Religion / Civil rights & activism
Elijah Muhammad
1897–1975 · leader of the Nation of Islam (1934–1975)
Georgia-born autoworker who became W. D. Fard's chief disciple in Detroit and led the Nation of Islam for four decades, first from Detroit, then Chicago.
- Born
Sandersville, Georgia- Died
Chicago, Illinois
aged 77- Birth name
- Elijah Robert Poole
- Also known as
- Elijah Karriem
- Detroit years
- 1923–1935
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Elijah Poole, a sharecropper's son from Georgia, moved north in 1923 with his wife Clara and their children, part of the Great Migration, and the family settled in the Detroit area, living in Hamtramck and Detroit and working in factories. Poverty and his drinking weighed on the family until 1931, when Clara brought him to hear the peddler-preacher W. D. Fard. Poole became Fard's most devoted follower, took the names Karriem and then Muhammad, and was made minister of the young movement's Detroit temple. When Fard vanished in 1934, Muhammad took charge and renamed the group the Nation of Islam, but rivals contested his leadership and Detroit school officials battled the movement's University of Islam, and in 1935 he left for Chicago. From there he built the Nation into a national organization with temples, schools and businesses in dozens of cities and mentored Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. His racial teachings and private scandals made him deeply controversial. He died in Chicago in 1975.
Highlights
- Came to the Detroit area from Georgia in 1923
- Became W. D. Fard's chief minister in Detroit in the early 1930s
- Led the Nation of Islam from 1934 until his death in 1975
- Moved the movement's headquarters from Detroit to Chicago in 1935