essay on nation of islam

The Nation of Islam’s Role in US Prisons

The Nation of Islam is controversial. Its practical purposes for incarcerated people transcend both politics and religion.

Howard Ayers, a member of the Nation of Islam, grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. In 1993 he was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison. Between 1968 and 1993 the prison population of the United States grew by 400%. Lawyer Thomas B. Marvell attributes this increase to legislators, who in response to rising fears, “established longer sentences or mandatory minimum sentences for wide varieties of crimes and criminals.” The ‘tough-on-crime’ ideology that emerged received broad bipartisan support, lending the way to President Bill Clinton’s ‘Three-Strikes Bill’, which mandated life imprisonment without possibility of parole for anyone who had committed a minimum of three violent felonies or, in some states, drug trafficking crimes.

Ayers has been to every maximum-security prison in New York State, including Attica Correctional Facility, where in 1994, he joined the Muhammad Prison Mosques, an iteration of the Nation inside prisons. In 1971, Attica was the site of one of the largest prison uprisings in history. In the interim years, it has been notorious for totalitarian-like surveillance of the people incarcerated within it. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Ayers found himself punished for his affiliation with NoI, which has been associated with radicalism, especially in prisons.

The Nation of Islam intertwined religion with politics long before the famed Attica Uprising. In 1963, for the first time, New York State prisons’ population was majority Black. In 1964, a landmark supreme court case Cooper v. Pate ruled that prison authorities must give equal treatment to imprisoned practitioners of different faiths; in other words, a Black man has a right to practice his Islamic faith in prison. As the prisoners’ rights movement expanded in the 1970s, broader racial and political tensions spilled into the nation’s jails and prisons . In a Journal of Black Studies article, Christopher E. Smith quotes C. Eric Lincoln’s characterization of the Black Muslim movement as “a dynamic social protest that moves upon a religious vehicle.”

Nation of Islam was influential in expanding rights for incarcerated people, both for Black Muslims and broader civil rights in prison. But, fearing another uprising and the ramifications of the group’s philosophies in general, authorities perceived it as a threat, in part because of its roots in organizing and activism.

Zoe Colley writes in the Journal of American Studies that the Nation of Islam was characterized by Jeffry Ogbar as the “chief inspiration” of the Black power movement and it is inextricably intertwined with the radicalism of the 1960s. She asserts that a narrow focus on the Nation of Islam’s impact on prisons alone is inadequate. “Historians dutifully acknowledge the group’s strong appeal to prisoners… but they rarely deviate from this standard narrative to consider the wider significance of the phenomenon.” That “wider significance” continues to be debated even today.

After the Attica uprising, New York prisons enacted a number of reforms, such as providing an alternative to pork for Muslims , more nutritious food, higher levels of accountability and transparency with the outside world, and a general reduction of the strict regime of discipline that was more or less carried over from the state’s 19th century invention, the Auburn System of corrections.

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Ayers explained to JSTOR Daily that the version of the Nation that reemerged in prisons in 1996 was different from the one that existed in the 1960s. Prison authorities allowed this newer iteration of the religion under the condition that it act solely as a study group, Ayers explains. He asserts that there continue to be differences between the faith’s priorities and practices inside prisons versus outside. “Our concerns are not the same. We are dealing with how to survive inside,” said Ayers. He explains that the version of NoI in prisons acts as a guide to parole hearings, self-discipline, respect and responsibility, and life after incarceration.

The history of NoI’s growth, particularly among poor incarcerated Black men is well documented. “The prison temples help us to understand the strength of the NoI’s appeal within the very poorest black neighborhoods. Racked by terrible poverty, police brutality, and high levels of crime, these working-class communities experience the highest levels of male incarceration,” writes Zoe Colley in her article, All America Is a Prison: The Nation of Islam and the Politicization of African American Prisoners, 1955-1965 . “Arrest and imprisonment was an experience shared by a large part of the NoI’s membership.”

In 1930 a clothing salesman in Detroit, Michigan named W.D. Fard Muhammad created NoI on the belief that Islam, stolen from Black people during slavery, was their original and true religion rather than Christianity, which the movement said “had bound them in both physical and mental chains.” Fard’s successor, Elijah Muhammad, taught “an original form of Islamic religion that interpreted historically Islamic traditions… and advocated separate Black businesses, schools, neighborhoods, and a state.”

Scholar Edward E. Curtis IV has written extensively on the ways in which NoI members study and live according to, “scientific and mathematical principles derived from their prophet’s cosmological, ontological, and eschatological teachings on the nature of God, the origins and destiny of the black race, and the beginning and end of white supremacy,” rather than according to a spiritual and supernatural understanding of God and religion. This empirical framework—combining Black nationalism and traditional Islam—through which NoI operates, has manifested in its lessons of self-discipline, strict codes of conduct, and socially conservative ethics. NoI and in particular its current leader, Louis Farrakhan, have espoused anti-Semitic, homophobic, and misogynistic views. Nonetheless it is also a religion with rules and structures that teaches its followers tools for resisting racist oppression. The complexity is undeniable.

Like Ayers, Malcom X joined NoI while incarcerated. He embraced the faith and diligently studied African American history, promoted Black nationalism, and practiced his oratorical skills. He quickly became a prominent leader, eventually becoming the National Representative of NoI. Although Malcolm X split from NoI in 1964, the Nation continued growing, while also continuing to be criticized for its controversial misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-Semitic views, and its evocations of violence.

Louis Farrakhan is perhaps best known for his organization of the Million Man March in 1995, which attracted hundreds of thousands of Black men and boys to DC to call for increased voter participation and to protest against gun violence. An undeniably successful grassroots organizer, Farrakhan also delves into hate speech and conspiracy theories. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the Nation of Islam a hate group, and the Anti-Defamation League call Farrakhan America’s leading anti-Semite. And yet, the version of Nation of Islam that thrives in prison seems to exist divorced from the controversies that dominate the discourse outside. As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in a 2001 essay , the Nation of Islam is a “bundle of contradictions.”

Ayers contends that NoI is more than a religion to those who are incarcerated— it is a form of resistance and a guide to life post-incarceration. “The Nation is so much more than a religion. It is a family. We protect each other, create bonds and communication that is peaceful. It is about inspiring people inside to take charge of their lives in a nonviolent, unbiased, positive way,” he said.

While serving as a New York State prisons NoI representative, Ayers mentored many men. One of them was Jarrell Daniels.

Daniels, now 27, spent ages 18 to 23 in upstate New York prisons. During his incarceration he says that he repeatedly filed grievances related to religious practice violations. Since the Prisoner Reform Litigation Act (PLRA) passed in 1995, it has been accused by scholars and advocates of facilitating  civil rights abuses . Daniels recounts being threatened that if he did not rescind his grievances, he would be punished physically or placed in solitary confinement. Retaliation against incarcerated people for filing administrative grievances is illegal , though the PRLA’s arduous requirements make it challenging for incarcerated people to prove that their (mis)treatment on behalf of the prison was motivated by retaliation.

Daniels recalls that NoI taught him how to react calmly and patiently to correctional officers’ threats—nonviolently and through conflict de-escalation—as well as how to advocate for himself in parole hearings and later, job interviews. Daniels is on parole until 2023. At almost 28 years old, he has a 9pm to 7am curfew. The U.S. has over six million people on some form of criminal justice control, by far the most of any nation, by absolute numbers and by relative rate.

“What people don’t understand is that in prison the Nation does not emphasize all the religious ideology associated with the organization,” Daniels told JSTOR Daily. “It’s really about teaching life skills, like using effective communication, building emotional composure, motivating people to create a sustainable life plan post release and preparing men for parole and their eventual freedom. We are taught to look introspectively at our own life experiences and actions that have hindered us from leading healthy lives.”

Neither Daniels nor Ayers registered with the Nation after being released from prison, lending credence to the notion that NoI is neither strictly a religion nor strictly an ideology. “[Ayers] always told me the Nation was a like a bus. You got on at your stop and got off when you reached your destination,” Daniels said.

Membership within NoI takes a distinct form depending on whether the person is incarcerated or not, according to Ayers. Both involve attending sermons, but members inside recount not focusing as much on the religious aspects, like studying the Koran, as much as they did on practicing debate skills to prepare them for parole hearings.

“In the Nation we learned how to defend ourselves through advocating for our rights and not through violence. You learn how to file grievances and challenge facility policies that prevent people from exercising their liberties. It prepares you for life outside, but also inside. We are taught how to peacefully respond to abuse from guards and other acts of misconduct by correctional officers,” said Daniels. “I learned to build on the true essence of community development. My introduction to critical thinking, problem solving, and introductory knowledge of Black history was through Howard and the Nation,” he continued. Today, Daniels is studying African American Studies and African Diaspora Studies, with a concentration in sociology at Columbia University’s School of General Studies. His 2019 TED talk has over 2 million views and Daniels regularly travels to speak to young people and city officials about the toxicity of incarceration.

Black men go to prison at a rate substantially higher than that of white men. In 1990 , one in four Black men was under some form of criminal justice control. In 2009, one in 10 men between the ages of 25 and 29 were incarcerated . Black men born today have a one in three likelihood of being incarcerated during their lifetimes. Recidivism rates across all races and ethnicities remain high, with 83.4% of people who were released in 2005 getting rearrested by 2014 . Returning to prison after incarceration is more likely than not—so a program designed to prepare one for re-entry and reduce the future chance of arrest holds obvious appeal.

Public perception and misperception around NoI continue. Since the commencement of the War on Terror, acts of Islamophobia are on the rise. Black men (mostly), plus prison, plus Islam prove fertile ground for fear in the United States. Some past adherents to NoI have denounced it for its current leader’s antisemitic and problematic statements. Elsewhere, religious extremism and acts of domestic terrorism rise. No belief system or person, much like NoI and Howard Ayers, are static. All movements undergo progressions and adaptations. As noted in the American Prison Newspapers collection , NoI is “a community that is a living entity [which] often must follow such a process. The metamorphosis brings to the creature its wings, and with wings it has a greater sphere of movement.”

Mistreatment and abuse in prisons has far but ended, but Ayers and Daniels explain that the bonds made, and lessons learned through NoI inside prison, permeate in and outside of its walls. It will remain controversial in broader public discourse, but zoomed in, its members feel its benefits.

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Course: US history   >   Unit 8

• Introduction to the Civil Rights Movement
• African American veterans and the Civil Rights Movement
• Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
• Emmett Till
• The Montgomery Bus Boycott
• "Massive Resistance" and the Little Rock Nine
• The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965
• SNCC and CORE

Black Power

• The Civil Rights Movement
• “Black Power” refers to a militant ideology that aimed not at integration and accommodation with white America, but rather preached black self-reliance, self-defense, and racial pride.
• Malcolm X was the most influential thinker of what became known as the Black Power movement, and inspired others like Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party.
• The Black Panther Party in Oakland, California, operated as both a black self-defense militia and a provider of services to the black community.

