The Messenger, page 58
66. Ibid., New York Times.
2. ROOTS
1. Rolling Stones, “Paint It Black” (ABKO Music, 1966).
2. Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow (New York: Bantam Books, 1974), 274.
3. Quoted in Watkins, Anthology of American Negro Literature, 211–13.
4. Bureau of National Literature, Messages and Papers of the Presidents: William Howard Taft, “Taft’s Inaugural Address,” 7375–77.
5. Ibid.
6. “Debt to the Negro; Taft Pledges His Support Toward Repayment,” Washington Post, May 27, 1909, A01.
7. Bergman and Bergman, Chronological History of the Negro in America, 358.
8. Ibid., 365.
9. Cox, White America, 309–10. The book was a tardy rebuttal to The Souls of Black Folk.
10. Soper, The Religions of Mankind, 93.
11. “May Make Negroes White; Chicagoan Believes It Possible to Neutralize the Color Units,” New York Times, January 3, 1910, A09.
12. Sklar, The Nazis and the Occult, 4–32.
13. Dorothy Mills, The People of Ancient Israel (New York: Scribner, 1932).
14. “Prof. Lyde on Original Color; London Scientist Says the First Color of Man was a Brownish-Yellow,” Savannah Tribune, February 10, 1912, A02.
15. The author found only two published interviews where Elijah Muhammad revealed that Hamilton was the friend who was lynched. In 1960, he said that in the Cordele lynching a “young Negro man, charged with rape, was strung to a tree and shot to death.” See Wallace Terry, “Cult of Hate: Black Muslim Elijah’s Lowly Start,” (part 2 of 6), Washington Post, December 12, 1960, A07. In the other, he referred to the victim as “Hamilton.” Owing to Muhammad’s reluctance to provide specifics about the lynching, four or five versions of the incident have been published. In Evanzz, The Judas Factor, a different version of the lynching was reported, which is the version I heard in the 1970s while visiting Mosque No. 28 in St. Louis. Like other earlier accounts, it was based on conflicting information from Muslim ministers. See, for example: Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, 71–105; Malu Halasa, Elijah Muhammad (New York: Chelsea House, 1990), 17–22; Cushmeer, This Is the One, 80–81.
16. “Hundreds Seeking Negro Assaulter; Crime Stirs Cordele; Prominent Young Woman Is Negro’s Victim,” Savannah Morning News, January 30, 1912, A01; “Cordele Jail Stormed; Crowds Lynch Negro,” The Atlanta Journal, January 30, 1912, A01.
17. Ibid.
18. “Negro Assaults Cordele Woman; Lynching Will Probably Result if Black Is Caught,” Atlanta Constitution, January 30, 1912, A01.
19. “Sheriff’s Story of Lynching,” Savannah Morning News, January 31, 1912, A09; “Storm Jail to Get Negro: Georgia Mob Siezes Girl’s Assailant and Lynches Him,” New York Times, January 31, 1912, A13.
20. “Cordele Men Kill Assailant Quickly; Hamilton Is Lynched,” Savannah Morning News, January 31, 1912, A09.
21. Ibid.
22. “Shows Post Card Picture of Lynching,” Savannah Morning News, January 31, 1912, A09.
23. Ibid.
24. Terry, “Cult of Hate” (part 2).
25. Based on Prison Intake Interview and Report for Gulam Bogans (aka Elija Poole).
26. Haley, Autobiography of Malcolm X, 206.
27. FBI HQ file on Clara Muhammad, document dated May 22, 1962 (relating to passport application).
28. Most accounts of their date of marriage indicate it occurred on March 7, but FBI files and some public records show March 17. Given Elijah’s fondess for the number 7, and that several records indicate they were married on March 7, that’s the date I have accepted. Since March 17 is Saint Patrick’s Day, it is equally likely that he chose that as a “good luck” date for marriage; see Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism (March 7), 87, and Clegg, An Original Man (March 17), 12.
29. Ploski and Kaiser, The Negro Almanac, 830–44.
30. Muhammad, Theology of Time, 440.
31. Haley, Autobiography of Malcolm X, 206.
32. Tuttle, Race Riot; Platt, Politics of Riot Commissions, 93–158.
33. “The International Jew: The World’s Problem,” Dearborn Independent, May 22, 1920; Collier, The Fords, 101–6.
34. Salzman, Bridges and Boundaries, 177–78.
35. Powers, Secrecy and Power, 111. A number of authors have traced the origins of the Protocols, with varying results. See Baigent, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, 163–69; Carmichael, Satanizing of the Jews, 152–59; Perlmutter, Real Anti-Semitism in America, 107.
