Plain Dealer photo documentary on the Nation of Islam

1. Cleveland, 2003:
Members of the
Fruit of Islam, the
Nation’s elite guard,
Mosque No. 18, exit
Cleveland, 2004: Curtis Muhammad teaches a lesson on Islamic Studies to students the Justice Center
in the fifth to eighth grade at Muhammad University of Islam Mosque No. 18. after Cleveland
The curriculum consists of science, reading, mathematics, history, Municipal Court
language and Islamic studies. Judge Mabel Jasper
dropped the charges
against six members
of the Nation of
Islam accused of
dragging a man from
his home and beat-
ing him in an effort
to obtain informa-
tion about the disap-
pearance of 11-year-
old Shakira Johnson.
With them ( second
from lef) Minister
t
Richard Muhammad,
leader of the
mosque; Minister
Jamil Muhammad
(behind Richard ),
and Abdul Arif
Muhammad, national
spokesman of the
Chicago, 2003: A reflection in a pool of water shows a man walking in front of Mosque Nation of Islam and
Maryam, headquarters of the Nation of Islam. The group’s symbol, a crescent moon and general counsel for
star, sits atop the building. The crescent represents freedom, justice and equality; Louis Farrakhan
the star is to provide guidance and show the beauty of the universe. (backg round cente) r.
HEN Plain Dealer staff gave readers a glimpse into the secretive “Negro Parks, Life’s first black lensman, won But it wasn’t until he was a graduate student of the Muslim paper The Final Call on street ways, the followers of Elijah Muhammad were
W
photographer Eustacio sect which preaches that whites are devils,” Life’s unprecedented access to the Nation and its lead- studying photojournalism at Ohio University corners in the early Sixties. different from any American blacks Humphrey
Humphrey first held the editors wrote. ers: Elijah Muhammad, who preached that the and a friend handed him a copy of Parks’ tour Humphrey, a Panamanian-born émigré who had seen. They embodied what Cornel West,
aging copy of Gordon Parks’ The Nation was ripe for an in-depth profile. black man must separate from the white man to through the Nation within a nation that he was grew up among blacks, whites, Asians and professor of religion and African American stud-
picture essay on the Nation Founded in Detroit in the 1930s by a mysterious survive and prosper, and Malcolm X, the group’s inspired to act. Latinos on a melting pot of a street in ies at Princeton University, says about blacks in
of Islam in his hands, he felt the rush of an and enigmatic silk peddler named Wallace D. incendiary, charismatic spokesman. He searched the Internet and combed library Dorchester, Massachusetts, was enthralled by America, explains Humphrey: “We’re not a
explorer unearthing a long-lost artifact. Fard, the group had risen to national promi- Humphrey had wanted to document the lives shelves but discovered that no one had done Parks’ images, the “otherness” of the Nation’s monolithic group of people.”
Published in 1963 in Life magazine, Parks’ nence on the wave of violence against civil rights of Black Muslims ever since reading about them anything as extensive on the black nationalists members. Humphrey donned a navy suit and burgundy
black-and-white photos and accompanying text activists in the South. in the Autobiography of Malcolm X years before. since Parks captured Malcolm X hawking copies With their somber attire and Spartan, modest bow tie and talked his way into mosques in
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C M Y K 7011213M0815 END PAGE. DON’T ERASE!