WEB POSTED 03-10-2000
70 year Commemorative of The Nation of Islam in North America

Mother Clara Muhammad: An example of Black womanhood

by Nisa Islam Muhammad
Staff Writer

In the 1930s and ’40s, few Black women ventured off the path dictated by their slave master’s children.  The behavior, conduct and demeanor of Black women was more than predictable.

And then out of the wilderness of North American came Mother Clara Muhammad, the late wife of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and together they established the Nation of Islam in America.

Mother Clara, born  Nov. 2, 1899, in Georgia, was a deeply religious and devoted Black woman.  She married then-Elijah Poole in Georgia in 1917. From Macon, Ga., the Muhammad family moved to Detroit in April 1923 in search of better economic and social circumstances as many Blacks migrated north for many of the same reasons.

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Between 1917 and 1939, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Mother Clara had eight children—six boys and two girls. Their names are Ayeman (Emmanuel), Nathaniel, Ethel, Lottie, Jabir (Herbert), Elijah Jr., W. Deen (Wallace), Akbar.

Black Detroit was electrified at the mysterious appearance in July 1930 of Master Fard Muhammad, the founder of the Nation of Islam.  News of this great teacher and humanitarian spread like wildfire throughout the Black community.  

Mrs. Muhammad got news of Master Fard from a neighbor and wanted to see for herself what the commotion was all about, but her husband said he would go first. 

Hence, in September 1931, Mr. Muhammad first heard Master Fard Muhammad and embraced the teachings of the Nation of Islam. Mr. Muhammad, subsequently, was able to bring his entire family into this “new religion.”

The Hon. Elijah Muhammad was a star student in Islam.  Master Fard Muhammad often visited their home and according to family members, He would also teach Mother Clara and the children.

Often, Mother Clara demonstrated strength and courage in the face of  virulent opposition to the Nation of Islam. They took their children out of the public school system and became pioneers for home schooling.  But then home schooling was illegal.

She relentlessly continued to maintain her household and raise her children while her husband went to jail for the right to self-educate their children and as a conscientious objector to World War II and all wars entered into by white America. 

Also, internal disputes over the leadership of the Nation of Islam in the 1930s would cause her husband to leave his home in Chicago to preserve the peace and avoid the evil planning of would be rivals.

Those times were tough but not too tough for Mother Clara Muhammad.  She carried on her husband’s work while he was away.  Her leadership and courage proved essential to the preservation of the newly formed Nation of Islam. 

While her husband was incarcerated she led the Nation of Islam, under his direction.  In Illinois, according to family members, Mother Clara continued to resist placing her school-age children in the public school system, and when the white authorities came to her door to take her children away, she reportedly said, “I will die as dead as this doorknob before I allow my children to attend public school!” 

“As the tenderly beloved help-meet,” the late Muhammad Speaks editor, Leon Forrest, would write in 1972, Mrs. Muhammad, “in her deeply moving, quiet way set a sterling, ringing national standard for all Black women to follow.”

Photo caption: The love, courage and faithful determination of Mother Clara Muhammad helped to establish the Nation of Islam in America.

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