36. Hoover, Masters of Deceit, vi.
37. Pfeffer, A. Philip Randolph, 9–16.
38. “K.K.K. Sends Human Hand; Negro Editor Gets Warning—With Mail Enclosure,” New York Times, Sep. 6, 1922, A19.
39. Powers, Secrecy and Power, 104–5; Theoharis, The Boss, 72.
40. Flood, Hitler, 86–90; Toland, Adolf Hitler, 78–160; also see Pool, Who Financed Hitler?
41. “Seven Dead in Race Riots,” New York Times, April 15, 1919, A24; “Lynching Kept Secret; Georgia Negro’s Crime Was Defending Negroes Against White Man,” New York Times, July 25, 1919, A15; “Kill Negro, Burn Church; Georgia Mob Shoots Colored Leader Down in the Edifice,” New York Times, August 29, 1919, A03.
42. Platt, Politics of Riot Commissions, 93–158; Spear, Black Chicago, 189–222.
43. Tuttle, Race Riot; Salzman, Bridges and Boundaries, 187–89.
44. “Elijah Muhammad,” Current Biography 1971, 293; “Muhammad Leaves Great Legacy of Pride and Respect,” Jet, March 13, 1975, 6–14; Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, 178.
45. “Kill Sentenced Negro; Georgia Mob Takes Him from the Sheriff and Shoots Him,” New York Times, October 8, 1919, A06.
46. “Kill Negro, Whip Two, Hold Five in Georgia,” New York Times, October 6, 1919, A03; “Georgia Mob Burns Two Negroes Alive; Chain Victims to Stakes,” New York Times, October 7, 1919, A02.
47. Supra, note 44; Clegg, Original Man, 11.
48. The entrance of African Americans into the general workforce led to what scholars termed the “flood tide of racism.” See Quarles, The Negro American, 403–33; “Denies Sectionalism in Anti-Lynch Bill,” Atlanta Constitution, July 29, 1922, A12. Nonetheless, Macon and Atlanta both produced a thriving black middle class during the era.
49. FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad, section 12, Correlation Summary of April 9, 1969.
50. “4 Whites and Negro Shot in Atlanta Riot,” New York Times, May 8, 1922, A18; “Did No Shooting, Declares Allen,” Atlanta Constitution, July 29, 1922, A01; “Southern Railway Worker Bound Over,” Atlanta Constitution, July 29, 1922, A01.
51. “Deputy Is Killed by Macon Negro; Colored Quarters Closed When General Firing Results—Two Negroes Wounded,” Atlanta Constitution, July 30, 1922, A01; “Local Police Hunt Negro,” Atlanta Constitution, July 30, 1922, A02.
52. “Negroes Shot Down in Riots at Macon,” New York Times, July 30, 1922, A28; “2 Negroes Lynched by Mobs in South; Georgia Crowd of 300 Takes a Prisoner from Officers and Shoots Him to Death,” New York Times, August 2, 1922, A19.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Supra, note 51.
56. Parole Progress Report on Gulam Bogans, aka Elijah Muhammad. Federal Correctional Institution at Milan, Michigan, dated April 23, 1945; Admission Summary, dated August 20, 1943; and Physical Examination and Correlated History, dated July 26, 1943. The reports are part of the FBI’s HQ file on Elijah Muhammad; Associated Press interview and feature story titled “People in the News: Elijah Muhammad,” Chicago, February 25, 1965. Also see “Elijah Muhammad,” Current Biography 1971, 293; Haley, Autobiography of Malcolm X, 206.
57. Ibid.
3. PARADISE LOST
1. E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924; reprint, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1952), 19.
2. Friedrich Nietzche, Twilight of the Idols/The Anti-Christ (1895; reprint, New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 195.
3. “President Says Negro Makes American Music; May Furnish the Foundation of the True National School,” New York Times, February 15, 1906, A07. Dvorák’s article ran in Harper’s in 1895; also see “Indian and Negro Music: The President’s Suggestions as to Their Value for American Composers,” New York Times, February 25, 1906, section 4, 4.
4. Ibid.
5. Gilbert, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto, 181.
6. Ploski and Kaiser, The Negro Almanac, 1159–60.
7. Confession of Elijah Muhammad to FBI on September 20, 1942; Wallace Terry, “Cult of Hate: Black Muslim Elijah’s Lowly Start” (part 2 of 6), Washington Post, December 12, 1960, A07.
8. FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad, Parole Report.
9. Ibid.; also consult “Compton’s Complete Street Guide” (CD-ROM), which vividly illustrates the proximity of Rockwood to railroad tracks; “Elijah Muhammad,” Current Biography 1971, 293; Muhammad, Message to the Blackman in America, 178.
10. FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad, section 12, Correlation Summary, dated April 9, 1969.
11. Jackson, Ku Klux Klan in the City, 129; Woodward, Strange Career of Jim Crow, 113–18.
12. Ibid.
13. See, in general, Lemann, The Promised Land.
14. Hill, The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers; O’Reilly, Black Americans, 139–67; FBI HQ file on Marcus Garvey.
15. Though Elijah Muhammad admitted to the strong influence which Garvey had upon him, he denied having ever joined the UNIA. This is contradicted, however, by interviews conducted with Muslims and Garveyites by the Works Project Administration. See Bontemps and Conroy, They Seek a City; Fauset, Black Gods of the Metropolis; Eissen-Udom, Black Nationalism; Rashad, History of Islam and Black Nationalism in the Americas, 70–74.
16. Publisher unknown; Webb’s book, however, is listed in the Library of Congress’s card catalogue (go to http://www.loc.web on the Internet); Webb is also mentioned in the Marcus Garvey entry on Island Records Internet site for Bob Marley (http://www.bobmarley.com/life/rastafari/garvey).
17. Michael Ducille, “Black Moses, Red Scare,” Washington Post, February 12, 1997, H01, H04; Ben F. Rogers, “W. E. B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, and Pan-Africa,” Journal of Negro History, April 1955, 154–59.
18. Ibid. The circulation of Negro World reportedly exceeded 800,000 copies per issue before Garvey’s demise. See Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, xxiii.
19. Howard Carter, The Tomb of Tut.Ankh.Amen, 3 vols. (London: Cassel, 1923–33); Stewart, The Pyramids and Sphinx, 118–35.
20. See, in general, Van Loon, Story of Mankind.
21. Supra, note 17; also see FBI HQ file on Marcus Garvey; O’Reilly, Black Americans, 139–67.
22. Supra, note 17; “ ‘African President’ Held; Head of Black Star Line Accused of Illegally Using Mails,” New York Times, January 13, 1922, A09.
23. Powers, Secrecy and Power, 128; O’Reilly, Black Americans, 140.
24. Bergman and Bergman, Chronological History of the Negro, 406–7.
25. Ibid.
26. FBI HQ file on Marcus Garvey.
27. “Lynching Bill Debated,” New York Times, January 18, 1922, A19; also see New York Times, May 30, 1922, A08, and August 15, 1922, A10.
28. Muhammad mentioned his membership during numerous speeches, but never wrote anything substantive. In general, see Elijah Muhammad, The Secrets of Freemasonry (College Park; Ga., Secretarius M.E.M.P.S., 1994).
29. Confession of Elijah Muhammad to FBI on September 20, 1942; also see Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, 178.
30. Detroit Police Arrest Report of “Elija Pool,” dated March 20, 1926.
31. W. Mohammad, As the Light Shineth from the East, 199; Barboza, American Jihad, 269.
32. Figures culled from FBI HQ files on Elijah and Clara Muhammad.
33. Elijah Muhammad, who denied any affiliation with Garvey’s UNIA, also denied joining the MSTA. Members of the sect clearly recalled his involvement, and this is corroborated by information in his FBI files. The MSTA also claim to have photographs of Elijah Poole taken while he was a member. He never explained his close relationship, for example, with Sheik Joseph Gravitt-el, nor did he explain why there were so many striking similarities between the two sects. One of the reasons Fard was believed to have so many followers is because it was impossible to distinguish members of the MSTA from those of the NOI. This changed slightly in 1935 when Muhammad forbade members of the NOI to wear the maroon fez.
34. A photocopy of Noble Drew Ali’s Holy Koran is contained in the FBI HQ file on the MSTA (also called the Noble Drew Ali file).
35. There is no evidence whatsoever of this event having transpired, but it is part of the interesting mythology of the sect. Eissen-Udom, Black Nationalism, 46, 371 (appendix C); Bontemps and Conroy, They Seek a City, 174–77.
36. Effendi, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, i–xii; Masjid Baitur Rahman, booklet published by the Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam on the history of the community.
37. FBI/CIA report on the origins of the Nation of Islam, contained in the CIA file on Elijah Muhammad.
38. Noble Drew Ali made no attempt to rewrite passages borrowed from Dowling’s book, nor are there any discrepancies between the literature published by the Ahmadiyya Movement and the sections plagiarized by Ali. See, for example, chapter 10 of Noble Drew Ali’s Holy Koran and section 6 of chapter 28 of Dowling’s Aquarian Gospel.
