A document from the CQ Researcher archives: Report Outline
Civil Rights Debate and Negro Militancy
Changing Beliefs About Race Differences
Black Muslim Sect and Block Racism Civil Rights Debate and Negro Militancy Entry of Race Issue in Presidential Primaries Capture by gov. george c. wallace of Alabama of more than one-third of the votes cast in the Wisconsin Democratic presidential preference primary on April 7, and of 30 per cent of the votes cast on the Democratic side in the similar Indiana primary on May 5, seems to give substance to the contention that Negro agitation for equal rights has begun to produce a “backlash” reaction among white northerners. Wallace's next encounter with voters beyond the confines of his own state will be in Maryland's presidential preference primary on May 19. The Alabama governor, determined foe of racial desegregation, entered the primaries of the two midwestern states and of the border state of Maryland as a means of protesting what he considers federal encroachment on states' rights as exemplified by the House-passed civil rights bill now under debate in the Senate. Wallace said originally that he would be content to get 25,000 votes in Wisconsin; he actually received more than 10 times that number. In Wisconsin, and to some extent also in Indiana, the governor benefited from votes of Republicans who “crossed over” into the Democratic primary either to express their support of Wallace's racial views or to embarrass the Democrats. In Maryland, only Democrats will be allowed to vote in the Democratic presidential primary. Consequently, the results of the contest between Wallace and U.S. Sen. Daniel B. Erewster, who is running as a stand-in for President Johnson, may give a more accurate indication of the southern governor's strength and, indirectly, of the strength of anti-civil rights sentiment outside the Deep South. Maryland, and particularly the state's rural Eastern Shore, has been the scene of intense and prolonged Negro agitation. Despite that fact, Wallace's intrusion into Maryland politics aroused resentment among the state's political leaders and among leaders in other fields. A committee of 15 Roman Catholic, Protestant and Jewish clergymen in Baltimore County denounced the Alabama governor on May 4 as an “outspoken exponent of bigotry and hatred” and as a “symbol of all that is base and divisive” at a time when “all of us are striving for the unity of man.” The bishop of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Maryland wrote on the same day to 180 clergymen of his diocese that Wallace's entry into the state political campaign had introduced a “bitter racism …reminiscent of the early 1930s in Nazi Germany.” Campaign material that he had seen, the bishop said, indicated that “A race war has been declared and the whipping boy is the civil rights bill.” Wallace's views on race relations are regarded as extreme even among dedicated segregationists, yet he insists that he is no racist. During the Wisconsin campaign he denned a racist as “a man who dislikes another man because he is black—he despises the handiwork of God.” A segregationist, on the other hand, “likes people and knows that when God made some men black and some men white He separated us Himself in the beginning.” Wallace called, in his inaugural address at Montgomery in 1963, for “segregation now,…segregation tomorrow,…segregation forever.” Senate Filibuster; Task Ahead on Civil Rights Wallace's primary campaigning is being watched closely by President Johnson and by lawmakers on Capitol Hill. It is feared that if the substantial vote he received in Wisconsin and Indiana is duplicated or increased in Maryland, the hand of senators who want to weaken or scuttle the civil rights bill will be appreciably strengthened. The bill passed the House last Feb. 10 by a vote of 290 to 130. Although administration leaders voice confidence that it will eventually pass the Senate, they do not conceal the fact that a sizable number of Republican votes will be needed to break the southern filibuster now in progress. Convincing showings of northern and western impatience at the tactics and timing of civil rights agitators may make it harder to obtain the Republican votes required to put through a motion of cloture to shut off Senate debate, or at least harder to obtain the votes without agreeing to more far-reaching amendments than those the Democratic leadership is now willing to accept. Passage of the civil rights bill will hardly destroy existing barriers between the races overnight. Stressing the long-term nature of that task, the authors of a recent book pointed out that “To share in the wealth, quite obviously the Negroes need jobs that will pay them an adequate living.” To qualify for such jobs the Negroes need education. To get a good education they must live in neighborhoods where the schools are good. And to do that they have to have the money to pay for decent housing. This vicious circle has long existed and shows no real signs of being broken yet. President Johnson alluded to this problem, April 9, when he told 200 business executives that enactment of the civil rights bill would “leave us on the side of the hill with the big peak still above us.” He appealed to the executives to make sure that Negroes had equal employment opportunities in their companies. “Don't let the Constitution apply [only] to