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Books by Elijah Muhammad
Message
to the Blackman in America (1997)
/
How to Eat to Live, Book 1 (1997) /
How to Eat to Live, Book 2 (1997)
Yakub: The Father of Mankind (2002) /
The True history of Master Fard Muhammad (1997)
The History of Jesus' Bith, Death and What It Means to You and
Me (1996) /
The Secrets of Freemasonry (1997)
The Theology of Time (The Secrets of Time) (2004) /
The Mother Plane (1996)
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The Achievements of Elijah Muhammad Elijah Muhammad, the 77-year-old leader of
“The nation of Islam,” died February 25, one day before the
Black Muslim sect’s Savior day observance. He had been at the
helm of the controversial black separatist movement for 40
years. During that time the Black Muslims grew from a handful of
embittered urban blacks to an estimated 150,000 loyal followers
– 20,000 of whom were present at his funeral in Chicago
recently.
Throughout the civil rights era, when
integration was the clearly stated goal of most of the
country’s black leaders, Muhammad espoused separatism and
still managed to keep his movement afloat. He also survived
several internal disruptions, chief among which was the
defection and eventual assassination of Malcolm X. Credited with
a rare ability to rehabilitate drug addicts and incorrigible
criminals, Muhammad built 75 Muslim temples in at least 50
cities by preaching the myth that blacks are the earth’s
“original” people and that whites are “devils.”
Under his rigidly centralized authority, the
Black Muslims developed hundreds of small businesses around the
country – restaurants, dry cleaning establishments, beauty
shops, grocery stores and bakeries. An estimated 25,000 acres of
land, mostly in the south, is owned by the sect. The total
assets of the Nation of Islam have been valued at $80 million
– no mean achievement for the former laborer who had only a
fourth-grade education.
The tremendous economic success of the Black
Muslims led later to a softening of their antiwhite tenets and
an increased emphasis on hard work and self-mastery. Muhammad
apparently discovered that it was more productive to combat the
demons within than those without. That shift in motivation might
well be the reason for the relatively peaceful changeover in
leadership to one of his six sons, 41-year-old Wallace D.
Muhammad. Most outside observers expected a protracted and
violent power struggle for leadership, as is so often the case
when absolute rulers die.
What will happen to the Black Muslims in the
future is hard to foretell, but their puritanical spirit and
economic successes have impressed black leaders who once made
only disparaging remarks about the movement. Such civil rights
luminaries as Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, Roy Wilkins and Vernon
Jordan are now heaping extravagant praises upon the departed
Elijah Muhammad, lauding him for presenting “to black people a
model of thrift, of hard work, of devotion to self, and of
cleanliness of mind and body.” Even Chicago’s white mayor,
Richard J. Daley, sensing widespread black respect for Muhammad,
said, “He was an outstanding citizen who was always interested
in helping young people and especially the poor.”
Such lavish praise from former detractors
demonstrates how much everyone loves a winter – especially
someone who was willing to take society’s losers and make
winners out of them. Said Father George Clements, pastor of
Chicago’s Holy Angels Roman Catholic Church: “His teachings
of dignity, self-respect, discipline and a sense of
responsibility are great works he leaves behind. And this we
admire no matter what our religion.”
Source: The
Christian Century (March 26, 1975)
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posted 9 November 2007 |
