
Unlike the Baptist pastor Martin Luther King, Elijah Muhammad did not want harmony between whites and blacks. The former leader of the Nation of Islam was a black supremacist, known for his hatred of whites and Jews and for seeking support from the American Nazi Party. New York City Hall has just honored him by naming a street after him, as anti-Semitism continues to grow in the United States.
On February 16, the New York City Council passed a bill to name 129 public places in honor of various personalities. The text would not have aroused any controversy if he hadn't mentioned Elijah Muhammad, whose anti-Semitism, hatred of whites and violence are impossible to ignore. The leader of the Nation of Islam who died in 1975 is even accused of having favored by his rhetoric the assassination of Malcolm X, a dissident of the movement, 10 years earlier. Henceforth the intersection of West 127th Street and Malcom X Boulevard will be named "The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad Way". Malcolm X preached for a long time in the mosque there. A policeman had been there killed by members of Nation of Islam in 1972, while answering an emergency call at the mosque, thus falling into a trap.
Elijah Muhammad, an "Adolf Hitler" according to the American Nazi Party
The city councilwoman behind the project, Harlem Democrat Kristin Richardson Jordan sees it as belated justice for the black supremacist leader who called white people "blue-eyed demons". “It is unacceptable to erase black leaders who do not appeal to white people,” she said during the vote.
Among the principles of the Nation of Islam is theprohibition of interracial relations. This hatred of white people, however, did not prevent its leader from inviting George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the Nazi Party, to his Savior's Day convention in 1962. Rockwell complimented him by calling him "the Adolf Hitler of the black man".
THEAnti-Defamation League recalls (ADL) that Nation of Islam has "maintained a steady record of anti-Semitism and bigotry since its founding in the 1930s [and that it] engages in demonization and conspiracy theories as to the biological nature of white people portrayed as satanic, subhuman, and inherently inferior to black people." Elijah Muhammad hated the Jews no less, whom he called "greedy" and accused of having delivered Christ to the authorities.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, an association often complacent towards intolerant progressive movements, himself denounced the anti-Semitism of Nation of Islam, recalling that Louis Farrakhan, successor to Elijah Muhammad had called Hitler a "very great man" and Judaism a "dirty religion", and had conspiracy theories about the role of Jews and Israel in the attacks of September 11 . Nation of Islam even published a series of books titled, "Relationship Between Blacks and Jews", claiming that Jews were behind the transatlantic slave trade and that they continue to control black people.
This tribute comes as anti-Semitism grows in the United States. Last November 28, the American Catholic bishops denounced "the re-emergence of anti-Semitism in new forms“. In 2021, the ADL had recorded 2 anti-Semitic incidents across the country, 717% more than in 34.
Jean Sarpedon