Nation of Islam (Chicago, Ill.)

The Nation of Islam was founded in Detroit (Mosque No. 1) in the early 1930s. Elijah Muhammad, its spiritual and supreme leader, established the group's headquarters in Chicago (Mosque No. 2) with significant chapters in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Malcolm X, Muhammad's most famous disciple, helped build the Nation of Islam into a national membership organization, from which he resigned in 1964. After Muhammad's death in 1975, his son Warith Deen Muhammed (Wallace Muhammad) steered the organization closer to traditional Islamic beliefs and practices, and renamed it the World Community of al-Islam in the West, and later the American Muslim Mission. A dissident group led by Louis Farrakhan broke away from Muhammed in 1978, and reconstituted the Nation of Islam along the original teachings of Elijah Muhammad.

From the description of Nation of Islam collection, 1959-1976. (New York Public Library). WorldCat record id: 239636286