From Publishers Weekly
While many books have been written about the Nation of Islam, far fewer have offered personal accounts of life within the movement. (Sonsyrea Tate's Little X stands out in this small group.) Vibert White's Inside the Nation of Islam: A Historical and Personal Testimony of a Black Muslim is unusual in that it provides a relatively late account of life in the Nation. He focuses on the 1980s and 1990s, after Louis Farrakhan had split with Wallace D. Muhammad and the Nation's numbers had dwindled to fewer than 10,000 members. White, who is no longer a member, draws upon his experience as an internal analyst for Farrakhan to present the group's history and evolution. It's a fascinating, detailed account.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
A onetime Nation of Islam (NOI) member known from the late 1970s to the 1990s as Brother Vibert L.X., White here offers something of a personal journal along with a historical overview and institutional analysis of the NOI. The personal story takes the son of African Methodist Episcopal missionaries from the religion of his youth to the NOI and later to disillusionment. After briefly describing Islam in early America and the 20th-century development of the NOI from Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad, White (African American studies, Univ. of Illinois, Springfield) comments on the NOI's rise and fall, with sharp focus on the controversial Louis Farrakhan (1933-) and his perhaps most triumphant moment, the 1995 Million Man March on Washington, DC. In his view, self-aggrandizement, self-dealing, and financial finagling, along with misogyny and wholesale deception, fill the organization. Noticeable errors, particularly with personal and place names, undercut the work, but the inside perspective complements the growing external analysis of the NOI that began with C. Eric Lincoln's now classic The Black Muslims in America (1961) and has continued in recent years with works by Amy Alexander, Claude Andrew Clegg, and Karl Evanzz. For larger public and academic libraries. Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.