The Nation of Islam
On October 7, 1897 in Sandersville, Georgia, a woman named Marie Poole gave birth to a boy who she named Elijah. Elijah’s parents were sharecroppers, and this father was a Baptist minister (Black Supremacists, 25). After an eighth grade education, in 1931, Elijah Poole moved to Detroit where, he says, he met “Allah in person”. This was a man named Fard Muhammad—“The first and only man born in Mecca who came to America for the express purpose of teaching the so-called Negro” (Mr. Muhammad Speaks, 103). Elijah studied under Fard Muhammad, after which, he acquired a new title and sense of purpose. Since then, Elijah referred to himself as “Elijah Muhammad, the messenger of Allah, to the Lost-Found Nation of Islam in North America” (Mr. Muhammad Speaks, 100). Elijah Muhammad’s own words state his new purpose very well, “I am doing all I can to make the so-called Negroes see that the white race and its religion, Christianity, are their open enemies” (Mr. Muhammad Speaks, 100). Elijah Muhammad, put quite bluntly, was a psychopath. His ideals parallel those of Adolf Hitler, leader of the Third Reich, the man most directly responsible for the systematic torture and annihilation of millions of innocent people during the Second World War. Elijah Muhammad’s ideals, taught through his cult, the Nation of Islam, are extreme, irrational, racist, and truly evil.
On November 17, 1962, 65 years after the birth of Elijah Muhammad, the New Yorker published an article written by James Baldwin called “Letter from a Region in My Mind. This article is an edited version of one of his now-famous essays, “Down at the Cross”. In this essay, Baldwin describes the encounter he had with Elijah Muhammad. During...
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... Muhammad was an evil man. We know he was evil because we have read about his teachings, and about the practices of the Nation of Islam. Baldwin knew he was evil in the same way. And we know that Baldwin knew Muhammad was evil because Baldwin wrote about Muhammad’s hatred in his essay, “Down at the Cross”. But Baldwin demonstrated wisdom by not sharing his views with Muhammad, and he demonstrated humbleness by not being consumed by his views and disagreeing with Muhammad. This helps us, readers of Baldwin, learn just that much more about this complex author.
Works Cited
“Black Supremacists.” Time 10 August 1959: 24-25.
“Black Supremacy Cult in the U.S.” U.S. News & World Report 9 November 1959: 112-114.
Haley, Alex. “Mr. Muhammad Speaks.” Readers Digest March 1960: 100-104.
Hentoff, Nat. “The Black Muslims in America.” The Reporter 27 April 1961: 24-52.
In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Muslim leader and black rights activist, Malcolm X, changes through a few significant events in his life. He went from an optimistic young boy, to a mischievous, law-breaking hustler, to a reformed man who sought to improve the way America viewed race. From the start of junior high, to his pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mecca, Malcolm X experiences three key events that change his life and develop the central idea of systemic oppression in the text.
Hahn discusses both the well-known struggle against white supremacy and the less examined conflicts within the black community. He tells of the remarkable rise of Southern blacks to local and state power and the white campaign to restore their version of racial order, disenfranchise blacks, and exclude them from politics. Blacks built many political and social structures to pursue their political goals, including organizations such as Union Leagues, the Colored Farmers’ Alliance, chapters of the Republican Party, and emigration organizations. Hahn used this part of the book to successfully recover the importance of black political action shaping their own history.
The Nation of Islam, which Malcolm X was an important member of, is not a religious organization as the name suggests but rather an organization whose goal was to make the lives of African Americans better instead of actually teaching the proper ethics of Islam. One of the main objectives of this organization was Black Nationalism, through which Black leaders can control the areas where there is a majority of African Americans. This cause was greatl...
...d with this notion solely because, The Nation of Islam had intentions of seeking revenge on the whites, for years and years of oppression and racism. This was yet another hate filled notion Baldwin could not agree with.
“A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People... “ PBSOnline, February 21, 2012 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h456.html
Personal stories and descriptions of major events are narrated throughout James Baldwin’s works as he analyzes the nature of the relationship between white and black America. The marriage of narration and analysis are especially evident in Baldwin’s essay, “Notes of a Native Son.” As Baldwin describes his father and their relationship until his father’s death, he simultaneously comments about the relationship between white and black America. Baldwin compares the events of his experience with concurrent American events to conclude about the nature of his personal relationships and the relationship between races; namely, that one must come to accept the reality of mankind, yet must strive to fight the injustice inherent in mankind’s nature.
