptive aspects of capitalist scciety. They are not committed in any way to any of the institutions or leaders of this country and they therefore feel perfectly free to.tell the bare ugly truth about this country's hypocrisy and cruelty towards black people,
The Black Muslim movement is not new; it has existed for 33 years, It is not a particularly unusual phenomenon in the Nogro com= munity; exotic religious cults and fervent nationalist groupings are familiar. products of Americats capitalist racial oppression,
The Black Muslim movement was born in Detroit, Michigan, during the early years of the Great Depression. Sometime during the summer of 1930 a fair-skinned Arab peddler began circulating his wares and his ideas among Detroit!s ghetto Negroes, -He was known by a number of different names but the one most frequently associated with him was W.D,Fard.
Fard soon began holding informal house mectings to tell interested Negroes about their true country, Africa, and explaining the laws and creed of their true religion, Islam, These reports were then ~ coupled with bitter denunciations of the white man and his Christian religion, Caught in the vise of degrading segregation and economic depression, his listeners responded to the two main points of Fardts teachings: pride in the history of the Negro race and disgust at the ways of the white man.
The Movement Is Born
A meeting hall was rented and named the Temple of Islam, membership standards were set, a religious ritual was laid down, a hierarchy of leadership was * established -- the Black Muslims were on their waye The earliest recruits were unemployed Negroes from the most deteriorated sections of the city; most of them were on public welfare; the great majority were recent immigrants from the rural south$ a good number were ex-members of other nationalist groups such as the Marcus Garvey Back-to-Africa movement which boasted two million members just after World War I.
Within three years the Muslims organized a University of Islam to provide schooling for children in the olementary and secondary grades, A Muslim Girls Training Class was created to train proper Muslim wives and mothers, The Fruit of Islam defense guard became the elite corp of the organization. There were at this point 8,000 members. a
_ Fard retired from active leadership and some time in June, 1934, he disappeared. His leaving was as veiled in mystery as his coming,
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The new head of the movement was Fard!s most trusted officer whom he had appointed Chief Minister of Islam, Elijah Muhammad,
Parents Had Been Slaves
Muhammad!s background was fairly typical of the Muslim's oarliest recruits. Born in Georgia in 1897, his parents had been slaves of a man named Poole and, as was the custom, the slaves were given the last name of the master, During his life in the south Elijah Poole worked as a field boy, in a saw mill and brick works, as a railroad laborer, For a while, he was a Baptist minister,
His schooling did not ‘Zo beyond ‘the fifth grade. He married in 1919 and then migrated to Detroit with his family. From 1923-1929 he worked in the Chevrolet auto factory but was on relief for the next two years, During that time he became a follower of Fard who, he said, took him "out of the gutter in the streets of Detroit and in three and a half years taught (me) the knowledge of Islam," Fard, also, revealed to his disciple his "true" African name and ever since Hlijah Poole has been known as Elijah Muhammad.
Imprisoned Because of Views
After Fardts disappearance, Muhammad deified his teacher, perpetuated his teachings and set up Temple No. 2 in nearby Chicago,. Illinois, The movement declined and stagfdted, however, during the boomtime years of World War II. There. were only sevoral hundred members when Elijah Muhammad and some of his followers were jailed in 1942 for refusing to serve in the armed forces, Muhammad served a five-year sentence in a federal prison and almost 100 Muslims were Similarly imprisoned between 1942-46,
During the fifties and sixties a spectacular growth took. place, There wore four temples in 1945, fifteen by 1955, At the beginning of 1959 there were thirty temples and by the end of the same year there were fifty. Real estate holdings in the Chicago area alune rose from $150,000 in 1954 te $500,000 by 1960. In December 1960 the movement embraced sixty-nine temples or missions in twenty-seven states ranging from California in the west to Massachusetts in the east, to Florida in the south, The main strength of- the movement has always been and still is concentrated in the ghettoes of the large urban Northern centers.
The Muslims are now considered to be the fastest growing group in the country. Membership figures are carefully concealed but estimates vary from 100,000 to 2 quarter of a million. The scope of Muslim influence does not’ lic in numbers alone, for in addition to the considerable numbers active in temple life there are many more thousands who sympathize and support Muslim ideas, who visit temple and public meetings, who read the 24-page tabloid newspaper Muhammad Speaks and who listen to the many Muslim radio broadcasts,
Wherever Muhammad speaks he attracts an audience of at least
8,000 to 10,000 persons, The.movement has come far from its humble beginnings in Detroit's Negro ghetto.
[Next week: The Black Muslims Today.]
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