Inside the Nation of Islam: A Historical and Personal Testimony of a Black Muslim: A Historical and Personal Testimony by a Black Muslim [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

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.

This detailed study of the internal workings of the Nation of Islam under the leadership of Louis Farrakhan examines the evolution of the organization since 1977 and its strange ideological menu of Black Nationalism, political-economic development, anti-Semitism, and conservative Republican ideals. Vibert White maintains that Farrakhan's Nation has become a cult that utilizes black nationalistic and religious dogma and its ability to create political and racial controversy to exploit poor and working-class black Americans for the leaders' economic and political gain. At the heart of Inside the Nation is White's chronicle of his own sojourn during the 1980s and 1990s as a registered Muslim - from his days as a foot soldier in the Fruit of Islam, the Nation's military organization, through his rise to the status of minister and advisor to the leadership. Included are White's dealings with such leaders as Louis Farrakhan, Akbar Muhammad, Khallid Muhammad, and Benjamin Chavis Muhammad and his involvement in such activities as the Million Man March.

As one who traveled for the organization throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the United States, White was able to observe the leadership and the operation of the group at close hand, and he reveals for the first time the detailed structure of NOI's business and religious operation. As a professional historian, White was able to separate the passion of the group's rhetoric from its real objectives, which centered on building a personal empire for Louis Farrakhan.