The Messenger, page 59
5. Parole Progress Report of Elijah Muhammad.
6. Bontemps, Anyplace but Here, 216–21; alse see Beynon, “Voodoo Cult.”
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, 112–22; Haley, Autobiography of Malcolm X, 164–68, 208.
10. Ibid.; also refer to “The Tricknology of the Enemy” (on audiocassette and in booklet form).
11. Ibid.; also see Guthrie, Making of the Whiteman.
12. Ibid.
13. Guthrie, Making of the Whiteman, 12 (Guthrie cites standard and arcane works to support Fard’s thesis that Caucasians are innately evil); Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, 125–26.
14. Haley, Autobiography of Malcolm X, 156–66.; also see, generally, Muhammad, How to Eat to Live.
15. This allegation was a staple of sermons by Muslim ministers as late as 1980. Muhammad made reference to the myth in his Saviour’s Day speech of 1972. See Chapter 17.
16. Ford was sued by Aaron Sapiro after the Dearborn Independent printed an article accusing him of exploiting farmers. In the settlement, Ford agreed to apologize publicly “to Sapiro individually and to the Jewish people as a whole.” Collier, The Fords, 105–6; Lee, Henry Ford and the Jews, 67–85.
17. Regrettably, Elijah Muhammad’s books are almost the sole source of much of Fard’s philosophy. His statements regarding the same are recapitulated here for the lack of primary sources.
18. Fard had the good fortune to arrive in Detroit at a time when archaeologists were uncovering evidence that mankind began in Africa eons earlier than indicated in standard studies. The constant resetting of the age of man in Africa gave credence to his assertion that “there is no birth record of the black man.” Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, 325; also see “Out of Africa 1.8 Million Years Ago; Java Man Fossils Older Than Thought,” Washington Post, February 24, 1994, A04; “Prehistoric Tolls Deepen Evolutionary Mystery; Cache of Stone Implements Found in Ethiopia Predate Fossils of Ancestors of All People,” Washington Post, January 23, 1997, A03.
19. See, generally, The Age of God-Kings.
20. McGinn, Antichrist, 70–71; see also New Catholic Encyclopedia; “Cyril of Alexandria, Saint,” and “Cyril of Jerusalem, Saint,” Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia (1983), vol. 7, 418.
21. James I, King of England (1566–1625), Daemonologie (1597; reprint, New York: E. P. Dutton, 1924).
22. Guazzo’s treatise has been reprinted by Dover (Montague Summers edition).
23. Sinistrari, Demonality, 21.
24. Ibid.
25. Volumes have been written on this subject. Most reputable studies report, for instance, that Native Americans believed illness accounted for the “pale face” of the Pilgrims. Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 678; Partridge, Origins, 465; also see Browder, From The Browder File, 8–9.
26. Generally, see Nolan, Communism versus the Negro, chap. 4, “The Slogan of Self-Determination in the Black Belt, 1928–45”; Bergman and Bergman Chronological History of the Negro, 457.
27. Hoover, Masters of Deceit, 243–44. That the NOI called for racial separation helps to explain Hoover’s belief that the sect was Communist-inspired.
28. FBI HQ file on Langston Hughes; Crossman, The God That Failed, 103–46; Gayle, Richard Wright, 79–82.
29. FBI HQ file on Noble Drew Ali; Powers, Secrecy and Power, 163.
30. Muhammad, Theology of Time, book 1, 19.
31. Fard’s etymology of “Eu” differs from that in most dictionaries.
32. Guthrie, Making of the Whiteman, 67.
33. Muhammad, Our Savior Has Arrived, 165; Hakim, True History of Elijah Muhammad, 220.
34. Hakim, True History, 222.
35. “The Bible is now being called the Poison Book by God Himself [i.e., Fard], and who can deny that it is not poison?” Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, 94; also see Haley, Autobiography of Malcolm X, 185.
36. “Elijah Muhammad,” Current Biography 1972, 293–95.
37. Barboza, American Jihad, 269.
38. Hakim, True History, 37. According to Wallace Muhammad, his father told him that he could espouse a similar theology. Clegg, Original Man, 340, n. 10; Larry Muhammad, “The Muslims: Five Years Later,” Sepia, March 1980, 32.
39. “Bigotry Detestable,” letters to the editor, Sunday Oklahoman, May 21, 1995, A10; see, generally, Muhammad, How to Eat to Live.
40. Hakim, True History, 39.
41. Ibid., 37.
42. Muhammad, Our Saviour Has Arrived, 225; Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, 232–33; Muhammad, The Supreme Wisdom, vol. 2 (cover art).
43. FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad; J. Muhammad, Journal of Truth, 147.
44. Muhammad, The Supreme Wisdom, vol. 2, 53; Muhammad, Our Saviour Has Arrived, 32.
45. Muhammad, Our Saviour Has Arrived, 32–33.
46. Ibid.
47. FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad.
48. Marsh, From Black Muslims to Muslims, 109. According to one report, Fard chose the name Waris (which means “inheritor” in Arabic) instead of Wallace, “but Elijah’s attempts to pronounce this would phonetically come out [as] Wallace. Fard wrote the spelling in chalk on a door.” Larry Muhammad, “The Muslims,” 32.
49. Reconstructed from police reports, news accounts, and FBI documents.
50. Detroit Police Department homicide report; “Head of Cult Admits Killing,” Detroit News, November 21, 1932, A01; “Leader of Cult Admits Slaying at Home ‘Altar’; Police Trying to Link Voodoo Chieftain to Evangelista Case,” Detroit Free Press, November 21, 1932, A01.
51. “Voodoo Slayer Admits Plotting Death of Judges,” Detroit Free Press, November 22, 1932, A01; “Leader of Cult Called Insane,” Detroit News, November 22, 1932, A04.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. “Negro Leaders Open Fight to Break Voodooism’s Grip; Cult Conceived by Islamic Religious Fakir, Nurtured by Grafting Fanatics,” Detroit Free Press, November 24, 1932, A01.
56. Detroit Police Department homicide report.
57. “Raided Temple Bares Grip of Voodoo in City; ‘God of Asia Nation’ Seized as Sequel to Altar Slaying,” Detroit Free Press, November 23, 1932, A01.
58. Ibid.
59. Supra, note 55.
60. Supra, note 55.
61. “New Human Sacrifice with a Boy as Victim Is Averted by Inquiry,” Detroit Free Press, November 26, 1932, A01.
62. “Cult Slayer Faces Hearing on Sanity,” Washington Evening Star, November 25, 1932, A02; “Cult Slayer Pleads Guilty; Harris Argues With Judge Boyne at Arraignment on Murder Charge,” Detroit Free Press, November 25, 1932, A01.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. Supra, note 61.
66. Supra, note 55.
67. Supra, note 61.
68. Supra, note 57.
69. Supra, note 61.
70. Detroit Police Department file on Karriem.
71. Supra, note 61; “Voodoo’s Reign Here Is Broken; Slayer Held Insane; Fard Quits City,” Detroit Free Press, December 7, 1932, A07.
72. Hill, The FBI’s RACON, 663.
73. Based on letters seized from the home of Elijah Muhammad on September 20, 1942; also see “Leader of Cult Called Insane,” Detroit News, November 22, 1932, A04, where welfare workers discuss economic circumstances of Muslims.
74. J. Muhammad, Journal of Truth, 147; FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad; “Girl Recounts Lore of Islam; School’s Mohammed Gets Probation,” Detroit Free Press, April 26, 1934, A01.
75. Hakim, True History, 39, where Muhammad claimed during a transcribed speech that he received his final name in 1932; cf. Beynon, “Voodoo Cult,” 907, where other Muslims contended that Fard never gave Elijah the last name of Muhammad.
5. BITTER FRUIT
1. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice, 309.
2. “Nepal’s Shame; Girl-Trafficking Meets a Determined Roadblock,” Washington Post, April 14, 1995, D01.
3. Woodson, Mis-Education of the Negro, 192.
4. Based on summaries of speeches in the FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad. The same analogy was made in 1969 by a leading African-American intellectual. Helga Wild, “The Crisis in Black and White Is a Crisis in Social Theory,” SEHR 4, no. 2 (on-line at http://www.shr.stanford.edu./shreview/4–2/text/wild.html).
5. A complete list of his aliases is in section 203 of the FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad; also see Hakim, True History of Elijah Muhammad, 39.
6. “Banished Leader of Cult Arrested; Fard Found in City Despite Promise to Leave,” Detroit Free Press, May 26, 1933, A10; Detroit Police Deparment file on Wallace D. Fard, aka Wallace Dodd Ford; Muhammad, The Supreme Wisdom, vol. 1, 15.
7. Muhammad, Our Saviour Has Arrived, 36; Sahib, “The Nation of Islam,” 71–77.
8. FBI’s Chicago file on Wallace D. Fard.
9. Supra, note 4.
10. Muhammad, The Supreme Wisdom, 23–24, which Muhammad based on the Book of Revelation, 14:1.
11. “Voodooist Cult Revived in City; Negro Children Found in Islam School,” Detroit Free Press, March 27, 1934, A01.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. “ ‘Islam’ Faces Double Jeopardy; ‘University’ Believed to Be Cult’s Home,” Detroit Free Press, March 28, 1934, A07.