The origins of Black Power

Malcolm x and the nation of islam, the black panther party, the black panther party for self-defense ten-point platform and program.

• We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black Community.
• We want full employment for our people.
• We want an end to the robbery by the white men of our Black Community.
• We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
• We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present day society.
• We want all Black men to be exempt from military service.
• We want an immediate end to POLICE BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black people.
• We want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.
• We want all Black people when brought to trial to be tried in court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black Communities, as defined by the Constitution of the United States.
• We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace.

What do you think?

• Quoted in John Hope Franklin and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (New York: McGraw Hill, 2011), 551.
• Richard Wright, Black Power: An American Negro Views the African Gold Coast (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954).
• For more, see Brenda Gayle Plummer, In Search of Power: African Americans in the Era of Decolonization, 1956-1974 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013).
• For more on Malcolm X, see James L. Conyers, Jr. and Andrew P. Smallwood, eds. Malcolm X: A Historical Reader (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2008).
• Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, (New York: Grove Press, 1965).
• Franklin and Higginbotham, From Slavery to Freedom , 557-558.
• For more on the Black Panthers, see Donna Jean Murch, Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); and Joshua Bloom & Waldo E. Martin, Jr., Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013).
• Franklin and Higginbotham, From Slavery to Freedom , 561. See also Ward Churchill & Jim Vanderwall, The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1990).

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Nation of Islam

Introduction, general overviews.

• The Formative Years
• The Leadership of Elijah Muhammad
• Reactions to Malcolm X’s Departure
• Muslim Disavowals of the Nation of Islam
• The Nation of Islam as a Formulation of Islam
• Black Muslims in Prison
• Works by Warith Deen Mohammed
• Works by Louis Farrakhan
• Analyses of the Nation of Islam Under Louis Farrakhan
• Internationalization
• Other Interpretations

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Nation of Islam by Herbert Berg LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0130

The Nation of Islam began in 1930 in Detroit with the appearance of a mysterious man known variously as Master W. F. Muhammad (also Mohammed), Wali Fard (pronounced “Farrad”) Muhammad, and Allah. His origins are much disputed, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) asserted that he was the petty criminal Wallace D. Ford—though Elijah Muhammad, his successor, would vehemently deny the FBI’s claim. Fard Muhammad taught his followers a racialist formulation of Islam, which was elaborated by Elijah Muhammad: Islam was the only natural religion and Arabic the natural language of all people of color, especially blacks. White humanity was grafted out of the original black humanity using a wicked eugenics program 6,000 years ago. They were considered devils, whose greatest evil was the enslavement of Africans and who became the Lost-Found Nation of Islam (in the wilderness of America). The only hope for peace and justice for the descendants of these slaves lied in the separation from whites and their wicked Christian religion in preparation for their imminent destruction at the hands of Allah in the person of Fard Muhammad. After Fard Muhammad’s mysterious disappearance in 1934, the movement of several thousand fractured, but eventually Elijah Muhammad came to be seen as the sole leader. After itinerant preaching in the cities of the northeast United States and a prison sentence for draft dodging during World War II, Elijah Muhammad saw his efforts rewarded with a rapid expansion of his movement, especially with the efforts of his protégé, Malcolm X. After their split in 1964, Elijah Muhammad led the movement during the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s. After his death, he was succeeded by his son Warith Deen Mohammed (then known as Wallace D. Muhammad) who had been expelled several times for his Sunni Islam inclinations. Soon after assuming leadership, he moved the Nation of Islam toward Sunni orthodoxy. By 1977 some conservatives led by Louis Farrakhan resurrected the Nation of Islam with its original doctrines and institutions.

Essien-Udom 1962 and Lincoln 1994 are the earliest examinations of the Nation of Islam, the latter of which has been updated since its first publication in 1961. The former sees the movement as an expression of black nationalism and the latter as a socioreligious protest movement. Numerous works chronicle the Nation of Islam and its social context. Most of these surveys also have particular interests. Barboza 1994 is unusual in that it presents portraits of numerous African American Muslims, many of which have connections to the Nation of Islam. Curtis 2002 also presents such portraits but only of the most prominent figures in the Nation of Islam. Clegg 1997 (cited under the Leadership of Elijah Muhammad ) focuses primarily on Elijah Muhammad, but as the leader for four decades, it is also a history of his movement. McCloud 1995 and Lee 1996 both have a sociological interest. Banks 1997 focuses only on the positive aspect of the Nation of Islam, whereas Tsoukalas 2001 takes a hostile Christian theological perspective.

Banks, William, Jr. The Black Muslims . Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1997.

A largely hagiographic history of the Nation of Islam that ends with Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March, depicting him in the tradition of Garvey, Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X while glossing over Warith Deen Mohammed’s African American Muslims.

Barboza, Steven. American Jihad: Islam after Malcolm X . New York: Doubleday, 1994.

A collection of autobiographical portraits of various black Muslims, including Louis Farrakhan, Warith Deen Mohammed, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Attallah Shabazz, and many others who are not famous. Highlights the diversity within the Black Muslim movement in the United States.

Curtis, Edward E. Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation, and Difference in African-American Islamic Thought . Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002.

Examines the prominent figures of African American Islam, including Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Warith Deen Mohammed, with particular emphasis on how each dealt with the black particularism.

Essien-Udom, E. U. Black Nationalism: A Search for an Identity in America . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.

An early analysis of the history, beliefs, organization, and religious life of the Nation of Islam. Includes interviews with Elijah Muhammad and members of the Nation of Islam and observation of their day-to-day activities. Emphasizes the political activities of Black Nationalism at the expense of its religious activities.

Lee, Martha F. The Nation of Islam: An American Millenarian Movement . Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996.

Analyzes the Nation of Islam from a sociological perspective as a millenarian movement that then transformed itself under the leadership of Warith Deen Mohammed, Elijah Muhammad’s son, when the father’s apocalyptic prophecies of the fall of the United States and the white race failed to materialize.

Lincoln, C. Eric. The Black Muslims in America . 3d ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1994.

Originally published in 1961, this was the first in-depth analysis on the Nation of Islam. Uses a sociological approach, seeing the Nation of Islam as a social and religious protest movement against a racist society. The third edition also discusses the reformulation of the movement under Warith Deen Mohammed and the reformation of the Nation of Islam under Louis Farrakhan.

McCloud, Aminah Beverly. African American Islam . New York: Routledge, 1995.

A focus on the diversity in African American Islam including that of Warith Deen Mohammed and Louis Farrakhan. Particular attention is paid to family life, social issues, and women.

Tsoukalas, Steven. The Nation of Islam: Understanding the “Black Muslims.” Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2001.

A historical survey of the development of the Nation of Islam from Fard Muhammad to Louis Farrakhan. Provides a sociological and religious context of the movement, as well as a theological analysis of its teachings from a Christian perspective.

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Why Tamika Mallory Won’t Condemn Farrakhan

To those outside the black community, the Nation of Islam’s persistent appeal, despite its bigotry, can seem incomprehensible.

Updated on March 19 2018.

When I was 17, I was a scruffy-headed biracial black and Jewish teenager, and a furious Louis Farrakhan hater. In the mid-1990s, Farrakhan’s fame and influence was at its height; I had once been thrown out of a middle-school gym class for calling the Nation of Islam leader a racist. His Million Man March, a massive collective act of solidarity and perhaps the most important black event of the decade, had been one of the loneliest days of my young life. I sat in homeroom, one of just a few dozen kids in school, wondering why so many people hated people like me.

It was a story my high school English teacher Cullen Swinson told me, years later, that helped me understand why people might associate with the Nation. Scott Montgomery Elementary School was located in what The Washington Post called “The Wicked District” in a grim series on black youth in D.C. in the 1950s. Things were still bleak in the late ‘60s when Swinson began attending Scott—one year, there was a crime scare that enveloped the whole neighborhood.

“Fear would soon become a daily companion in the short walk to and from school every day,” Swinson told me, until “a host of clean-cut, friendly, polite, and ramrod straight, bow-tied young men from the Masjid took up daily residence on every street corner from 7th Street to 1st Street.” They were from the Fruit of Islam, the Nation’s paramilitary wing. “I will never forget how they calmed the fears of so many mothers and children, just by their mere presence,” Swinson said.

From the outside, seeing a liberal activist associating with an organization like the Nation of Islam can seem incomprehensible—particularly if you’re Jewish, and you hear in Farrakhan’s speeches the venom that poisoned Europe for millennia and led to the annihilation of a third of the world’s Jews in the 20th century. But I thought back to the story Swinson told me after Farrakhan made national news again in recent weeks, in connection with the Women’s March, the organization that led a massive protest the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. It’s a reminder that the sources of the Nation of Islam’s ongoing appeal, and the reasons prominent black leaders often decline to condemn Farrakhan, may have little to do with the Nation’s prejudiced beliefs.

The national co-chair of the Women’s March, Tamika Mallory, was present at the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviour’s Day event in late February, where Farrakhan railed against Jews for being “the mother and father of apartheid,” declared that “the Jews have control over those agencies of government,” and surmised that Jews have chemically induced homosexuality in black men through marijuana. The Nation continues to produce volumes of propaganda blaming Jews for the world’s ills. After the Anti-Defamation League posted a write up of the event noting Mallory’s presence, Mallory and her colleagues were accused of dismissing the concerns of critics on social media who felt they were, if not endorsing anti-Semitism, homophobia, and sexism, failing to publicly rebuke it.

“There were people speaking to me as if I was anything other than my mother’s child—it was very vile, the language that was being used, the way I was called an anti-Semite,” Mallory told me. “I think that my value to the work I do is that I can go into many spaces as it relates to dealing with the complexity of the black experience in America. It takes a lot of different types of people to help us with our struggle.”

Then there’s the timing—at a moment of rising anti-Semitism in the United States and abroad, resurgent white nationalism, and anxiety among many liberal Jews about their place in the progressive movement, Mallory’s presence at the NOI event shocked many who identified with the Women’s March.

The incident is the latest episode in a pattern that has repeated itself ever since Farrakhan’s entry on the national stage. The Nation of Islam leader first rose to national prominence defending Jesse Jackson from accusations of anti-Semitism, after Jackson referred to New York as “Hymietown” during the 1984 Democratic presidential primary. Farrakhan called Judaism a “dirty religion,” and warned Jews against attacking Jackson: “If you harm this brother, it will be the last one you harm.” Farrakhan’s defense of Jackson, which many black voters felt was unfairly maligned and taken out of context, helped establish his reputation as someone who, right or wrong, would not cave to the white establishment.

