Western Resistance

« Nation of Islam: History - Part 2 | | Nation of Islam: History - Part 4 »

March 8, 2007

Nation of Islam: History - Part 3

Originally this article was published in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

Nation of Islam - The Path to Louis Farrakhan

Part 3 (of 4)

By Adrian Morgan

Malcolm K. Little, aka Malik El-Shabaz aka Malcolm X, was serving an 8-10 year prison term in Charlestown Massachusetts when he first became exposed to Nation of Islam teachings. He had been sentenced at Belmont, Massachusetts for breaking and entering and larceny on February 27, 1946. In the two years previously, he had been charged 7 times in Massachusetts and Michigan for breaking and entering and grand larceny. As well as being a convicted criminal, he had also engaged in homosexual prostitution, stated biographer Bruce Perry in 1991.

While in the Nation of Islam his articulate oratory saw him promoted through the ranks. How much he believed in the the NoI's beliefs about a mad scientist creating white men to curse blacks or that a drug-peddling fantasist called Master Fard Muhammad was "Allah" is debatable. But he certainly believed in the NoI's message of racial separatism, and in 1953 had told police in Plymouth, Michigan, that he was "Asiatic" following the doctrines of Fard. From his own family experiences he knew the extremes of white racism. In his 1963 autobiography he wrote: " The Muslim teachings, circulated among all Negroes in the country, are converting new Muslims among black men in prison, and black men are in prison in far greater numbers than their proportion in the population. The reason is that among all Negroes the black convict is the most perfectly preconditioned to hear the words, 'the white man is the devil'."

In November 1962, he was living on 97th Street, East Elmhurst in Queens, where he was Minister of NoI Temple Number 7. He was harboring some doubts about the group's leader, Elijah Muhammad, on account of the Messenger's adultery. After Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, Malcolm X's contemptuous comments caused a public outcry against the NoI and he was told by the Messenger to be silent for 90 days. Malcolm X was involved in the conversion of boxer Cassius Clay to the Nation of Islam. On March 6, 1964, the boxer was renamed Muhammad Ali. Two days later, Malcolm X announced that he had left the NoI.

As soon as Malcolm X left the group, he embarked on an active schedule. He set up Muslim Mosque Inc days after he left NoI. He founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity in June 1964. Two of Elijah Muhammad's sons had left NoI after he had abandoned the group.

In September 1964, Malcolm X was given an eviction notice to vacate his Queens residence, owned by the NoI, by January 1965. This order was ignored, and he continued to reside there with wife Betty Shabbaz and their daughters. He toured Africa in 1964, sponsored by the Egyptian government from April to May and from July to November. He had visited Africa before, as an ambassador for the NOI, in 1959. He had been preparing for Elijah Muhammad's tour which took place later in 1959. He had visited Saudi Arabia on July 21, 1959, but had not performed Umrah. On April 19, 1964, as a State Guest of the House of Saud, he performed the rituals of Umrah as an "orthodox" Sunni Muslim.

He visited France and Britain at the end of 1964, appearing at Oxford University where he participated in the Oxford Union debating society. In February 1965 he was in Smethwick near Birmingham, UK, where racist slogans had been used in the 1964 election. On the early hours of February 14, his house in Queens was firebombed as he and his family slept. A week later, on the afternoon of February 21, he addressed a crowd of 400 people at the Audobon Ballroom near Harlem. His wife testified that there was a commotion from the seventh row, and shots were fired. Malcolm X was taken to Presbyterian Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

His autopsy, performed at Bellevue Morgue on February 21, revealed that he had been hit 15 times with .9 mm caliber bullets and shotgun pellets, with 5 exit wounds. 9 bullets and pellets were retrieved from the body.

His three assailants had fled, but two suspected gunmen were cornered by angry supporters and beaten. Police took 10 minutes to rescue them and place them under arrest. In March 1966, Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson were convicted of murdering Malcolm X. Johnson and Butler were both Nation of Islam members, a fact which fueled rumors that Malcolm X had been assassinated on the orders of leaders within NoI. Malcolm X's lawyer, Percy Sutton, had said after the shooting: "Malcolm knew he would be killed".

Malcolm X's revelations about Elijah Muhammad's sexual philandering caused Louis Farrakhan to write in the newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, in December 1964: "such a man is worthy of death." Though he denied ordering the assassination, Farrakhan later admitted that he had ""helped create the atmosphere" which led to the assassination.

In the next decade, as Elijah Muhammad grew frail, the Nation of Islam would become increasingly involved in incidents of violence. One of the most shocking of these took place in January 1973. In 1950, Ernest T. McGee, aka Khalifa Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, had joined the NoI. He left in 1958, disillusioned with the pseudo-Islam of the group. He formed the Hanafi sect, which adhered to Sunni Islamic principles. A friend of Malcolm X, on January 5, 1973, he had produced a letter sent to the NoI, in which he called Elijah Muhammad a "lying deceiver".

On January 18, 1973, a group of several Nation of Islam members set out for a house which was being used by Khaalis in Washington DC. This was the townhouse of LA Lakers' star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Khaalis was not at home, so the people in the house were attacked. Seven members of Khaalis' family were killed. Four of the victims were babies, aged between 9 days and 22 months. These had been drowned in a bathtub and a sink. Khaalis's wife was shot but survived, albeit paralyzed.

On the other side of America, a group of members of the Nation of Islam began a killing spree against white people in the San Francisco Bay area, which became known as the Zebra killings. Between October 19, 1973 and April 16, 1974, at least sixteen people were murdered.

While the Nation of Islam became associated in the public consciousness with violence and hate, the elderly leader Elijah Muhammad died of congestive heart failure on February 25, 1975. His death came only one day before the annual celebration of Master Fard's birthday, "Savior's Day". The following day, his son Wallace D. Muhammad (pictured as he appears today) was selected as leader of the group.

Wallace had not been an enthusiastic believer in his father's ideology, and soon changed the name of the group to the Bilalian Community. Bilal was the name of an Ethiopian Muslim who had been martyred by Christians. Officially, the Lost-Found Nation of Islam no longer existed, though leaders such as Farrakhan initially remained with Wallace as he attempted to Islamize the sect. The Nation of Islam, envisioned by Master Fard and Elijah Muhammad, had died. But soon it would rise again.

Wallace D. softened some of the image of the NoI, disbanding the "Fruit of Islam" and moving the group more closely towards authentic Islam. In 1977, the group became the World Community of Al-Islam in the West. Later it would become the American Muslim Mission, then the Muslim Society of America. Wallace D. changed his name to Warith Deen Mohammed, changing the spelling of his last name. By 1985, he had made his movement wholly compliant with traditional Islam, and allowed whites to become members.

As Warith Deen Muhammad took the community through various changes, Farrakhan and other followers of Elijah Muhammad became more alienated. Farrakhan left in 1977, but in 1981, he announced that he had revived the Nation of Islam. Once more, black Americans would be invited to believe that Master Fard was "Allah", that people lived on Mars and a giant spaceship hovered above the planet. With Farrakhan's revival of the NoI, the racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism which had been cultivated by Fard and Elijah Muhammad had found its new home.

© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at March 8, 2007 11:27 AM

Comments

Post a comment