16. “Cult’s University Raided by Police,” Detroit Free Press, April 17, 1934, A01; “13 Policemen Hurt Battling Voodoo Band; Cult Backers March on Headquarters to Protest Arrests,” Detroit Free Press, April 19, 1934, A01.
17. “U.S. May Fight Voodoo In City; Syndicalism Charges May Be Brought,” Detroit Free Press, April 18, 1934, A23.
18. Supra, note 16.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad.
25. Interviews with John Muhammad. The FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad contains abstracts of several editions of The Final Call to Islam.
26. The Final Call to Islam, August 24, 1934. Muhammad and Muslim were initially spelled “Mohammed” and “Moslem” by the NOI. The later spellings are used here for clarity.
27. Ibid.
28. “I am Elijah of your Bible; I’m the Muhammad of your Holy Quran.… I am the one of [sic] whom the Holy Quran is referring.” Hakim, Theology of Time, 3; also see Clark, Malcolm X: The Final Speeches, 250; Cushmeer, This Is the One, 140–41.
29. W. Muhammad, As the Light Shineth from the East, 11.
30. Barboza, American Jihad, 269; Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, 263–64.
31. FBI HQ file on the SDOO, vol. 2.
32. FBI HQ file on Naka Nakane, aka Satohata Takahashi.
33. CIA background report on the NOI; Boykins, Handbook of the Detroit Negro.
34. FBI HQ file on Takahashi.
35. “Amur River Society (Kokuryukai; literally, Black Dragon Society),” Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, vol. 1, 53; FBI HQ file on Naka Nakana, aka Satohata Takahashi.
36. FBI HQ file on Wallace Fard; FBI HQ file on the SDOO; FBI HQ file on Takahashi.
37. Ibid.
38. FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad.
39. Ibid.
40. FBI HQ file on Takahashi; FBI HQ file on SDOO.
41. Boykins, Handbook of the Detroit Negro.
42. FBI HQ file on SDOO, vol. 1.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid., memo from St. Louis SAC to director, June 24, 1933.
45. Ibid., memo dated June 29, 1933.
46. Ibid.; also see “D.C. Filipino ‘Ally’ of Japs Held as Slacker,” Washington Post, August 1, 1942, A01; “Filipino Agitator Seized Here by FBI; Spent Years in Stirring Up ‘Dark Skinned Races’ Against U.S., J. E. Hoover Says,” New York Times, August 1, 1942, A01.
47. FBI HQ file on SDOO; also see “3 Years for Ashima Takis; Japanese Agitator Sentenced in St. Louis on Forgery Charges,” New York Times, October 2, 1942, A06; Hill, The FBI’s RACON, 517–22.
48. FBI file on SDOO; Hill, The FBI’s RACON, 514–22; also see “Jew-Baiting Held Key Policy of Gerald Winrod’s ‘Defender,’ ” Washington Post, April 16, 1942, A08; “Financed Deal for Winrod, Jury Charges,” Washington Post, December 15, 1942, A03; “Coughlin Accused of Using Official Nazi Propaganda,” Washington Post, 1939, A05; “Five Who Urged Revolt in Harlem And Aid to Japanese Are Indicted,” New York Times, September 15, 1942, A01.
49. FBI HQ file on Takahashi; FBI HQ file on Wallace D. Fard.
50. FBI HQ file on Wallace D. Fard.
51. “Little Filipino Goes ‘Loco,’ Kills 6 in Seattle,” Washington Daily News, November 25, 1932, A04.
52. “Jap Arrested in Raid on Club; Alien Faces Questioning About Alleged Racial Plot Against Whites,” Detroit Free Press, December 2, 1933, A01; FBI HQ file on Takahashi; Hill, The FBI’s RACON, 665; “Jap Agent Seizure Sheds Light on Race Plot of the ’30s,” Detroit Free Press, August 3, 1942, A01.
53. FBI HQ file on SDOO.
54. Barboza, American Jihad, 268–69.
55. Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, 263–264; Hakim, True History, 66, 58.
6. ELIJAH THE PROPHET
1. “Kung Sees Threat to U.S. from Japan; Chinese Premier Believes That Dream of Domination Will Turn Across the Pacific,” New York Times, October 17, 1939, A09.
2. Excerpts from speeches discovered in boxes at Elijah Muhammad’s Chicago home are contained in the FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. “Cultists Riot in Court; One Death, 41 Hurt,” Chicago Tribune, March 6, 1935, A01; Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, xxv–xxvi, 213–14 (Muhammad’s account is inaccurate, as it fuses the April 1934 school incident with the Chicago courtroom riot). One newspaper erroneously reported that the Muslims were convicted. “Convict ’40 Moors’ in Courtroom Riot,” Chicago Defender, March 16, 1935, A24.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.; “Capt. Palczynski a Chicago Policeman for Fifty Years,” Chicago Tribune, March 6, 1935, A10.
10. Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1935, A04.
11. FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad.
12. Bontemps, Anyplace but Here, 224–25. FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad. Muhammad was so convinced of this that he and his wife reportedly never applied for a Social Security card. The FBI files report two different Social Security numbers for Elijah Muhammad, but neither matched his name when run through the Social Security Death Index (SSDI).
13. W. Muhammad, As the Light Shineth from the East, 19.
14. Ibid.; also see E. D. Beynon, “The Voodoo Cult Among,” New Migrants in Detroit,” American Journal of Sociology 43, no. 6 (May 1938): 900.
15. Although Muhammad said that he was unaware of even a ballpark figure on the size of the NOI’s membership (though he ventured a guess periodically), the FBI intercepted several conversations in which he noted the high rate of attrition.
16. FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad; Muhammad, Message to the Blackman, 290–94.
17. Excerpts from lectures obtained by FBI in raid on Muhammad’s home (contained in main file); Hakim, Theology of Time, 98–102; “Girl Recounts Lore of Islam,” Detroit Free Press, April 26, 1934, A01.
18. Beynon, “Voodo Cult,” 905.
19. By Muhammad’s own estimate, more than 75 percent of the NOI’s members turned against him during this period. Lee, The Nation of Islam, 25, citing Sahib, “The Nation of Islam,” 80.
20. Benjamin Muhammad’s story was frequently rerun in Muhammad Speaks. See “One Day the Messenger of Allah Knocked on My Door,” Muhammad Speaks, March 1965; Barboza, American Jihad, 79–82.
21. “Moslem Goes on Trial Here,” Washington Times Herald, November 25, 1942, A12; “Negro Moslem Cult Preaches Hate; Japs Believed Inciting 10,000 Weird Members,” NEA News Service, August 20, 1942, included in Subsection A (newspaper articles) of the FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad (100–6582–A).
22. One of Malcolm X’s brothers, for example, suffered a nervous breakdown after he was expelled. Similarly, Kallatt Muhammad suffered a nervous breakdown after he was refused readmittance to the NOI.
23. “Death Rituals Revived in City by Voodoo Cult; Woman Bares Threat of Impending Double Human Sacrifice,” Detroit Free Press, January 19, 937, A01.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.; “Voodoo Probe in City Widens; Wife Says Husband Planned Sacrifice,” Detroit Free Press, January 20, 1937, A04.
26. Ibid. “Jap Cult Head Seized by U.S.; Inter-Race Racket Is Under Inquiry,” Detroit Free Press, June 28, 1939, A01.
27. Prison Intake Report on Elijah Muhammad. Aaron Bogans was married to Tommie Poole. See FBI HQ file on Elijah Muhammad, section 12, Biographical Data (in Correlation Summary of April 9, 1969).
28. Ibid.
29. FBI HQ file on Takahashi; FBI HQ file on SDOO, vol. 1.
30. “ ‘Black Hitler’ Jailed to Await Sentence,” New York Times, January 16, 1935, A07; “Harlem’s ‘Hitler’ Hoodwinks ‘G’ Men in Deportation,” The Afro-American, June 29, 1935, A03; “Injuction Halts ‘Black Hitlerites’; Justice Cotillo Forbids Sufi Abdul Hamid’s Followers to Picket in Harlem,” New York Times, July 16, 1935, A16; Hill, The FBI’s RACON, 667; Watts, God, Harlem U.S.A., 118; Weisbrot, Father Divine, 134–35.
31. Ibid., New York Times.
32. Ibid.; “Plane Crash Fatal to ‘Harlem Hitler,’ ” New York Times, August 1, 1938, A01.
33. “Divine Is Deserted by His Head ‘Angel,’ ” New York Times, April 22, 1937, A01; supra, note 30.
34. “Father Divine Routed out by Police From Hiding Place Behind Furnace,” New York Times, April 23, 1937, A01.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Supra, note 30.
38. FBI HQ Racial Conditions in the United States (RACON) file; “Revenge All Planned by Harlem Fuehrer,” New York Times, September 16, 1942, A16.
39. “Five Who Urged Revolt in Harlem and Aid to Japanese Are Indicted,” New York Times, September 15, 1942, A01; “Four Face Court In Sedition Plot,” New York Times, December 15, 1942, A16; “Filipino Accuses Jordan; Charges Negro on Trial for Sedition Said He Worked for Japanese Consulate,” New York Times, December 18, 1942, A20; “Agent for Japan Turns on Jordan,” New York Times, December 19, 1942, A06.
