A Change is Gonna Come: New Leadership For Black Muslims

From Sepia magazine, May 1975

In 1975, Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, passed away. The Nation was no small movement, but a force within American society that inspired the minds, attitudes and actions of thousands of Black people. You did not have to be Black or Muslim to have some knowledge of the Nation, but an overwhelming number of Black Americans knew what they stood for and recognized their influence within their neighborhoods and communities. Elijah’s son, Imam Warith Deen Mohammed (may Allah be pleased with him, forgive his sins and grant him the highest rank in Jannah), eventually assumed leadership, but in the time immediately following Elijah Muhammad’s death, many wondered who would be the successor and what that meant going forward. What would happen to the Nation of Islam? This 1975 article from Sepia magazine raises at least some of the questions that were on the minds of the media and Black Americans following Elijah Muhammad’s death, with a particular interest surrounding the future of the Nation of Islam and the “empire” that had been established. It also highlights just how central the Nation and Black Muslims were to conversations related to Black life and culture. 

I am the son of a man they called a black supremacist; the son trained by the father to really obey his false god; who was taught from infancy to pray to a man by the name of Fard; and had no other knowledge, except that…That is what I believed, until my mind began to grow out of it to look for better understanding. **

**Quote taken from the book Follow the Leader compiled by Ronald B. Shaheed