property,” Johnson said. “Let it apply to people.” Stepped-Up Pace of Civil Rights Demonstrations Mass demonstrations last spring and summer directed increased national attention to Negro grievances and impelled the late President Kennedy to propose sweeping civil rights legislation. Now that warm weather has returned, Negroes are again taking to the streets to dramatize their demands. Most of the mass protests to date have been organized and led by one or more of the established civil rights organizations. But a growing number seem to be of spontaneous origin. The most publicized civil rights demonstration of recent weeks never came off. Members of the Brooklyn chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality announced a plan, April 9, to tie up traffic on five major highways leading to the New York World's Fair. The “stall-in” was to take place on April 22, opening day of the fair, and was designed to focus attention on the manifold problems of Negroes in New York City. Some 2,000 automobiles were to run out of gasoline or suffer mechanical failure on the highways, thus creating a huge traffic jam. As it turned out, only a dozen or so cars showed up and their drivers thought it useless to proceed as planned. Others apparently were scared off by a court injunction against the stall-in and by harsh criticism of the project say national officials of CORE. However, picketing and sit-ins occurred within the fair grounds and a dedicatory speech by President Johnson was marred by the shouting of demonstrators. Civil rights demonstrations in other cities have followed a familiar pattern. Rioting broke out in Jacksonville, Fla., on March 23 when police attempted to break up a meeting of Negroes in a city park. The following day, students hurled stones at police, firemen, school officials and reporters after a telephoned bomb threat to a Negro high school. Demonstrations over so-called de facto school segregation brought clashes with the police in Chester, Pa., in March and April and led to temporary closing of the schools. Nashville, Tenn., which has made more progress toward desegregation than many other southern cities, has recently been the scene of continuing disturbances produced by picketing of still segregated restaurants by Negro and white groups driving for “total desegregation.” Demonstrations aimed at desegregation of public accommodations in St. Augustine, Fla., were highlighted by the arrest, March 31, of Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, mother of Massachusetts Gov. Endicott Peabody. The arrest came after Mrs. Peabody and several Negro and white companions had sought service in the dining room of a motel. Accused of being undesirable guests, they were charged with trespassing and conspiracy. Persons arrested the next day included four clergymen from Yale, among them the university chaplain, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., a veteran of civil rights demonstrations. In Washington on April 19, teams of seminarians of Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish theological schools began a silent prayer vigil at the Lincoln Memorial; their intention is to continue the vigil 24 hours a day until the civil rights bill becomes law. Representatives of the American Nazi Party took up nearby posts in a “Vigil on Behalf of the White Christian Majority Which Opposes Minority Tyranny.” Final disposition of the civil rights bill is sure to be followed by continuing racial agitation. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said last March 26 that, if the bill becomes law, “We will have to demonstrate to test the bill and test the compliance of communities in the South to make certain that the rights are not just down on paper.” If the bill fails of enactment, King warned, the resulting “bitterness, frustration and despair of Negroes” would make it “difficult to keep the [civil rights] struggle non-violent and disciplined.” Go to top Changing Beliefs About Race Differences Segregation and the generally disadvantaged status of the American Negro are products of racism—the belief that one race, usually the so-called white race, is superior to all others. This is a fairly recent concept. Neither in the ancient world nor in the modern world up to the end of the 18th century did there exist any notion corresponding to it. “Caste and class differences certainly were made the basis for discrimination in many societies, and in ancient Greece some attempt was even made to find a biological foundation for such discrimination, but this was of a very limited nature and never gained general acceptance.” Racism in this country arose in response to a need for some moral justification of slavery. Initially, racist doctrine was grounded in theology rather than biology. It was argued that the Negro was a heathen and a barbarian, a descendant of Noah's accursed son Ham; hence he was doomed forever to be a hewer of wood and drawer of water. A corollary was that slavery afforded Negroes the benefit of becoming Christians and gaining a rudimentary education. Anthropological Theories About Negro Evolution Until the middle of the 19th century, the contention that the various races had evolved separately was considered heretical; the Bible clearly stated that all men were descendants of a single human pair. Nevertheless, students of anthropology kept searching for evidence of innate