Since then, the cycle has repeated for one black leader after another. Farrakhan says something anti-Semitic, which draws press attention; he is roundly condemned, which draws more press attention, but also causes some black people to feel he is being disproportionately attacked; and the controversy further burnishes his credibility within the black community as someone who is unacceptable to the white establishment and is therefore uncompromised. It is a cycle he has fueled, and benefited from, for decades. After the Saviour’s Day story blew up on social media, Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam began promoting clips of the most inflammatory sections of the speech on Twitter, including a clip in which he says that Jews control the FBI. Currently, his pinned tweet asks, “What have I done to make Jewish people hate me?”

Yet because of the NOI’s ongoing presence in many poor and working-class black communities, time and again Farrakhan is able to threaten the mainstream political ambitions of black public figures who, for good reasons and bad, choose to deal with him. There was Jackson, who ultimately condemned Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism as “reprehensible.” The Democratic National Committee’s deputy chair, Representative Keith Ellison, disavowed his earlier membership in the Nation of Islam, saying that they “organize by sowing hatred and division, including anti-Semitism, homophobia, and a chauvinistic model of manhood.” According to the Washington Post , Ellison also met privately with Farrakhan in 2016 (Ellison put out a statement on March 13 denying he has meet with Farrakhan since a chance meeting in 2013). There’s even Barack Obama, whose presidential ambitions might have been curtailed had a black photographer not buried a photo of the Illinois senator meeting Farrakhan in 2005 , conscious of how the image might have been exploited. Obama formally “rejected and denounced” Farrakhan during the 2008 campaign.

“Farrakhan knows who his constituents are. If he can cause some controversy and grab some headlines, he’s gonna do it. I think it’s kind of a hustle. He’s been doing it for years, it’s not going to change,” said Amy Alexander, a journalist who edited an anthology of black writers on Farrakhan called The Farrakhan Factor . “It’s almost like he’s that kid on the schoolyard, who in front of the teacher will drop the f-word just to get the teacher riled up. And if the teacher falls for it every time, what’s that kid’s incentive to stop doing it?”

Most people outside the black community come into contact with the Nation of Islam this way—Farrakhan makes anti-Semitic remarks, which generate press coverage, and then demands for condemnation. But many black people come into contact with the Nation of Islam as a force in impoverished black communities—not simply as a champion of the black poor or working class, but of the black underclass: black people, especially men, who have been written off or abandoned by white society. They’ve seen the Fruit of Islam patrol rough neighborhoods and run off drug dealers, or they have a family member who went to prison and came out reformed, preaching a kind of pride, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurship that, with a few adjustments, wouldn’t sound out of place coming from a conservative Republican. The self-respect, inner strength, and self-reliance reflected in the polished image of the men in suits and bow ties can be a powerful sight.

“Even before Farrakhan, the Nation was the first group to really go into the prisons to rehabilitate, or to call incarcerated men and women towards a kind of rehabilitative lifestyle,” said Zain Abdullah, a professor at Temple University who used to teach Islam to people in prison. “They command some respect because of their visibility and presence in lower-class communities. People don’t see them selling out to corporate America, selling out to government. I think people see them as a grassroots organization. They still speak to the poor, to racial injustices, and that’s where their power lies.”

The Nation of Islam had an estimated 50,000 members as of 2007, far from its heyday in the 1960s. Farrakhan’s inability to grow the Nation’s ranks indicates that sympathy with his critiques of white racism does not necessarily translate into broad affection for the man himself.

“What’s interesting is, why is Farrakhan still relevant to these communities, and why is he still as visible as he is? He still commands 20, 30 thousand people,” Abdullah said. “I think people see the Nation as a voice of dissent. A viable voice of dissent. Leadership in these communities, few are as visible as Farrakhan.”

I spoke with several civil-rights leaders who reject Farrakhan’s views but didn’t want to go on record criticizing Farrakhan—in part out of respect for the constituency he represents, but also because they are aware of precisely how he exploits such condemnations to strengthen his own credibility. One prominent civil-rights activist cautioned against reading some black Americans’ sympathy with Farrakhan’s critique of white racism as a wholesale embrace of his message. “The message and appeal of Barack Obama is the polar opposite of Louis Farrakhan. That is more emblematic of the black community’s sentiments than Louis Farrakhan,” said the activist. “In this era of mass incarceration, the Nation still maintains a presence in the prisons, where we have too many people of color locked up, too many men, they are in many of our communities. So the unsparing critique of racism that he provides has a certain appeal.”

For all their attempts at curbing urban violence, the Nation itself has a bloody history. Malcolm X was assassinated by members of the Nation in 1965 after his break with Elijah Mohammed and turn towards orthodox Sunni Islam; in 1973, former members of the Nation were convicted of murdering seven members of the Hanafi Muslim sect in Washington, D.C., five of them children. In 2000, Farrakhan apologized to Malcolm’s surviving family, saying that he felt “regret that any word that I have said caused the loss of life of a human being.” While Malcolm was still alive, Farrakhan said he was “worthy of death.”

Nevertheless, the Nation retains credibility in many black communities as a force for reducing street violence.

It was in that context that Mallory came into contact with the Nation of Islam. Mallory turned to anti-violence activism after her son’s father was murdered, eventually becoming the national director of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. “In that most difficult period of my life, it was the women of the Nation of Islam who supported me and I have always held them close to my heart for that reason,” Mallory wrote in a statement published on NewsOne on Wednesday.

She soon realized that all the women she knew who had lost loved ones to gun violence had also lived in poor, segregated neighborhoods, and she concluded that the circumstances that led to these deaths were systemic and not just individual. And in those neighborhoods, the Nation was present when others were not.

“The Nation of Islam was the place where most of the black men and women that I knew had been there and really had been reformed. Men particularly in my family, people who had been arrested, and people who had been through really troubled situations, I saw them cleaning themselves up and were successful,” Mallory told me. “I found that the Nation had been influential in helping them to turn their lives around.”

Mallory was surprised by the backlash to her presence at the Saviour’s Day event, in part because she’s been going to the annual Nation of Islam function since she was a child—her parents were activists. Although she is a Christian, she says it was common for her to work with the Nation of Islam on anti-violence initiatives, such as the NOI’s “Occupy the Corner” program, which involves members of the Fruit of Islam patrolling dangerous areas to prevent violence. In 1989, after the Fruit of Islam’s “Dopebuster” patrols proved successful in the Mayfair Housing projects , T he Washington Post reported that other neighborhoods were clamoring for their help.

That reputation has endured; in 2012, Chicago’s first Jewish mayor, Rahm Emanuel, said that the Nation of Islam had a role to play in reducing violence in the city. “They have decided, the Nation of Islam, to help protect the community. And that’s an important ingredient, like all the other aspects of protecting a neighborhood.” Emanuel echoed what many black communities had long since concluded—the Nation can be the least bad of the available options, especially in a city like Chicago where the police retain a reputation for lawlessness and brutality in minority neighborhoods.

This is also where the resistance to condemning Farrakhan or the Nation can come from: a sense that despite the Nation’s many flaws, it is present for black people in America’s most deprived and segregated enclaves when the state itself is not present, to say nothing of those who demand its condemnation. Then there is the sense that while Farrakhan’s views are vile, he lacks the power or authority to enforce them. Denouncing the marginalized Farrakhan can seem ridiculous to those who feel like white people put their own Farrakhan in the White House.

“The NOI has kind of faded, because of Farrakhan’s virulent racism and sexism and bizarre crap; I don’t think he’s a leader anyone can follow,” said Alexander. “Some of these hardcore anti-Farrakhan people always want black people to denounce Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, which I reject. Their footprint has shrunk, but in a lot of communities, for a long time, they were helping people and families when nobody else would.”

But with the Women’s March, Mallory is no longer just doing anti-violence work. She’s become a leader of a diverse, national political movement, of which Farrakhan’s most frequent targets—Jews, women, LGBT people—are irreplaceable members.

“We would hope that public figures that aspire to be the leaders of social movements are truly equitable in the way that they tackle intolerance,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “We don’t think it should take very much to call out when somebody makes claims like, ‘The Jews control the government. The satanic Jews are behind all the world’s ills.’ I think the response for this is a layup.”

The more politically expedient path indeed seems obvious—but the stakes here for Mallory are personal and not simply political. I asked Mallory if she thought Farrakhan was anti-Semitic, or sexist, or homophobic. “I don’t agree with everything that Minister Farrakhan said about Jews or women or gay people,” said Mallory. “I study in a tradition, the Kingian nonviolent tradition. I go into prisons and group homes and I don’t come out saying, ‘I just left  the criminals or the killers.’ That’s not my language. That’s not something I do. I don’t speak in that way. In the tradition that I come out of, we attack the forces of evil but not people.”

Trying to understand anti-Semitism has required something of a cultural adjustment for Mallory, who grew up in Harlem and didn’t know many Jewish people. She told me that once, in a conversation with colleagues she remarked that Jewish people were good with money. “I’ve personally been checked on things like saying, ‘Well you help us with the money because I know that you guys know how to handle money’ and one activist, she immediately followed up with me offline and said, ‘Listen, that’s anti-Semitic.’”

“I asked her, ‘Could it possibly be ignorant language? … I know that it’s ignorant to say that, because it’s a negative stereotype and you reinforce that but again when you say anti-Semitic it’s very dangerous for a person like me. It sounds really bad,’” Mallory said. “So she and I had a conversation. The two things that happened in that moment were one, she basically arrested my language and explained to me why that language was not good for the Jewish community, and at the same time I explained to her why using the terminology that she used was cause for me to feel attacked. And she understood that.”

Mallory said that she now understands why her original remarks were hurtful to her colleague. “Now when I have conversations with other people and they say those things to me, I explain to them, ‘Hey this is what I’ve learned recently about this language,’” Mallory said. “It’s very similar to any person outside of the black community looking at us saying, ‘Get you some watermelon and fried chicken.’ It’s a negative stereotype that’s being reinforced, so this is the kind of unpacking we need to be doing.”

That fear of being labeled anti-Semitic, and the consequences of being a black leader associated with that term, was part of why she reacted so defensively on social media when CNN’s Jake Tapper began a tweetstorm on February 28 highlighting the anti-Semitic statements in Farrakhan’s speech, and Mallory’s attendance at the event. One tweet, in which Mallory wrote that, “If your leader does not have the same enemies as Jesus, they may not be THE leader! Study the Bible and u will find the similarities. Ostracizing, ridicule and rejection is a painful part of the process...but faith is the substance of things!” was interpreted by some of her critics as Mallory invoking the anti-Semitic canard that the Jews killed Jesus, a meaning Mallory said she did not intend.