39. From the FBI’s reproduction of Ali’s Holy Koran.
40. FBI HQ file on Noble Drew Ali; literature also obtained from Sheila Seabreeze-Bey, archivist for the MSTA.
41. Parole Progress Report on Gulam Bogans, aka Elijah Muhammad, Physical Examination and Correlated History, 6, item no. 5. Report contained in FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad. Muhammad claimed that prison conditions caused his bronchial problems, but it seems more probable that the real damage to his lungs was caused while working in the foundry.
42. See Appendix A for a complete list of names as recorded during a forty-year intelligence gathering endeavor by the FBI. All names are from Enclosure 203 in the FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad.
43. Aaron Payne Papers, University of Chicago Library. According to Payne, Noble Drew Ali asked him to take the reins of the MSTA if anything should happen to him. See “Victim of Cult Gun Fight Dies; Twenty of Negro ‘Moor’ Order Are Held,” Chicago Tribune, September 27, 1929, A01; “6 Held To Grand Jury for Cult Battle Murders,” Chicago Tribune, September 28, 1929, A01; also see FBI HQ file on MSTA.
44. Ibid.; also see “Hold Moorish Temple ‘Prophet’ in Murder Plot; Blame Split in Cult for Brutal Crime,” Chicago Defender, March 21, 1929, A01.
45. A photograph of DePriest and Noble Drew Ali is available in the Aaron Payne Papers at the University of Chicago. For general biography of DePriest, see Rather, Chicago Negro Almanac and Reference Book; Bergman and Bergman, Chronological History of the Negro, 441–42; Ploski and Kaiser, The Negro Almanac, 200.
46. Supra, note 44; also see FBI HQ file on MSTA.
47. Supra, note 43, Aaron Payne Papers; also see Gissen-Udom, Black Nationalism, 47; Bontemps, Anyplace but Here, 207–8.
48. “Death Bares Negro Cult in Temple Here,” Chicago Tribune, May 14, 1929, A01; Bontemps, Anyplace but Here, 205–8.
49. Supra, note 44.
50. Ibid.; also see “Cult Leader Being Held in Murder Case,” Chicago Tribune, May 18, 1929, A01.
51. FBI HQ file on Wallace D. Fard; also see Bontemps, Anyplace but Here, 217.
52. Author’s interviews; Noble Drew Ali’s death was reported in the Chicago Defender on July 24.
53. Author’s interviews; CIA report on the NOI; also see Bontemps, Anyplace but Here, 222–23.
54. “To Disband Moors; Second Policeman Dead as Result of Cult Battle,” Chicago Defender, October 5, 1929, A01; supra, note 47; Chicago Tribune.
55. “1,000 Police Guard District; Guns Captured; Negro ‘Moor’ Racket Bared by Killings,” Chicago Tribune, September 26, 1929, A01.
56. Author’s interviews with Anderson-el of the MSTA in Newark, and members of the MSTA in Baltimore and Philadelphia.
57. “Calls Negroes to Islam; Detroit Man Would Lead Exodus to Anatolia, Fleeing Color Prejudice,” New York Times, May 25, 1930, A23. Lomax, a former chief assistant to Noble Drew Ali, had been on the run since a riot erupted in Paradise Valley on March 22. Moors who were loyal to Ali accused Lomax of conspiring with Greene. See “Detroit Followers Riot,” Chicago Defender, March 23, 1929, A03.
58. “Urges Turk Negro Colony; Detroit Moslem Asks Permission of Kemal to Found Settlement,” New York Times, June 30, 1930, A08.
59. Barboza, American Jihad, 269.
60. FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad, section 12, Correlation Summary dated April 9, 1969.
61. E. D. Beynon, “The Voodoo Cult Among American Negro Migrants in Detroit,” American Journal of Sociology 43, no. 6 (May 1938): 895.
62. Era Bell Thompson, “America’s Black Jews,” Ebony, May 1975, 96–100; also see Drake and Clayton, Black Metropolis, and Fauset, Black Gods of the Metropolis.
63. Weisbrot, Father Divine; Watts, God, Harlem U.S.A.
64. Ibid.
65. Despite Muhammad’s assertions to the contrary, his son and others swear that Clara was the first to meet Fard. She convinced her father-in-law, Willie, to go to a meeting. Clara subsequently invited Fard to dinner.
4. LORD OF THE FLIES
1. Canot, Adventures of an African Slaver, 132.
2. George Orwell, 1984 (New York: New American Library, 1989), 5.
3. Barboza, American Jihad, 268.
4. E. D. Beynon, “The Voodoo Cult Among Negro Migrants in Detroit,” American Journal of Sociology 43, no. 6 (May 1938): 894–907; Lincoln, Black Muslims in America, 10–14; FBI HQ file on Wallace D. Fard.
