The Role Played By the Organization of the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims) In the United States toward the Civil Rights Movement (1945-1965)
Mohammad A. Bani Salameh, Dept. of History,Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan.
Abstract
The post civil-war era (1865-1861) revealed that the liberation of black slaves was, for the most part, a military need. The government had no well-developed programs for merging and rehabilitating four million blacks who had just gained their freedom. This was fertile grounds for racist whites supported by racist cults to regain power over their ex-slaves through depriving them of their right to vote, instilling laws that secluded them from white societies, and intimidating them through imprisonment or even homicide. By the end of WWI, it had become crystal clear that the American society is actually two segregated and unequal societies.
As a result of political impotence, economic frustrations, and the huge social turmoil which inflicted the secluded black society, several organizations were formed aiming at merging blacks within the social fabric and providing them with equal rights compared to their white peers. Black Muslims on the other hand were skeptical and believed that this merger is a moral and biological insult to the black race. They also believed that seeking laws that guarantee the civil rights of blacks in the United States of America is nothing short of a conspiracy that seeks to neutralize and paralyze all potentials black Americans possess. The optimal solution for them was a complete political, economic, and social separation of the two societies.
The frustrations experienced by moderate black organizations throughout the successive American administrations lead them to seek more radical organizations. They ultimately found in the Nation of Islam a complete society through which they could reach their full potential and express their emotions. While American media was covering the traditional civil-rights movements, the Nation of Islam was working silently through a comprehensive agenda that sought strengthening the movement and adding to its active members. By the time the intelligence services realized the magnitude and dangers of this organization, neutralization of the movement was not a possible option. To limit the increasing numbers of blacks joining this movement, a series of laws were passed by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in favor of black Americans.
Thus if we are to give credit to the traditional movements supported by the white liberals for all the legal accomplishments in favor of black Americans, we need to keep in mind that this was possible because the American administrations feared that the Nation of Islam might become an umbrella for all other organizations. With this, the American administrations succeeded in separating the Nation of Islam from the local base that feeds it.