Elijah Muhammad essays

Elijah Muhammad essays The reason I chose to research the life of Elijah Muhammad is because my dad had done research on Malcolm X for a class in college, and I wanted to find out about his teacher. I have found, in the process of this of this research, some startling information that I definitely had not expected. As you read this report, I hope you see what I mean. Elijah Poole was born in Sandersburg, Georgia on Oct. 7, 1897, to William and Mariah Poole, who had 12 other children. His parents were former slaves, and he had to quit school after third grade in order to earn enough money as a share cropper to help support his family. Just before the 1920s he married Clara Evans, with whom he fathered eight children. In 1923 he moved his family from Macon, Georgia, to Detroit, Michigan. In 1930, Poole met Fard Muhammad, who believed that it was time for the blacks to return to Islam, supposedly the religion of their ancestors. He became devoted to the religion, and, in 1934, was given the title "Supreme Minister."1 In 1942, he was jailed for evading the draft. The draft called for all males between the ages of 18 and 44 to join, and he refused, on claims that he was 45 and that his religion forbid it. Muhammad was released at the end of the war, and found a likeness of himself in Malcolm X, one of the young new Muslims who had joined the Nation of Islam after the war. In the 1950s Muhammad claimed X as his best disciple. Then, in 1964, X was assassinated, and Muhammad accused the American government of being behind it. In 1975, Elijah His formal education ended in in 1906 when he was 9 years old. He was forced to quit school because his family needed more support. However, this did not stop him from publishing several newspapers in which he tried to persuade blacks to convert to the way ...