Black Muslims and the Law
Civil Liberties from Elijah Muhammad to Muhammad Ali
By (author) Malachi D. Crawford
Publication date:
05 February 2015Length of book:
184 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
237x159mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780739184882
Black Muslims and the Law: Civil Liberties From Elijah Muhammad to Muhammad Ali examines the Nation of Islam’s quest for civil liberties as what might arguably be called the inaugural and first sustained challenge to the suppression of religious freedom in African American legal history. Borrowing insights from A. Leon Higgonbotham Jr.’s classic works on American slavery jurisprudence, Black Muslims and the Law reveals the Nation of Islam’s strategic efforts to engage governmental officials from a position of power, and suggests the federal executive, congressmen, judges, lawyers, law enforcement officials, prison administrators, state governments, and African American civic leaders held a common understanding of what it meant to be and not to be African American and religious in the period between World War II and the Vietnam War. The work raises basic questions about the rights of African descended people to define god, question white moral authority, and critique the moral legitimacy of American war efforts according to their own beliefs and standards.
Crawford carefully traces the legal stratagem of the Lost-Found Nation of Islam (NOI) regarding civil liberties and religious freedom to the early 1970s. Founded on July 4, 1930, NOI initially little emphasized civil rights or civil liberties. That changed following purported persecution at its Detroit temples, government raids, and arrests for draft evasion during WW II. NOI women at that point helped attain social legitimacy for NOI within the African American community. Influenced by Howard University School of Law Dean Charles Hamilton Houston’s concern for civil rights and civil liberties, Howard Law alum Edward Jacko, along with the NOI’s young minister, Malcolm X, drew attention to a police assault on NOI member Johnson Hinton in Harlem in 1957. By the early 1960s, incarcerated NOI members initiated lawsuits demanding the right to practice their religion. At the same time, NOI had to contend with mounting police raids. NOI employed its new newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, to present the organization as a legitimate religious entity. Muhammad Ali’s legal struggles regarding conscientious objector status exemplified NOI’s determination to safeguard its members’ civil liberties. This is a concise, intelligent exploration of too-little-known facets of US cultural and legal history. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.