“When you are labeled an anti-Semite, what follows can be very, very devastating for black leaders. To have someone say that about you, it almost immediately creates a feeling of defensiveness because you know the outcome,” Mallory said. “The same photos that people have pulled up on the internet that showed my relationship with the Nation of Islam have been there for years. And yet I was still able to build an intersectional movement that brought five million people together, and the work that I have done for over 20 years, and it’s very clear that I have worked across the lines with very different people.”

I asked Mallory what she would tell a Jewish activist who was disturbed by her associating with the Nation. “I would say that I hear and understand that and I hope that as I’m able to understand how they feel, I hope that they will also take the time to understand why I have partnered with the Nation of Islam and been in that space for almost 30 years,” Mallory responded.

On Tuesday, the Women’s March released a statement saying, in part, “Minister Farrakhan’s statements about Jewish, queer, and trans people are not aligned with the Women’s March Unity Principles.” In her essay for NewsOne, Mallory wrote that “as historically oppressed people, Blacks, Jews, Muslims and all people must stand together to fight racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.”

Neither statement explicitly condemned Farrakhan, and Greenblatt said he was unsatisfied with the responses of either the Women’s March or Mallory. “Even if they respect certain programs his organization runs, that in no way mitigates the malicious things he saying about Jews, and the responsibility for people in leadership positions to recognize it for what it is and reject it in a clear and unambiguous manner,” Greenblatt said.

Therein lies the key conflict for Mallory, and her colleagues at the Women’s March, going forward. The Nation of Islam may be essential to anti-violence work in poor black neighborhoods. It may be an invaluable source of help for formerly incarcerated black people whose country has written them off as irredeemable. It may offer a path to vent anger at a system that continues to brutalize, plunder, and incarcerate human beings because they are black. And it may also be impossible to continue working with the Nation, and at the same time, lead a diverse, national, progressive coalition that includes many of the people Farrakhan and the Nation point to as the source of all evil in the world.

I asked Mallory if she intended to keep working with the Nation. “The brothers and sisters that I work with in the Nation of Islam are people too,” she said. “They are a part of the work that I’ve been doing for a long time and they are very much so ingrained in my anti-violent work of saving the lives of young black men and women.”

“So that’s the answer to that.”

From the perspective of her critics, Mallory’s refusal to denounce Farrakhan or the Nation appears as a condemnable silence in the face of bigotry. For her supporters, Mallory’s refusal to condemn the Nation shows an admirable loyalty towards people who guided her through an unfathomable loss.

But watching Farrakhan bask in the media attention, as yet another generation of black leadership faces public immolation on his behalf, it is impossible to see him as worthy of her loyalty.

Civil rights activist Malcolm X was a prominent leader in the Nation of Islam. Until his 1965 assassination, he vigorously supported Black nationalism.

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Quick Facts

Early life and family, time in prison, nation of islam, malcolm x and martin luther king jr., becoming a mainstream sunni muslim, assassination, wife and children, "the autobiography of malcolm x", who was malcolm x.

Malcolm X was a minister, civil rights activist , and prominent Black nationalist leader who served as a spokesman for the Nation of Islam during the 1950s and 1960s. Due largely to his efforts, the Nation of Islam grew from a mere 400 members at the time he was released from prison in 1952 to 40,000 members by 1960. A naturally gifted orator, Malcolm X exhorted Black people to cast off the shackles of racism “by any means necessary,” including violence. The fiery civil rights leader broke with the Nation of Islam shortly before his assassination in 1965 at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan, where he had been preparing to deliver a speech. He was 39 years old.

FULL NAME: Malcolm X (nee Malcolm Little) BORN: May 19, 1925 DIED: February 21, 1965 BIRTHPLACE: Omaha, Nebraska SPOUSE: Betty Shabazz (1958-1965) CHILDREN: Attilah, Quiblah, Lamumbah, Ilyasah, Malaak, and Malikah ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Taurus

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska. He was the fourth of eight children born to Louise, a homemaker, and Earl Little, a preacher who was also an active member of the local chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and avid supporter of Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey .

Due to Earl Little’s civil rights activism, the family was subjected to frequent harassment from white supremacist groups including the Ku Klux Klan and one of its splinter factions, the Black Legion. In fact, Malcolm Little had his first encounter with racism before he was even born. “When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later, ‘a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped up to our home,’” Malcolm later remembered. “Brandishing their shotguns and rifles, they shouted for my father to come out.”

The harassment continued when Malcolm was 4 years old, and local Klan members smashed all of the family’s windows. To protect his family, Earl Little moved them from Omaha to Milwaukee in 1926 and then to Lansing, Michigan, in 1928.

However, the racism the family encountered in Lansing proved even greater than in Omaha. Shortly after the Littles moved in, a racist mob set their house on fire in 1929, and the town’s all-white emergency responders refused to do anything. “The white police and firemen came and stood around watching as the house burned to the ground,” Malcolm later remembered. Earl moved the family to East Lansing where he built a new home.

Two years later, in 1931, Earl’s dead body was discovered lying across the municipal streetcar tracks. Although the family believed Earl was murdered by white supremacists from whom he had received frequent death threats, the police officially ruled his death a streetcar accident, thereby voiding the large life insurance policy he had purchased in order to provide for his family in the event of his death.

Louise never recovered from the shock and grief over her husband’s death. In 1937, she was committed to a mental institution where she remained for the next 26 years. Malcolm and his siblings were separated and placed in foster homes.

In 1938, Malcolm was kicked out of West Junior High School and sent to a juvenile detention home in Mason, Michigan. The white couple who ran the home treated him well, but he wrote in his autobiography that he was treated more like a “pink poodle” or a “pet canary” than a human being.

He attended Mason High School where he was one of only a few Black students. He excelled academically and was well-liked by his classmates, who elected him class president.

A turning point in Malcolm’s childhood came in 1939 when his English teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he answered that he wanted to be a lawyer. His teacher responded, “One of life’s first needs is for us to be realistic... you need to think of something you can be... why don’t you plan on carpentry?” Having been told in no uncertain terms that there was no point in a Black child pursuing education, Malcolm dropped out of school the following year, at the age of 15.

After quitting school, Malcolm moved to Boston to live with his older half-sister, Ella, about whom he later recalled: “She was the first really proud Black woman I had ever seen in my life. She was plainly proud of her very dark skin. This was unheard of among Negroes in those days.”

Ella landed Malcolm a job shining shoes at the Roseland Ballroom. However, out on his own on the streets of Boston, he became acquainted with the city’s criminal underground and soon turned to selling drugs.

He got another job as kitchen help on the Yankee Clipper train between New York and Boston and fell further into a life of drugs and crime. Sporting flamboyant pinstriped zoot suits, he frequented nightclubs and dance halls and turned more fully to crime to finance his lavish lifestyle.

In 1946, Malcolm was arrested on charges of larceny and sentenced to 10 years in prison. To pass the time during his incarceration, he read constantly, devouring books from the prison library in an attempt make up for the years of education he had missed by dropping out of high school.

Also while in prison, Malcolm was visited by several siblings who had joined the Nation of Islam, a small sect of Black Muslims who embraced the ideology of Black nationalism—the idea that in order to secure freedom, justice and equality, Black Americans needed to establish their own state entirely separate from white Americans.

He changed his name to Malcolm X and converted to the Nation of Islam before his release from prison in 1952 after six and a half years.

Now a free man, Malcolm X traveled to Detroit, where he worked with the leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad , to expand the movement’s following among Black Americans nationwide.

Malcolm X became the minister of Temple No. 7 in Harlem and Temple No. 11 in Boston, while also founding new temples in Hartford and Philadelphia. In 1960, he established a national newspaper called Muhammad Speaks in order to further promote the message of the Nation of Islam.

Articulate, passionate, and an inspirational orator, Malcolm X exhorted Black people to cast off the shackles of racism “by any means necessary,” including violence. “You don’t have a peaceful revolution. You don’t have a turn-the-cheek revolution,” he said. “There’s no such thing as a nonviolent revolution.”

His militant proposals—a violent revolution to establish an independent Black nation—won Malcolm X large numbers of followers as well as many fierce critics. Due primarily to the efforts of Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam grew from a mere 400 members at the time he was released from prison in 1952, to 40,000 members by 1960.

By the early 1960s, Malcolm X had emerged as a leading voice of a radicalized wing of the Civil Rights Movement, presenting a dramatic alternative to Martin Luther King Jr. ’s vision of a racially-integrated society achieved by peaceful means. King was critical of Malcolm’s methods but avoided directly calling out his more radical counterpart. Although very aware of each other and working to achieve the same goal, the two leaders met only once—and very briefly—on Capitol Hill when the U.S. Senate held a hearing about an anti-discrimination bill.

A rupture with Elijah Muhammad proved much more traumatic. In 1963, Malcolm X became deeply disillusioned when he learned that his hero and mentor had violated many of his own teachings, most flagrantly by carrying on many extramarital affairs. Muhammad had, in fact, fathered several children out of wedlock.

Malcolm’s feelings of betrayal, combined with Muhammad’s anger over Malcolm’s insensitive comments regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy , led Malcolm X to leave the Nation of Islam in 1964.

That same year, Malcolm X embarked on an extended trip through North Africa and the Middle East. The journey proved to be both a political and spiritual turning point in his life. He learned to place America’s Civil Rights Movement within the context of a global anti-colonial struggle, embracing socialism and pan-Africanism.

Malcolm X also made the Hajj, the traditional Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, during which he converted to traditional Islam and again changed his name, this time to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.

After his epiphany at Mecca, Malcolm X returned to the United States more optimistic about the prospects for a peaceful resolution to America’s race problems. “The true brotherhood I had seen had influenced me to recognize that anger can blind human vision,” he said. “America is the first country... that can actually have a bloodless revolution.”

Just as Malcolm X appeared to be embarking on an ideological transformation with the potential to dramatically alter the course of the Civil Rights Movement, he was assassinated .

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X took the stage for a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. He had just begun addressing the room when multiple men rushed the stage and began firing guns. Struck numerous times at close range, Malcolm X was declared dead after arriving at a nearby hospital. He was 39.

Three members of the Nation of Islam were tried and sentenced to life in prison for murdering the activist. In 2021, two of the men—Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam—were exonerated for Malcolm’s murder after spending decades behind bars. Both maintained their innocence but were still convicted in March 1966, alongside Mujahid Abdul Halim, who did confess to the murder. Aziz and Islam were released from prison in the mid-1980s, and Islam died in 2009. After the exoneration, they were awarded $36 million for their wrongful convictions.

In February 2023, Malcolm X’s family announced a wrongful death lawsuit against the New York Police Department, the FBI, the CIA, and other government entities in relation to the activist’s death. They claim the agencies concealed evidence and conspired to assassinate Malcolm X.

