Word: muhammad
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...purveyor of this cold black hatred is known to some 70,000 Negro followers (he claims 250,000) in 29 U.S. cities as Elijah Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, head of a stern, demanding, disciplined black-supremacist religious sect called "the Moslems."* Calmly feeding the rankling frustration of urban Negroes, the Moslems reach deep among the least-educated, lowest-paid Negroes jammed into big-city slums from Harlem to Los Angeles. Muhammad's virulent anti-Americanism and antiSemitism, plus his elite corps of dark-suited, shaven-polled young "honor guards," has lifted him well beyond...
...Named "X." Elijah Muhammad was born Elijah Poole, son of a Baptist minister, in Sandersville, Ga. on Oct. 7, 1897, later moved with his family to Detroit. One momentous day, he tells the faithful, he met one Fard Muhammad, who revealed himself to be "Allah on earth"-on earth, that is, just long enough to pick the "messenger" for his black-supremacy doctrine. Messenger Elijah dropped his "slave-master name" of Poole, took up the spiritual surname Muhammad (lacking religious surnames, his ministers just use "X"). He founded Temple No. i in 1931, but soon ran into difficulties...
...Muhammad also trained muscle. Each congregation has its "Fruit of Islam" force of young men, who take judo training in their temples, are commanded by Muhammad's son-in-law, burly "Supreme Captain" Raymond Sharrieff. The F.O.I. protects its racist chief as if he were in constant danger of assassination. At each mass meeting, the F.O.I, frisks every male who attends, while "Sisters" in flowing white robes and headpieces stand inside a separate entrance (segregation by sexes also) to frisk each woman, put all potential weapons such as nail files in checking bags...
...Worse Every Day." Muhammad's doctrine of total hate found a ready medium in some Negro newspapers, which began to exploit Negro hopes and fears after the Emmett Till case. The Pittsburgh Courier, Negro national weekly, and the Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch, booming West Coast Negro paper, not only gained attention from his personal column, but also found their circulations boosted fast by Moslems who hawked the papers on street corners as a spiritual duty. Such leading Negro Harlem politicos as Congressman Adam Clayton Powell (pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church) and Manhattan Borough President Hulan Jack have curried...
...will stand unchallenged. Says Chicago Urban League's Negro Director Edwin C. Berry: "A guy like this Moslem leader makes a lot more sense than I do to the man in the street who's getting his teeth kicked out. I have a sinking feeling that Elijah Muhammad is very significant...