racial differences, with the result that the dogma of Negro physical inferiority was firmly established before the Civil War. The writings of anthropologists in the first half of the 19th century were far from scientific, but they commanded a wide and sympathetic audience. The general approach was to consign Negroes to a sub-human category on the basis of observable physical traits. For example, the prognathous jaws of Negroes were compared to the snouts of “stupid and gluttonous” animals. The most popular “proof” of the Negro's intellectual backwardness was his limited cranial capacity. Samuel George Morton, a noted Philadelphia physician, firmly believed that a large cranium indicated superior intelligence. In a study published in 1849, he reported that Englishmen had the largest craniums, with Americans and Germans poor rivals for second place. At the bottom of Morton's list were Negroes, Chinese and Indians. He based his conclusions on measurements of more than 800 skulls, carried out by filling them with shot pellets or pepper seed. However, it was difficult to determine when to stop pouring, and the second and third measurements of a single skull often did not correspond to the first. Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, published in 1859, destroyed the basis for many of the old racial theories, but at the same time it provided a new framework within which existing beliefs about racial superiority or inferiority could find a place. Darwin's influence upon race theory arose not so much from anything specific which he himself said on the subject …as from certain analogies which his followers drew between relationships among the lower species in the animal world, on the one hand, and among men in human societies on the other. The idea of natural selection was translated to a struggle between individual members of a society, between members of classes of a society, between different nations, and between different races. This conflict, far from being an evil thing, was nature's indispensable method for producing superior men, superior nations, and superior races. Darwin's theories on evolution were seized upon by racists to support their contention that Negroes were at a stage of development midway between those of white men and of the apes. The alleged resemblance between Negroes and apes was offered as proof of the argument. Even today many white persons believe that the Negro race is several hundred or several thousand years behind the white race in the evolutionary scale. Negro minds, it is asserted, cannot be improved beyond a certain level. This is held to account for the fact that Negro Africa has never produced an alphabet or a great civilization. It was and continues to be easy for white persons to believe that Negroes are inferior, The average Negro is poorer, less healthy and shorter-lived than the average white. Thus, “The correct observation that the Negro is inferior was tied up to the correct belief than man belongs to the biological universe, and, by twisting logic, the incorrect deduction was made that the inferiority is biological in nature.” Laws Imposing Second-Class Status on Negroes After the Civil War, southern states undertook to restrict the rights of the newly freed slaves. This was done through enactment of so-called “Black Codes.” Although the various Black Codes differed in their provisions, they generally barred Negroes from voting or holding public office; excluded them from military service; required them to carry passes when traveling; and severely limited the types of jobs open to them. Negroes were left only with the rights to own and inherit property, to sue and be sued in court, and to marry (other Negroes). The Black Codes prompted an angry Congress to pass the Reconstruction Act of 1867. Among other provisions, that law required the states formerly in rebellion to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition for readmittance to the Union. Section I of the Fourteenth Amendment decreed that “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” During the decade of Reconstruction, Negroes were given the ballot while the suffrage of whites who had supported the Confederacy was drastically curtailed. The South in this period was controlled by a Republican party made up locally of Negroes, scalawags and carpetbaggers. Years later, southerners pointed to the excesses of “Black Republicanism” to justify political proscription of Negroes. Mass disfranchisement of Negroes did not come immediately after withdrawal of federal troops from the South in 1877. At first, the Negro retained his voting rights and was an important source of support of both the Populist and Redemptionist parties. But tolerance of Negro political activity began to recede after 1883, when federal restraints were further weakened by the Supreme Court's invalidation of the Civil Rights Act of 1875. C. Vann Woodward, Yale professor of history, has written: “What had started then [withdrawal of federal troops in 1877] as a retreat had within a decade turned into a rout. Northern radicals and liberals had abandoned the cause; the courts had rendered the Constitution helpless; the Republican party had forsaken the cause it had sponsored. A tide of racism was mounting in the country unopposed.” Mississippi drew up a new constitution in 1890 which required prospective voters to pay a poll tax