Malcolm X married Betty Shabazz in 1958. The couple had six daughters: Attilah, Quiblah, Lamumbah, Ilyasah, Malaak, and Malikah. Twins Malaak and Malikah were born after Malcolm died in 1965.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

In the early 1960s, Malcolm X began working with acclaimed author Alex Haley on an autobiography. The book details Malcolm X’s life experiences and his evolving views on racial pride, Black nationalism, and pan-Africanism.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X was published in 1965 after his assassination to near-universal praise. The New York Times called it a “brilliant, painful, important book,” and Time magazine listed it as one of the 10 most influential nonfiction books of the 20 th century.

Malcolm X has been the subject of numerous movies, stage plays, and other works and has been portrayed by actors like James Earl Jones , Morgan Freeman , and Mario Van Peebles.

In 1992, Spike Lee directed Denzel Washington in the title role of his movie Malcolm X . Both the film and Washington’s portrayal of Malcolm X received wide acclaim and were nominated for several awards, including two Academy Awards.

In the immediate aftermath of Malcolm X’s death, commentators largely ignored his recent spiritual and political transformation and criticized him as a violent rabble-rouser. But especially after the publication of The Autobiography of Malcolm X , he began to be remembered for underscoring the value of a truly free populace by demonstrating the great lengths to which human beings will go to secure their freedom.

“Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression,” he said. “Because power, real power, comes from our conviction which produces action, uncompromising action.”

• Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression because power, real power, comes from our conviction which produces action, uncompromising action.
• Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.
• You don’t have a peaceful revolution. You don’t have a turn-the-cheek revolution. There’s no such thing as a nonviolent revolution.
• If you are not willing to pay the price for freedom, you don’t deserve freedom.
• We want freedom now, but we’re not going to get it saying “We Shall Overcome.” We’ve got to fight to overcome.
• I believe that it is a crime for anyone to teach a person who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself.
• We are non-violent only with non-violent people—I’m non-violent as long as somebody else is non-violent—as soon as they get violent, they nullify my non-violence.
• Revolution is like a forest fire. It burns everything in its path. The people who are involved in a revolution don’t become a part of the system—they destroy the system, they change the system.
• If a man puts his arms around me voluntarily, that’s brotherhood, but if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that’s not brotherhood, that’s hypocrisy.
• You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you’ll do anything to get your freedom; then you’ll get it. It’s the only way you’ll get it.
• My father didn’t know his last name. My father got his last name from his grandfather, and his grandfather got it from his grandfather who got it from the slavemaster.
• To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace. I formerly was a criminal. I formerly was in prison. I’m not ashamed of that.
• It’s going to be the ballot or the bullet.
• America is the first country... that can actually have a bloodless revolution.

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African American Heritage

The Nation of Islam

The Nation of Islam (NOI) is an Islamic and Black nationalist movement founded in Detroit, Michigan by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad in 1930. His mission was to "teach the downtrodden and defenseless Black people a thorough knowledge of God and of themselves." Members of the NOI study the Quran, worship Allah as their God and accept Muhammad as their prophet, while also believing in notions of Black Nationalism.

In 1934, Elijah Muhammad succeeded Fard and the NOI began to gain popularity among African Americans during the 1950s and the 1960s with its message of racial independence, establishing mosques in urban areas, and converting incarcerated Black men to the religion.

Records held at the National Archives related to the Nation of Islam are mostly Federal investigations on their Black Nationalist activity across the country. Many of the investigative cases focused on the actions of individual members.

Below are records relating to the Nation of Islam in general, as well as pages highlighting prominent leaders and members of the group.

Search the Catalog for records relating to the Nation of Islam

Prominent Members of the Nation of Islam

Record group 21: district courts of the united states, civil case files, 1938-1988 national archives identifier: 559845, criminal case files, 1863-1992 national archives identifier: 559640, record group 59: department of state, central foreign policy files, 1973-1979 national archives identifier 654098.

The electronic records in this series can be searched online via the Access to Archival Databases (AAD) system. The telegrams on AAD include only unclassified, unrestricted files which have been determined to be of permanent historical value. Please search for 'Nation of Islam'.

Record Group 60: Department of Justice

Class 25 (selective service act) litigation case files, 1920-1974 national archives identifier: 646049, record group 65: federal bureau of investigation, classification 44 (civil rights) case files, classification 157 (civil unrest) case files.

Please use the Find function in your browser to search for 'Nation of Islam'

Record Group 267: Supreme Court of the United States

Electronic dockets for closed appellate cases, 1996-2006 national archives identifier 4325222, record group 276: united states courts of appeals, general appellate jurisdiction case files, 1893-1981 national archives identifier: 1127801, record group 306: us information agency (usia), research reports, 1960-1999 national archives identifier: 5637789, moving images relating to us domestic and international activities, 1982-1999 national archives identifier 46890.

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9 Things You Should Know About the Nation of Islam

More By Joe Carter

In a video that has been viewed nearly 2 million times on Facebook , Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan said, “I know that my redeemer liveth. I know. I’m not guessing that my Jesus is alive.” This clip has lead some people to wonder if Farrakhan has become a closet Christian , but other people more familiar with the Nation of Islam’s teachings have pointed out that the use of such language is nothing new.

Here is what you should know about the controversial religious group known as the Naiton of Islam.

1. The Nation of Islam (NOI) is an African-American movement and organization that combines elements of traditional Islam with black nationalist ideas and race-based theology. Although the group is rather small (estimated membership is between 20,000 and 50,000 people), Farrakhan has used the organization to leverage his influence within the African-American community. In 1995 he organized and was the keynote speaker for the Million Man March, a gathering in Washington, D.C., that attracted 400,000 people.

2. The NOI was founded in Detroit on July 4, 1930, by Wallace D. Fard (a.k.a. Wallace Fard Muhammad). Fard worked as a door-to-door salesman before gaining a following in the black community as a religious leader. In 1931, Fard met a migrant worker named Elijah Poole (aka Elijah Muhammad) and for the next three and a half years he reportedly “taught and trained the Honorable Elijah Muhammad night and day into the profound Secret Wisdom of the Reality of God.” The NOI considers Fard to be the Messiah of Judaism, the Mahdi of Islam (the prophesied redeemer of Islam), as “Allah in the flesh,” and “the second coming of Jesus, the Christ, Jehovah, God, and the Son of Man.” Fard mysteriously disappeared in 1934. He was last seen by Elijah Muhammad and was never heard from again.

3. Elijah Muhammad took over leadership of Fard’s group in Detroit and changed the name from the Allah Temple of Islam to Nation of Islam. For the next 41 years, until his death in 1975, Elijah Muhammad served as a mentor to some influential African Americans (most notably Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali), grew the small group into a large movement, developed many NOI-owned businesses and schools, and created the largest African-American newspaper in the United States. At the height of his power, the NOI is estimated to have had 250,000 members.

4. Under Elijah Muhammad’s leadership, the NOI grew to be an influential, controlling, and intimidating organization. Malcolm X had once been a protégé of the religious leader but was suspended from the NOI because Elijah Muhammad believed he was becoming too influential. A year later, Malcolm X was shot to death by NOI members while speaking at a rally in New York City. Another former student, Cassius Clay (a.k.a. Muhammad Ali), reportedly refused to be drafted into the U.S. military out of fear of being killed by Elijah Muhammad (who opposed the draft and had avoided it himself). In the 1970s Ali told reporter Dave Kindred : “I would have gotten out of [the Nation of Islam] a long time ago, but you saw what they did to Malcolm X. . . . I can’t leave the Muslims. They’d shoot me, too.”

5. A day after Elijah Muhammad’s death, his son Warith Deen Mohammed was declared the new leader of the NOI. Over the next few years, Warith changed the organization’s name to the American Society of Muslims and attempted to make it a more orthodox Islamic movement. In 1981, a protégé of Elijah, Louis Farrakhan (nee Louis Wolcott), started a new group, took back the name “Nation of Islam,” and worked to restore the original movement of Elijah Muhammed. Under Farrakhan’s leadership, the movement shifted back to its cultish religious beliefs and readopted racist and anti-Semitic views.

6. In 2010, Farrakhan publicly announced his embrace of cult leader L. Ron Hubbard’s teachings known as “Dianetics.” Although claiming he wasn’t a Scientologist, Farrakhan actively encouraged Nation of Islam members to undergo auditing from the Church of Scientology . “I’ve found something in the teaching of Dianetics, of Mr. L. Ron Hubbard, that I saw could bring up from the depth of our subconscious mind things that we would prefer to lie dormant,” he told his Chicago congregation. “How could I see something that valuable and know the hurt and sickness of my people and not offer it to them?” In 2011 he added, “All white people should flock to L. Ron Hubbard. You can still be a Christian; you just won’t be a devil Christian. You can still be a Jew, but you won’t be a satanic Jew.”

6. The NOI has an all-male paramilitary wing known as the Fruit of Islam (F.O.I). As one NOI website explains ,

The responsibility of the F.O.I. is that of a head of house: protection, provision, and maintenance of the Nation of Islam (all Original People). The F.O.I. are militant in the sense that our operations are done as a unit (Latin: mili – meaning “one”). He is a soldier. Soldier has a root, again Latin, solidus, meaning solid. “Belong” means “to be owned by”. An F.O.I. is respectful to all regardless of color, class, or creed. He is honest, and hardworking, never considering crime as an alternative nor encroaching on another man’s right to peace and property.

The F.O.I. is sometimes confused with the Five-Percent Nation  (aka Five Percenters), a splinter group that separated from NOI in the 1960s.

7. The NOI asserts that white people were created through scientific experimentation by a scientist named Yakub. As Farrakhan has explained , “the Bible calls him ‘Jacob,’ who wrestled with The Angel, and prevailed, and his name was changed from “Jacob” to Israel). He was a great Black Scientist.” Yakub supposedly began a program of selective breeding that was carried out by his followers after his death and resulted in the creation of the “white race.” This race became famous for corrupting and enslaving other races. As Farrakhan says, “ the white race is a race of devils .”

8. Since its founding the NOI has frequently been accused of spreading anti-Semitic propaganda and promoting anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. For example, as the  Anti-Defamation League notes , Farrakhan has “repeatedly alleged that the Jewish people were responsible for the slave trade and that they conspire to control the government, the media, Hollywood, and various Black individuals and organizations to this day.” In a prominent address in 2015, Farrakhan claimed Israel and Jews orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, that “Israelis had foreknowledge of the attacks,” and that Jews were warned ahead of time not to come to work that day.