Samuels, Gertrude. “Two ways: Black Muslim and N.A.A.C.P”.New York Times Magazine, 12 May 1963, pg 87.
As the Nation of Islam began to quickly emerge into the mainstream, it changed the minds of many African –Americans. Firstly, the Nation of Islam strongly ...
Imam Furqan’s interview informed me of the history of the Nation of Islam. Imam Furqan was attracted to the Nation of Islam because of the concepts of unity, morals, and discipline. Also, the Nation was very organized and neat. The Nation gave each individual African-American a sense of identity and strength for his or herself. It told them that they could things totally independent of white people. In addition, he also stated that the Nation had no tolerance for laziness and ignorance. As a result the Nation taught them to work and become
Not shortly after, he was invited to a gathering at Alijah Muhammad’s residence, a meeting which would establish his viewpoint on the role of religion within the American society forever. He confessed to have “heard a great deal, long before” meeting the great Alijah but “paid very little attention” to his movement because he was not interested in the Black Muslim Movement and the Nation of Islam (47). Baldwin’s confessions about the Nation of Islam provides a glimpse into his viewpoint as a black man on the ineffectiveness of the movement carried out by black people. He feels that such actions have produced little effects on the lives of black Americans and the way it has been ongoing for a long time has proved its ineffective in improving lives. However, the dining session at Elijah’s residence provoked him to view the movement differently where although he declined Elijah’s offer to join, he deduced that the similarities in the nature of both the Nation of Islam and the Christian ideals lies in its greedy emphasis on promoting a social hierarchy. Baldwin arrives at the conclusion that in order to lessen the racial tensions, an effective solution could only be to rely on the willingness to accept changes, formed under the basis of love and the diminishment of judgments based on one’s skin color and
Black Power has recently undergone a historiographical rebirth. Scot Brown's Fighting for US had a key impact to the evolving of Sixties. Centering on the US Organization and its frontrunner, Maulana Karenga, Brown contends that US was vital, although imperfect, part of the Black Power movement. The author uses the US Organization to show Black Nationalism as a diverse set of correlated principles, and he strives to change its history beyond the sectarianism that plagued the movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Brown presents a narrative that succeeds in recovering Karenga and US as key factors in twentieth-century Black politics.
James Baldwin is one of the premier essayists of his time. He draws on his experiences in a straightforward, unapologetic manner, which helps achieve his purpose in The Fire Next Time. His style elucidates his arguments for racial harmony and for the understanding of other religions.
In addition to the intellectual and activists roots of Black Power that feature prominently in Joseph and Singh’s accounts, Rhonda Williams’ book Concrete Demands: The Search for Black Power in the 20th Century, adds a fascinating new dimension to the discussion of the origins/evolution of black power. By distinguishing between black power and Black Power, William sheds light onto the widespread presence black power had in the lives of “ordinary” Black folks beginning with the St. Louis Race Riots of 1917. Moreover, Williams turns the common notion of the ideological prominence of non-violent civil rights and black power politics upside down. By suggesting that black power and not civil rights has been the more common and thus traditional African American approach to fight racial and social injustice, Williams challenges dominant narratives that usually portray the Black Power phase as a short-lived and fateful deviation from an African American civil rights protest tradition that evolved around questions of respectability and conformity. Beginning her narrative with the deep “roots and routes” that Garvey’s brand of Black Nationalism took in the United States, and by calling attention to the little know ideological precursors of radical activists like Carmichael, among them Richard Wright, who wrote a
Wilmore, Gayraud S. Black Religion and Black Radicalism: An Interpretation of the Religious History of Afro-American People. (1972) Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993. pp. 1-21.
After the strong surge of the civil rights movement’s first years, outrage and disappointment was expanding among numerous African Americans, who saw obviously that genuine equality in social and political settings were still unfair. In the late 1960s and mid 1970s, this dissatisfaction filled the ascent of the Black Power development. The conventional social equality development and its accentuation on peacefulness, did not go sufficiently far, and the government enactment it had accomplished neglected to address the monetary and social weaknesses confronting blacks in America. Dark Power was a type of both self– definition and self– barrier for African Americans; it approached them to quit looking to the foundations of white America—which