of $2 and to demonstrate their ability to read any section of the state constitution or to interpret it when read to them. Through the years, the poll tax and the literacy test became common methods of disfranchising Negroes in southern states. Additional laws designed to isolate the Negro from the white community were enacted in this period. Jim Crow laws, requiring railroads to seat Negro passengers in separate cars or behind partitions, were put on the statute books of most of the southern states between 1887 and 1892. The Supreme Court's decision in 1896, upholding Louisiana's Jim Crow law, established the separate-but-equal doctrine which stood as the legal buttress of racial segregation until the Court abandoned it in its school desegregation decision of 1954. Southern defenders of segregation considered it necessary to preserve the white race from contamination by the inferior Negro race. Separate schools for whites and Negroes were set up because of the alleged difference of intelligence between the two races; for the same reason, Negro education was directed toward development of manual rather than intellectual skills. To justify housing segregation, whites cited the thriftlessness, loose morals and criminal tendencies of Negroes. Belief in a peculiar “hircine [goat-like] odor” of Negroes was the ostensible reason for imposing segregation in such public places as restaurants, theaters, department store fitting rooms, and buses. The underlying aim of social segregation, it has been asserted, was to prevent sexual relations between Negroes and whites—particularly between Negro men and white women. Most of the miscegenation that has taken place in this country has involved clandestine mating of white men and Negro women; relationships of this kind date back to the slavery period. It is commonly thought that Negro men, possessed of a primitive sexuality, are incessantly scheming to seduce white women. Most of the lynchings of colored men were designed to punish them for real or imagined advances toward women of the other race, while Klan terrorism was aimed to frighten them out of making such advances. Negroes and Intelligence Tests in World War I Development of intelligence tests around the turn of the century provided ammunition to support contentions of Negro inferiority. Two Frenchmen, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon, devised a series of tests in 1905 to measure degrees of intelligence in children. Binet and Simon regarded the tests primarily as a means of detecting feeblemindedness. They insisted, moreover, that the results shown by tests of different children would be comparable only if the children who had been tested came from similar environments. Many American psychologists nevertheless used the tests to determine intellectual capacity without relation to social, economic or educational background. Inevitably, the first intelligence tests given in this country showed that the children of bank presidents, lawyers and college professors scored higher than did the children of laborers and sharecroppers. This result was taken to prove, not the fortunate effect of a good environment, but the supreme importance of a good heredity. An intelligence tester observed in 1916 that low scores were “very, very common among Spanish-Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest, and also among Negroes.” He concluded that “Their dullness seems to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stocks from which they came.” An opportunity to employ intelligence tests on a mass scale came in 1917 when the United States entered World War I. The armed services wanted to find out which men would be most effective in certain jobs. Accordingly, a committee of psychologists drew up aptitude and intelligence tests—the “army alpha” and “army beta”—which were taken by more than 1.7 million servicemen. The test results confirmed what racists had said all along—that Negroes as a group were less intelligent than whites. Robert M. Yerkes, chairman of the committee which had devised the tests, asserted after the war that “Quite apart from educational status, which is utterly unsatisfactory, the Negro soldier is of relatively low grade intelligence.” The fact that Negro soldiers from Ohio, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania scored higher, on the average, than did white soldiers from Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky and Mississippi was not considered significant. Stir Over Nordic Supremacy and Yellow Peril The decade following World War I witnessed violent expressions of racism. Race riots took place as servicemen returned home, lynchings increased, and a revived Ku Klux Klan gained strength in the North as well as the South. Contributing to the upsurge was a flood of books on the subject of race relations. All had a common theme: that the world's white peoples were in danger of being overwhelmed by the inferior, but vastly more numerous, colored peoples. A typical racist book of the period was Lothrop Stoddard's The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy, published in 1920. Stoddard believed that “The Russo-Japanese War [was] one of those landmarks in human history whose significance increases with the lapse of time.” When Japan defeated Russia, “The legend of white invincibility was shattered, the veil of prestige that draped white civilization