9. The NOI advocates for racial separatism. As outlined in “ The Muslim Program ” the movement wants to establish a “separate state or territory of their own–either on this continent or elsewhere.” The group believes “our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich [sic]. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years–until we are able to produce and supply our own needs.” Until such time as they are allowed to create their own separate nation, the NOI wants segregated schools, exemption from all taxation, a prohibition on intermarriage or race mixing, and to have “the religion of Islam taught without hindrance or suppression.”

Other posts in this series:

Slave Trade  •  Solar Eclipses  •  Alcohol Abuse in America  •  History of the Homeschooling Movement  •  Eugenics  •  North Korea  •  Ramadan  •  Black Hebrew Israelites  •  Neil Gorsuch and Supreme Court Confirmations  •  International Women’s Day  •  Health Effects of Marijuana  •  J. R. R. Tolkien  •  Aleppo and the Syrian Crisis  •  Fidel Castro  •  C.S. Lewis  •  ESV Bible  •  Alzheimer’s Disease  •   Mother Teresa  •  The Opioid Epidemic  •  The Olympic Games  •  Physician-Assisted Suicide  •  Nuclear Weapons  •  China’s Cultural Revolution  •  Jehovah’s Witnesses  •  Harriet Tubman  •  Autism  •  Seventh-day Adventism  •  Justice Antonin Scalia (1936–2016)  •  Female Genital Mutilation  •  Orphans  •  Pastors  •  Global Persecution of Christians (2015 Edition)  •  Global Hunger  •  National Hispanic Heritage Month  •  Pope Francis  •  Refugees in America  •  Confederate Flag Controversy  •  Elisabeth Elliot  •  Animal Fighting  •  Mental Health  •  Prayer in the Bible  •  Same-sex Marriage  •  Genocide  •  Church Architecture  •  Auschwitz and Nazi Extermination Camps  •  Boko Haram  •  Adoption  •  Military Chaplains  •  Atheism  •  Intimate Partner Violence  •  Rabbinic Judaism  •  Hamas  •  Male Body Image Issues  •  Mormonism  •  Islam  •  Independence Day and the Declaration of Independence  •  Anglicanism  •  Transgenderism  •  Southern Baptist Convention  •  Surrogacy  •  John Calvin  •  The Rwandan Genocide  •  The Chronicles of Narnia  •  The Story of Noah  •  Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church  •  Pimps and Sex Traffickers  •  Marriage in America  •  Black History Month  •  The Holocaust  •  Roe v. Wade  •  Poverty in America  •  Christmas  •  The Hobbit  •  Council of Trent  •  Halloween and Reformation Day  •  Casinos and Gambling  •  Prison Rape  •  16th Street Baptist Church Bombing  •  Chemical Weapons  •  March on Washington  •  Duck Dynasty  •  Child Brides  •  Human Trafficking  •  Scopes Monkey Trial  •  Social Media  •  Supreme Court’s Same-Sex Marriage Cases  •  The Bible  •  Human Cloning  •  Pornography and the Brain  •  Planned Parenthood  •  Boston Marathon Bombing  •  Female Body Image Issues  •  Islamic State

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

Joe Carter is a senior writer for The Gospel Coalition, author of The Life and Faith Field Guide for Parents , the editor of the NIV Lifehacks Bible , and coauthor of How to Argue Like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History’s Greatest Communicator . He also serves as an associate pastor at McLean Bible Church in Arlington, Virginia.

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When students think of Islam—if they do at all—they might summon an image of Denzel Washington playing a stern and passionate Malcolm X in Spike Lee's 1992 film, or maybe they imagine Louis Farrakhan on the speaker's platform at the Million Man March in 1995. Some might have encountered Middle Eastern Muslims on the nightly news, mostly as "fundamentalists" and "terrorists." A few have met immigrant Muslims in their neighborhood. Muslim students might be among their classmates. But Muslims are more diverse than popular images allow, and American Muslim history is longer than most might think, extending back to the day that the first slave ship landed on Virginia's coast in 1619. It encorporates two groups—Muslims from other countries who migrated to America by force or by choice, and African Americans who created Muslim sects in the twentieth century. Thus, a consideration of the Islamic presence in America provides a new perspective on several important (and familiar) issues that will be used to organize this essay: What is the history of slavery in the United States? How have immigrants resisted and accommodated American culture? What were African Americans' experiences in the northern cities after the Great Migration? How has African-American Islam addressed race relations since the 1960s? Is America a Christian nation? At first, you will need to introduce Islam to your students, and a helpful way to do this is to invite their responses to the word "Muslim." What comes to mind when they hear the word? Write their responses on the board without comment, and then use the list to establish the dominant images of Muslims—for example, as militants, extremists, newcomers. Then you can begin to contest these impressions and establish that Islam is a diverse and long-standing American religion—one that has had a significant presence in the United States. At this point you will need to introduce the basic beliefs and practices of the world's one billion Muslims, most of whom live in Asia, not in the Middle East as most Americans presume. As in Christianity and Judaism, Islam (which is second only to Christianity in worldwide adherents) includes a number of communities or branches. The two major groups are Sunni Muslims, who constitute about 85 percent of Muslims, and Shii (or Shiite) Muslims, who account for 15 percent of the world's Islamic population. All traditional groups are represented among the five million Muslims in the United States, along with some new movements that have been cultivated on American soil. Muslims in prayer, Long Island, New York Courtesy Islamic Center of Long Island Despite their diversity, Muslims have a good deal in common. They look to the Qu'ran — the sacred book that records the message of Allah [God] as it was revealed to his final prophet, Muhammed (A.D. ca. 570-632), and they seek to follow the example ( sunna ) of the prophet. All accept the Five Pillars of Islam , the basic beliefs and duties of Muslims: A profession of faith ( shahada ). All Muslims must proclaim "There is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet." Note here that Muhammed is not God in Muslim theology but rather a spokesperson or mouthpiece for the divine. Prayer ( salat ). All Muslims pray five times daily while facing the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Alms ( zakat ). Faith also means outreach. To give thanks and follow the example of Muhammed, Muslims with the economic means must give alms to those who are less fortunate. Fasting ( sawm or siyam ). Muslims who are physically able are to fast from dawn to dusk during the ninth month (Ramadan) of the Islamic calendar. A pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca. At least once in their lives, all Muslims who are able must make a pilgrimage to the Great Mosque in the holy city of Mecca, toward which they have knelt while praying five times daily during their lives. (Chapter seventeen of The Autobiography of Malcolm X offers a vivid account of this pilgrimage, which was life-transforming for him. It was on hajj , he recounts, that he first glimpsed the possibility that people of different races could get along.) Slavery and Islam A small but significant proportion of African slaves, some estimate 10 percent, were Muslim. You might tell the story of Omar Ibn Said (also "Sayyid," ca. 1770-1864), who was born in Western Africa in the Muslim state of Futa Toro (on the south bank of the Senegal River in present-day Senegal). He was a Muslim scholar and trader who, for reasons historians have not uncovered, found himself captive and enslaved. After a six-week voyage, Omar arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, in about 1807. About four years later, he was sold to James Owen of North Carolina's Cape Fear region. In 1819 a white Protestant North Carolinian wrote to Francis Scott Key, the composer of The Star Spangled Banner , to request an Arabic translation of the Bible for Omar, and apparently Key sent one. Historians dispute how much the African Muslim leaned toward Christianity in his final years, but Omar's notations on the Arabic bible, which offer praise to Allah, suggest that he retained much of his Muslim identity, as did some other first-generation slaves whose names have been lost to us. (Omar's Arabic bible, which has recently been restored, is housed in the library of Davidson College in North Carolina.) Muslims and Immigration, 1878-1924 Most history courses cover the immigrants who changed America's population throughout the nineteenth century. You might point out these immigrants were not all European or Christian. Many were Chinese and Japanese migrants who practiced Buddhism and other Asian traditions. Thousands of Muslims came as well, and most of these first Islamic immigrants were Arabs from what was then Greater Syria. These Syrian, Jordanian, and Lebanese migrants were poorly educated laborers who came seeking greater economic stability. Many returned, disenchanted, to their homeland. Those who stayed suffered isolation, although some managed to establish Islamic communities, often in unlikely places. By 1920, Arab immigrants worshiped in a rented hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and they built a mosque of their own fifteen years later. Lebanese-Syrian communities did the same in Ross, North Dakota, and later in Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Michigan City, Indiana. Islam had come to America's heartland. The first wave of Muslim immigration ended in 1924, when the Asian Exclusion Act and the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act allowed only a trickle of "Asians," as Arabs were designated, to enter the nation. African-American Islam in the Urban North A Euro-American, Mohammed Alexander Webb (1847-1916), proclaimed himself a Muslim at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, but converts have been more prominent among Americans of African descent, especially those who followed the mass migrations of southern blacks to northern cities beginning in the early decades of the twentieth century. Noble Drew Ali established a Black nationalist Islamic community, the Moorish Science Temple, in Newark, New Jersey in 1913. After his death in 1929, one of the movement's factions found itself drawn to the mysterious Wallace D. Fard, who appeared in Detroit in 1930 preaching black nationalism and Islamic faith. Fard founded the Nation of Islam there in the same year. After Fard's unexplained disappearance in 1934, Elijah Muhammed (1897-1975) took over, and he attracted disenchanted and poor African Americans from the urban north. They converted for a variety of reasons, but, for some, the poverty and racism in those cities made the Nation of Islam's message about "white devils" (and "black superiority") plausible. Race Relations since the 1960s Elijah Muhammed won an important convert when Malcolm Little (1925-1965) joined the faith in a prison cell. Malcolm X, the name he took to signal his lost African heritage, became a public figure during the 1960s, although he separated himself from the Nation of Islam before his death. After Elijah Muhammed's death in 1975, the movement split. One branch, under the leadership of the fifth son of Elijah Muhammed, moved closer to the beliefs and practices of Islam as it is practiced in most of the world. This group, which would later change its name to the American Muslim Mission, is the largest African-American Islamic movement. The much smaller Nation of Islam, which the American Muslim Mission and other Islamic groups condemn as racist and unorthodox, is much more familiar to most Americans. Many American Muslims would claim that the Nation of Islam, led by Louis Farrakhan, is not representative of either immigrant or convert Islam in the United States. As you teach the Nation of Islam, you might ask students what the history of African-American Islam since the Great Migration tells us about race relations. Why were Malcolm X and others in northern cities so willing to believe that European Americans were "white devils"? In what sense, you might ask, is the Nation of Islam's sacred story about the origin of whites as the mistake of a black scientist a "truthful" representation of many African Americans' experience? Muslims and the New Immigrants after 1965 If you are able to reach the post-1965 period in your class, you might reintroduce Muslims in a discussion of demographic changes in contemporary America. Palestinian refugees arrived after the creation of Israel in 1948. More important for the history of American Islam, the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 relaxed the quota system established in 1924, thereby allowing greater Muslim immigration. The gates opened even more widely after the 1965 revisions of the immigration law. Since then, Muslim migrants have fled oppressive regimes in Egypt, Iraq, and Syria; and South Asian Muslims, as from Pakistan, have sought economic opportunity. By the 1990s, Muslims had established more than six hundred mosques and centers across the United States. Islamic Cultural Center of New York Islamic Center of West Virginia Islamic Center of Long Island Courtesy Muslimsonline.com, the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, and the Islamic Assn. of West Virginia Is America a Christian Nation? Toward the end of your discussion of Islam in America, you might raise this final issue concerning religion and national identity. Islam may soon be the second largest American faith after Christianity, if it is not already. Estimates vary widely, and a moderate estimate is five million American Muslims in 1997—more than Episcopalians, Quakers, and Disciples of Christ. When recounting this to students, and recalling the history of Islamic slaves and the early debates about the First Amendment, you might ask students whether America is a Christian nation as some have proclaimed. Could we, you might ask to focus the discussion, elect a Muslim president? If so, would she (while we are imagining, let's get bold!) view this land as a New Israel or take her presidential oath on a Christian Bible, as has been traditional? Links to online resources Related info in "Getting Back to You" Thomas A. Tweed holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Religious Studies and is currently the Zachary Smith Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Tweed is the author of Our Lady of the Exile: Diasporic Religion at a Cuban Catholic Shrine in Miami (Oxford University Press, 1997) and the editor of Retelling U.S. Religious History (California University Press, 1997). He most recently co-edited, with Stephen Prothero, Asian Religions in America: A Documentary History (Oxford University Press, 1999). Address comments or questions to Professor Tweed through TeacherServe " Comments and Questions ."