was torn aside, and the white world's manifold ills were laid bare for candid examination.” Thus emboldened, the colored races of the world might be expected to wage a war to the death with the white race. Stoddard was not content with the simple doctrine of white supremacy. He subdivided whites into Nordics, Alpines and Mediterraneans, in descending order of superiority. All three were “good stocks, ranking in genetic worth well above the various colored races,” but without question the Nordics stood “at the head of the whole human genus.” Curiously, however, the Nordic was something of a hothouse flower. He excelled at war but tended to die out in “the cramped factory and the crowded city.” Negroes, on the other hand, seemed to thrive under the most adverse conditions. Lothrop appeared to advocate a sort of upside-down Darwinism. The fittest, in his view, did not survive; the fast-breeding colored races did. Even so, the white races were superior because of their heredity, “Civilization of itself is nothing,” Stoddard declared. “It is merely an effect, whose cause is the creative urge of superior germ-plasm,” by which he meant white genes. Although Negroes have always been the principal target of American racists, persons of Oriental extraction also have suffered from discrimination. Racial feeling over the influx of Chinese laborers reached a high pitch on the West Coast after the Civil War, and hi 1882 Congress passed the first of a series of laws prohibiting immigration from China. California later barred Orientals from owning real property within the state, and San Francisco for years maintained a separate school for Chinese children. Emergence of Japan as a major power at the turn of the century intensified fear of the “yellow peril/” one of Stoddard's favorite themes. Dbeunking of Racist Theories of Earlier Times Surprising as it may seem today, Stoddard and other racist propagandists were taken seriously in the 1920s. “It is essential to understand that quite a large number of people eminent in the sciences and social sciences were then genuinely convinced that races vary greatly in innate intelligence and temperament.” Discussion of racial differences has always hinged on the relative importance of heredity and environment, or of “nature and nurture.” Until the late 1920s, it was taken for granted that genes determined racial characteristics, and that environment had little effect one way or the other. The prevailing opinion today is that environment plays a far greater role than heredity in determining an individual's capacity for learning or his place in society. One by one, the cherished beliefs of racists have turned out to be unfounded. For example, anthropologists now assert that cranial capacity has nothing to do with intelligence. The brain of Neanderthal man was far bigger than that of modern man, yet no one suggests that human intelligence has been decreasing for 50,000 years. The “peculiar odor” of lower-class Negroes disappears upon application of soap and water. And the learning capacity of Negro children shows marked improvement when they go to schools as good as those attended by white children. These and other discoveries have made it difficult “for even popular writers to express other views than the ones of racial equalitarianism and still retain intellectual respect.” Changing Attitude Op U.S. Presidents on Negroes Racism is put under a cloud today by the very fact that the power of the presidency is now actively arrayed against it. This was not always so. Although Thomas Jefferson was responsible for the phrase “All men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence, he felt that the Negro was “in reason much inferior” to the white man. Lincoln, a believer in compensated emancipation, issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a measure of military expediency and made it applicable only to areas still in rebellion and therefore out of the reach of federal authority. Theodore Roosevelt, criticized for inviting Booker T. “Washington to dinner at the White House, said in a letter to Owen Wister in 1906: “Now as to the Negroes! I entirely agree with you that as a race and in the mass they are altogether inferior to the whites.” Recent Presidents have shown far more sympathy for Negroes. Whites and Negroes benefited alike from the economic recovery programs of the Franklin Roosevelt administration. President Truman ordered desegregation of the armed forces in 1951. The Eisenhower administration was marked by passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, both turned at removing barriers to voting by Negroes. Now, President Johnson has pledged full support of the civil rights legislation initiated by the late President Kennedy. “We're going to pass the civil rights bill,” Johnson said at a news conference on April 16, “because it's morally right.” Negroes themselves have acquired new pride as they have learned more about their past, both in Africa and in this country. Recent evidence suggests that it was in Africa that human life developed out of animal life. A British scholar, L. S. B. Leakey, has stated that “Africa's first contribution to human progress, then, was the evolution of man himself.” Historians have concluded that Negro African societies of medieval times were as advanced in social organization and in some material accomplishments as contemporary societies in Europe. Go to top Black Muslim Sect and Block Racism White racism has its counterpart in the black racism preached by the Nation of Islam, or Black Muslims. The Black Muslims are strongly anti-Christian and anti-white. According to their doctrine, “All colors are but shades of black; white is but the absence of color; hence the white man is incomplete and imperfect.” What the Muslims call the white man's cruelty to Negroes shows, they say, that he is incapable of following the precepts of his own religion. Christianity, with its emphasis on suffering, humility, and a better life after death, is attacked as a hypocritical doctrine designed to make Negroes accept their inferior status. Islam, the Muslims assert, is the Negro's true religion. Islamic Influence in Medieval African Nations This assertion of the Black Muslims has foundation in fact. Islamic influence was strong in the great West African kingdoms of Ghana, Mali and Songhay, which flourished from the fourth to the 15th centuries. As a result, a substantial portion of the people of West Africa had either become Muslims by the 15th century or were to become Muslims during the heyday of the slave trade. Because most of the Negro slaves brought to America had lived in this area, many of them were Muslims. How many is not known, for American slave owners made determined efforts to convert the Negroes to Christianity and memories of their African heritage faded. Three studies of Muslim slaves were written in the United States in the 19th century, but all were sketchy. However, “It seems clear that there were many Muslim slaves, that they were regarded as superior by themselves and others, and that they managed to remain loyal to their religion despite the uncongenial environment.” Moreover, they were “among the tougher breeds of slaves, resisting more tenaciously that process of cultural dispossession through which all were put.” Origins of Black Muslim Movement in America Islam seemed to have died out as a religious force among American Negroes when, at the time of World War I, it reappeared in connection with the black nationalist movement. According to C. Eric Lincoln, “All black nationalist movements have in common three characteristics: a disparagement of the white man and his culture, a repudiation of Negro identity and an appropriation of ‘Asiatic’ culture symbols.” The most prominent such movement of the period was the Universal Negro Improvement Association, established in 1914 by Marcus Garvey. Garvey, a Jamaica-born Negro, captured the imagination of the black masses in many parts of the world and was a great power in the United States, where he aroused concern among Negro leaders committed to integration of Negroes into American life. Although Garvey learned about Negro history and culture from a part-Negro Egyptian Muslim, Duse Mohammed Ali, he did not stress Islamic themes. He did, however, attack Christianity for its failure to protect Negroes against exploitation. American Negroes contributed $1 million to the U.N.I.A.'s Black Star Steamship Line, organized to link the black peoples of the world in commerce and trade, and to transport American Negroes back to their African “homeland.” Garvey also formed the Universal Black Cross Nurses, the Universal Africa Motor Corps, the Black Eagle Flying Corps, and the Universal African Legion, His immediate plan was to settle American Negroes in Liberia; later, he intimated, Negroes would drive white colonialists out of Africa. However, none of these grandiose projects came to fruition. Garvey was convicted in 1923 of mail fraud and, after his release from prison four years later, was deported. Deprived of its leader, the movement collapsed. Meanwhile, a North Carolina Negro named Timothy Drew had organized the Moorish Science Temple of America in Newark, N. J., in 1913. Using the name Noble Drew AH, Drew compiled a Koran made up of the real Koran, the Bible, Marcus Garvey's pronouncements, and his own ideas. Drew's followers eschewed tobacco, intoxicants and dancing, and observed the Sabbath on Friday. The Temple fell apart when Drew died in 1929. One of Drew's followers is supposed to have been W. D. Fard, revered today by Black Muslims as the reincarnation of Allah. Little is known of Fard aside from the fact that he was a house-to-house salesman in Detroit in the early 1930s. He disappeared without a trace in 1934. One faction of the fragmented Nation of Islam, which Fard had founded, was taken over by Elijah Poole, a Negro from Georgia. Now known as Elijah Muhammed, Poole is regarded by Black Muslims as the Messenger of Allah. Muslim Numbers, Rules of Conduct, and Aims In recent years the Black Muslims have commanded more attention than their strength would seem to warrant, partly because no one knows exactly how many Muslims there are. Estimates of total membership range from 50,000 to 300,000. Most Muslims appear to be lower-class Negroes who have abandoned hope that the white man will redress their grievances. Muslim organizers have been notably successful in gaining converts in penal institutions. Black Muslims are required to adhere to a rigid code of conduct. All members must pray at least five times a day, facing east while doing so. Certain foods, such as pork and cornbread, must not be eaten. In general, Muslims have only one meal a day, and obesity is often punished by fines. Use