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Should college essays touch on race? Some feel the affirmative action ruling leaves them no choice

Hillary Amofa listens to others member of the Lincoln Park High School step team after school Friday, March 8, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action, it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions. (AP Video: Noreen Nasir)

Hillary Amofa listens to others member of the Lincoln Park High School step team after school Friday, March 8, 2024, in Chicago. When she started writing her college essay, Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. She wrote about being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, about growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. She described hardship and struggle. Then she deleted it all. “I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18 year-old senior, “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.” (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

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Hillary Amofa, laughs as she participates in a team building game with members of the Lincoln Park High School step team after school Friday, March 8, 2024, in Chicago. When she started writing her college essay, Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. She wrote about being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, about growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. She described hardship and struggle. Then she deleted it all. “I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18 year-old senior, “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.” (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Hillary Amofa stands for a portrait after practice with members of the Lincoln Park High School step team Friday, March 8, 2024, in Chicago. When she started writing her college essay, Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. She wrote about being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, about growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. She described hardship and struggle. Then she deleted it all. “I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18 year-old senior, “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.” (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Max Decker, a senior at Lincoln High School, sits for a portrait in the school library where he often worked on writing his college essays, in Portland, Ore., Wednesday, March 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

Hillary Amofa stands for a portrait after practice with members of the Lincoln Park High School step team Friday, March 8, 2024, in Chicago. When she started writing her college essay, Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. She wrote about being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, about growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Hillary Amofa, second from left, practices with members of the Lincoln Park High School step team after school Friday, March 8, 2024, in Chicago. When she started writing her college essay, Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. She wrote about being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, about growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. She described hardship and struggle. Then she deleted it all. “I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18 year-old senior, “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.” (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Max Decker, a senior at Lincoln High School, stands for a portrait outside of the school in Portland, Ore., Wednesday, March 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

*Hillary Amofa, reflected right, practices in a mirror with members of the Lincoln Park High School step team after school Friday, March 8, 2024, in Chicago. When she started writing her college essay, Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. She wrote about being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, about growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. She described hardship and struggle. Then she deleted it all. “I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18 year-old senior, “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.” (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Max Decker, a senior at Lincoln High School, sits for a portrait outside of the school in Portland, Ore., Wednesday, March 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

Hillary Amofa, left, practices with members of the Lincoln Park High School step team after school Friday, March 8, 2024, in Chicago. When she started writing her college essay, Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. She wrote about being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, about growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. She described hardship and struggle. Then she deleted it all. “I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18 year-old senior, “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.” (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Hillary Amofa sits for a portrait after her step team practice at Lincoln Park High School Friday, March 8, 2024, in Chicago. When she started writing her college essay, Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. She wrote about being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana, about growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. She described hardship and struggle. Then she deleted it all. “I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18 year-old senior, “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.” (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

FILE - Demonstrators protest outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, in this June 29, 2023 file photo, after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, saying race cannot be a factor. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

CHICAGO (AP) — When she started writing her college essay, Hillary Amofa told the story she thought admissions offices wanted to hear. About being the daughter of immigrants from Ghana and growing up in a small apartment in Chicago. About hardship and struggle.

Then she deleted it all.

“I would just find myself kind of trauma-dumping,” said the 18-year-old senior at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago. “And I’m just like, this doesn’t really say anything about me as a person.”

When the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in higher education, it left the college essay as one of few places where race can play a role in admissions decisions. For many students of color, instantly more was riding on the already high-stakes writing assignment. Some say they felt pressure to exploit their hardships as they competed for a spot on campus.

Amofa was just starting to think about her essay when the court issued its decision, and it left her with a wave of questions. Could she still write about her race? Could she be penalized for it? She wanted to tell colleges about her heritage but she didn’t want to be defined by it.

In English class, Amofa and her classmates read sample essays that all seemed to focus on some trauma or hardship. It left her with the impression she had to write about her life’s hardest moments to show how far she’d come. But she and some of her classmates wondered if their lives had been hard enough to catch the attention of admissions offices.

“For a lot of students, there’s a feeling of, like, having to go through something so horrible to feel worthy of going to school, which is kind of sad,” said Amofa, the daughter of a hospital technician and an Uber driver.

This year’s senior class is the first in decades to navigate college admissions without affirmative action . The Supreme Court upheld the practice in decisions going back to the 1970s, but this court’s conservative supermajority found it is unconstitutional for colleges to give students extra weight because of their race alone.

Still, the decision left room for race to play an indirect role: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote universities can still consider how an applicant’s life was shaped by their race, “so long as that discussion is concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability.”

“A benefit to a student who overcame racial discrimination, for example, must be tied to that student’s courage and determination,” he wrote.

Scores of colleges responded with new essay prompts asking about students’ backgrounds. Brown University asked applicants how “an aspect of your growing up has inspired or challenged you.” Rice University asked students how their perspectives were shaped by their “background, experiences, upbringing, and/or racial identity.”

Hillary Amofa, reflected right, practices in a mirror with members of the Lincoln Park High School step team after school, March 8, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

WONDERING IF SCHOOLS ‘EXPECT A SOB STORY’

When Darrian Merritt started writing his essay, he knew the stakes were higher than ever because of the court’s decision. His first instinct was to write about events that led to him going to live with his grandmother as a child.

Those were painful memories, but he thought they might play well at schools like Yale, Stanford and Vanderbilt.

“I feel like the admissions committee might expect a sob story or a tragic story,” said Merritt, a senior in Cleveland. “And if you don’t provide that, then maybe they’re not going to feel like you went through enough to deserve having a spot at the university. I wrestled with that a lot.”

He wrote drafts focusing on his childhood, but it never amounted to more than a collection of memories. Eventually he abandoned the idea and aimed for an essay that would stand out for its positivity.

Merritt wrote about a summer camp where he started to feel more comfortable in his own skin. He described embracing his personality and defying his tendency to please others. The essay had humor — it centered on a water gun fight where he had victory in sight but, in a comedic twist, slipped and fell. But the essay also reflects on his feelings of not being “Black enough” and getting made fun of for listening to “white people music.”

“I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to write this for me, and we’re just going to see how it goes,’” he said. “It just felt real, and it felt like an honest story.”

The essay describes a breakthrough as he learned “to take ownership of myself and my future by sharing my true personality with the people I encounter. ... I realized that the first chapter of my own story had just been written.”

Max Decker, a senior at Lincoln High School, sits for a portrait in the school library where he often worked on writing his college essays, in Portland, Ore., March 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

A RULING PROMPTS PIVOTS ON ESSAY TOPICS

Like many students, Max Decker of Portland, Oregon, had drafted a college essay on one topic, only to change direction after the Supreme Court ruling in June.

Decker initially wrote about his love for video games. In a childhood surrounded by constant change, navigating his parents’ divorce, the games he took from place to place on his Nintendo DS were a source of comfort.

But the essay he submitted to colleges focused on the community he found through Word is Bond, a leadership group for young Black men in Portland.

As the only biracial, Jewish kid with divorced parents in a predominantly white, Christian community, Decker wrote he constantly felt like the odd one out. On a trip with Word is Bond to Capitol Hill, he and friends who looked just like him shook hands with lawmakers. The experience, he wrote, changed how he saw himself.

“It’s because I’m different that I provide something precious to the world, not the other way around,” he wrote.

As a first-generation college student, Decker thought about the subtle ways his peers seemed to know more about navigating the admissions process . They made sure to get into advanced classes at the start of high school, and they knew how to secure glowing letters of recommendation.

Max Decker reads his college essay on his experience with a leadership group for young Black men. (AP Video/Noreen Nasir)

If writing about race would give him a slight edge and show admissions officers a fuller picture of his achievements, he wanted to take that small advantage.

His first memory about race, Decker said, was when he went to get a haircut in elementary school and the barber made rude comments about his curly hair. Until recently, the insecurity that moment created led him to keep his hair buzzed short.

Through Word is Bond, Decker said he found a space to explore his identity as a Black man. It was one of the first times he was surrounded by Black peers and saw Black role models. It filled him with a sense of pride in his identity. No more buzzcut.

The pressure to write about race involved a tradeoff with other important things in his life, Decker said. That included his passion for journalism, like the piece he wrote on efforts to revive a once-thriving Black neighborhood in Portland. In the end, he squeezed in 100 characters about his journalism under the application’s activities section.

“My final essay, it felt true to myself. But the difference between that and my other essay was the fact that it wasn’t the truth that I necessarily wanted to share,” said Decker, whose top college choice is Tulane, in New Orleans, because of the region’s diversity. “It felt like I just had to limit the truth I was sharing to what I feel like the world is expecting of me.”

Demonstrators protest outside of the Supreme Court in Washington, in this June 29, 2023 file photo, after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, saying race cannot be a factor. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

SPELLING OUT THE IMPACT OF RACE

Before the Supreme Court ruling, it seemed a given to Imani Laird that colleges would consider the ways that race had touched her life. But now, she felt like she had to spell it out.

As she started her essay, she reflected on how she had faced bias or felt overlooked as a Black student in predominantly white spaces.