of tobacco and alcohol is strictly forbidden. Hatred of the white man is the bedrock of Black Muslim philosophy. Two of the rules in Elijah Muhammed's “Twelve Point Program” are “Stop forcing yourself into places where you are not wanted” and “Do not seek to mix your blood through racial integration.” Muhammed often refers, in vague terms, to “a separate nation for ourselves, right here in America.” He believes that the federal government should cede one or more states to the Nation of Islam to compensate for the unpaid labor of Negro slaves. Muslims insist that they do not incite violence but that they have no hesitation about fighting back if attacked. One of the most striking features of the movement is the Fruit of Islam, an elite corps of the most emotionally committed and physically fit young Muslim men. Members of the Fruit of Islam, trained in hand-to-hand combat, act as bodyguards for Muslim leaders and impart an air of efficiency to religious ceremonies. It has been suggested that the Fruit of Islam might some day function as a police force in an all-Muslim community or state. Dissident Black Muslims who formerly belonged to the Fruit of Islam were reported early in May to be giving training in judo and karate to members of a Harlem youth gang, 400-strong, called Blood Brothers. While the ultimate object of the training was said to be to prepare a force to combat the police in case of trouble in Harlem, other reports pictured the gang as specializing in attacking white persons simply because they were white. Six Negro youths arrested in connection with the stabbing death of a woman shopkeeper and the wounding of her husband were thought to be members of the gang. Attitude of Islam Toward the Black Muslims Orthodox Islam seems to have mixed feelings about the Black Muslims. The racist doctrines of the movement have been denounced as inconsistent with the principles of a religion noted for its lack of color-consciousness. On the other hand, the Black Muslims show promise of giving Islam a foothold in North America; apart from the followers of Muhammed, there are only 30,000 Muslims on the entire continent. Adherents of orthodox Islam in the United States have shown far more antipathy toward the Black Muslims than have those in foreign countries. When Elijah Muhammed visited the Middle East, he was permitted to make a pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mecca, a privilege extended only to believers in Islam. And scholars at Al Azhar University in Cairo welcomed the announcement that heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay had joined the Black Muslims. Sheikh Sayed Sabik, professor of Islamic interpretation at the university, said on Feb. 28 that “We are all pleased that a Muslim set such a well-mannered religious example of sportsmanship.” It appears inevitable that the Black Muslims will in time be recognized as a legitimate Islamic sect, for “Anyone who accepts Islamic doctrine and tries to perform certain prescribed rituals has the right to call himself a Muslim.” Break Between Elijah Muhammed and Malcolm X The possibility of an extensive split in the Black Muslim movement was raised recently when Malcolm X, regarded as Muhammed's most likely successor, broke with the Black Muslim leader. Muhammed had suspended Malcolm last Dec. 5 for having said that President Kennedy's assassination was an example of “the chickens coming home to roost.” Malcolm remained silent until Feb. 8, when he announced that he planned to organize a black nationalist party. “I remain a Muslim,” Malcolm said, “but the main emphasis of the new movement will be black nationalism as a political concept and form of social action against the oppressors.” Five weeks later, on March 12, Malcolm said at a news conference in New York that Negroes “should form rifle clubs that can be used to defend our lives and our property in times of emergency.” He has also referred to a possible convention in New York to decide whether to form “a black nationalist party or a black nationalist army.” However, Malcolm, writing home while on a pilgrimage to Mecca at the end of April, spoke glowingly of his reception there and said that he would return with new and positive insights on race relations. Whitney M. Young Jr., executive director of the National Urban League, voiced fear in a May 7 speech that large numbers of Negroes and whites would “drift into extremist groups of the black nationalists on one hand and the white supremacists on the other” unless President Johnson and Congress took “immediate and far-reaching steps” to head off a national emergency into which the country was being forced by the anger of Negroes and the resentment of whites. An official of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had observed a day earlier that “If there's any sense left on the part of either the white or the black racists, they are under the sternest obligation to stop now before they carry the nation further toward disaster.” Go to top
Footnotes
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Document APA Citation
Worsnop, R. L. (1964). Racism in America. Editorial research reports 1964 (Vol. I). http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1964051300
Document ID: cqresrre1964051300
Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1964051300
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