There was the year in math class when the teacher kept calling her by the name of another Black student. There were the comments that she’d have an easier time getting into college because she was Black .

“I didn’t have it easier because of my race,” said Laird, a senior at Newton South High School in the Boston suburbs who was accepted at Wellesley and Howard University, and is waiting to hear from several Ivy League colleges. “I had stuff I had to overcome.”

In her final essays, she wrote about her grandfather, who served in the military but was denied access to GI Bill benefits because of his race.

She described how discrimination fueled her ambition to excel and pursue a career in public policy.

“So, I never settled for mediocrity,” she wrote. “Regardless of the subject, my goal in class was not just to participate but to excel. Beyond academics, I wanted to excel while remembering what started this motivation in the first place.”

Hillary Amofa stands for a portrait after practice with members of the Lincoln Park High School step team, March 8, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

WILL SCHOOLS LOSE RACIAL DIVERSITY?

Amofa used to think affirmative action was only a factor at schools like Harvard and Yale. After the court’s ruling, she was surprised to find that race was taken into account even at some public universities she was applying to.

Now, without affirmative action, she wondered if mostly white schools will become even whiter.

It’s been on her mind as she chooses between Indiana University and the University of Dayton, both of which have relatively few Black students. When she was one of the only Black students in her grade school, she could fall back on her family and Ghanaian friends at church. At college, she worries about loneliness.

“That’s what I’m nervous about,” she said. “Going and just feeling so isolated, even though I’m constantly around people.”

Hillary Amofa reads her college essay on embracing her natural hair. (AP Video/Noreen Nasir)

The first drafts of her essay focused on growing up in a low-income family, sharing a bedroom with her brother and grandmother. But it didn’t tell colleges about who she is now, she said.

Her final essay tells how she came to embrace her natural hair . She wrote about going to a mostly white grade school where classmates made jokes about her afro. When her grandmother sent her back with braids or cornrows, they made fun of those too.

Over time, she ignored their insults and found beauty in the styles worn by women in her life. She now runs a business doing braids and other hairstyles in her neighborhood.

“I stopped seeing myself through the lens of the European traditional beauty standards and started seeing myself through the lens that I created,” Amofa wrote.

“Criticism will persist, but it loses its power when you know there’s a crown on your head!”

Ma reported from Portland, Oregon.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .

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New York Takes Crucial Step Toward Making Congestion Pricing a Reality

The board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to approve a new $15 toll to drive into Manhattan. The plan still faces challenges from six lawsuits before it can begin in June.

By Winnie Hu and Ana Ley

New York City completed a crucial final step on Wednesday in a decades-long effort to become the first American city to roll out a comprehensive congestion pricing program, one that aims to push motorists out of their cars and onto mass transit by charging new tolls to drive into Midtown and Lower Manhattan.

The program could start as early as mid-June after the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that will install and manage the program, voted 11-to-1 to approve the final tolling rates, which will charge most passenger cars $15 a day to enter at 60th Street and below in Manhattan. The program is expected to reduce traffic and raise $1 billion annually for public transit improvements.

It was a historic moment for New York’s leaders and transportation advocates after decades of failed attempts to advance congestion pricing even as other gridlocked cities around the world, including London, Stockholm and Singapore, proved that similar programs could reduce traffic and pollution.

While other American cities have introduced related concepts by establishing toll roads or closing streets to traffic, the plan in New York is unmatched in ambition and scale.

Congestion pricing is expected to reduce the number of vehicles that enter Lower Manhattan by about 17 percent, according to a November study by an advisory committee reporting to the M.T.A. The report also said that the total number of miles driven in 28 counties across the region would be reduced.

“This was the right thing to do,” Janno Lieber, the authority’s chairman and chief executive, said after the vote. “New York has more traffic than any place in the United States, and now we’re doing something about it.”

Congestion pricing has long been a hard sell in New York, where many people commute by car from the boroughs outside of Manhattan and the suburbs, in part because some of them do not have access to public transit.

New York State legislators finally approved congestion pricing in 2019 after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo helped push it through. A series of recent breakdowns in the city’s subway system had underscored the need for billions of dollars to update its aging infrastructure.

It has taken another five years to reach the starting line. Before the tolling program can begin, it must be reviewed by the Federal Highway Administration, which is expected to approve it.

Congestion pricing also faces legal challenges from six lawsuits that have been brought by elected officials and residents from across the New York region. Opponents have increasingly mobilized against the program in recent months, citing the cost of the tolls and the potential environmental effects from shifting traffic and pollution to other areas as drivers avoid the tolls.

A court hearing is scheduled for April 3 and 4 on a lawsuit brought by the State of New Jersey, which is seen as the most serious legal challenge. The mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., Mark J. Sokolich, has filed a related lawsuit.

Four more lawsuits have been brought in New York: by Ed Day, the Rockland County executive; by Vito Fossella, the Staten Island borough president, and the United Federation of Teachers; and by two separate groups of city residents.

Amid the litigation, M.T.A. officials have suspended some capital construction projects that were to be paid for by the program, and they said at a committee meeting on Monday that crucial work to modernize subway signals on the A and C lines had been delayed.

Nearly all the toll readers have been installed, and will automatically charge drivers for entering the designated congestion zone at 60th Street or below. There is no toll for leaving the zone or driving around in it. Through traffic on Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive and the West Side Highway will not be tolled.

Under the final tolling structure, which was based on recommendations by the advisory panel, most passenger vehicles will be charged $15 a day from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays, and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends. The toll will be $24 for small trucks and charter buses, and will rise to $36 for large trucks and tour buses. It will be $7.50 for motorcycles.

Those tolls will be discounted by 75 percent at night, dropping the cost for a passenger vehicle to $3.75.

Fares will go up by $1.25 for taxis and black car services, and by $2.50 for Uber and Lyft. Passengers will be responsible for paying the new fees, and they will be added to every ride that begins, ends or occurs within the congestion zone. There will be no nighttime discounts. (The new fees come on top of an existing congestion surcharge that was imposed on for-hire vehicles in 2019.)

The tolls will mostly be collected using the E-ZPass system. Electronic detection points have been placed at entrances and exits to the tolling zone. Drivers who do not use an E-ZPass will pay significantly higher fees — for instance, $22.50 instead of $15 during peak hours for passenger vehicles.

Emergency vehicles like fire trucks, ambulances and police cars, as well as vehicles carrying people with disabilities, were exempted from the new tolls under the state’s congestion pricing legislation .

As for discounts, low-income drivers who make less than $50,000 annually can apply to receive half off the daytime toll after their first 10 trips in a calendar month. In addition, low-income residents of the congestion zone who make less than $60,000 a year can apply for a state tax credit.

All drivers entering the zone directly from four tolled tunnels — the Lincoln, Holland, Hugh L. Carey and Queens-Midtown — will receive a “crossing credit” that will be applied against the daytime toll. The credit will be $5 round-trip for passenger vehicles, $12 for small trucks and intercity and charter buses, $20 for large trucks and tour buses, and $2.50 for motorcycles. No credits will be offered at night.

Grace Ashford contributed reporting.

Winnie Hu is a Times reporter covering the people and neighborhoods of New York City. More about Winnie Hu

Ana Ley is a Times reporter covering New York City’s mass transit system and the millions of passengers who use it. More about Ana Ley

Islamism is dead in Erdogan’s Turkey

T here are moments in the political life of every nation that mark the breaking of an old order, even if the new order has not yet been built. Last weekend’s local elections in Turkey marked such a fracture with the beginning of the end of Recep Tayyip Erdogan ’s 22 year rule. 

Erdogan has bestrode Turkish politics so confidently and so long that it can be hard to remember what the country was like before he transformed it. 

Back in 2002 Turkey was a chaotic democracy mitigated by frequent interventions from the ultra-secularist military. The wearing of Islamic headscarves was banned in all public offices, schools and universities, and the public celebration of Ramadan was officially discouraged. The media were free, but wildly partisan and often controlled by powerful business interests. Turkey’s politics were focused on joining the European Union, and its foreign policy closely aligned with Washington’s. 

Erdogan changed all that. Though a mild Islamist by the standards of the Muslim Brotherhood or Hezbollah, Erdogan encouraged public religiosity, boosted religious schools (whose graduates went on to take top positions in the administration and judiciary), systematically converted museums into mosques and quietly cracked down on alcohol consumption. 

More dangerously, he launched a series of Putin-style shakedowns of independent media companies and used public funds to create a local political machine that made his AK party near unbeatable in multiple elections and referendums, each of which gave more power to Erdogan. 

On the international stage Erdogan forged an on-again, off-again friendship with Putin, massively beefed up Russian gas imports from Russia, and in Syria ignored Nato allies to pursue his own war against the Kurds. 

Along the way he also blackmailed Europe by threatening to open his borders to let hundreds of thousands of refugees flow into Greece and Bulgaria, jailed over 100,000 political opponents in the wake of an abortive military coup in 2016 and created a cult of personality second only to that of modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. 

Erdogan recently shook down Nato for as many concessions as he could extract as he delayed the accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance. 

Yet for all his authoritarianism, Erdogan failed to kill off Turkish democracy. As the weekend’s shocking results showed, voters in Western and northern Turkey firmly rejected the AK Party. The big winner was the secularist Republican People’s Party or CHP, founded as the party of government by Ataturk’s first prime minister. 

But there was worrying news in the results too, as the strongly Islamist Yeni Refah Party came in third. 

Mismanagement of the economy was the proximate cause of Erdogan’s defeat, with runaway inflation making even basic foodstuffs unaffordable for pensioners and anyone on a fixed salary. But there was clearly a strong ideological backlash too. In extraordinary scenes, tens of thousands of people came out on the streets of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir to chant “Turkey will be secular!” 

Erdogan is not finished yet. Despite rumours of poor health, he still has four years of his presidential term left to run – and if he can fix the economy and tame inflation, he has a good chance of repairing his broken popularity by 2028. 

Nonetheless, this weekend had marked a tipping point. Erdogan’s uninterrupted run of electoral success has finally crashed against popular resistance. Even his usually ebullient, hectoring tone had visibly changed in the aftermath of his defeat.

“Turkish people have spoken, it has sent a signal to the political leaders,” Erdogan told supporters. “Turkish democracy proved its maturity. Today’s elections are a turning point, not an end for us.” 

Turkey’s political path matters to all of us. It is the region’s largest Muslim democracy, has the second largest military in Nato, and has deep influence in the European continent’s two most explosive political axes – Russia/Ukraine and the Middle East. We need a stable Turkey that is on our side. 

A politically humbled Erdogan will hopefully be a little more mindful of the value of good relations with Nato and the EU, and be a better friend to the West. 

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