Elijah Muhammad

Elijah Muhammad
Muhammad speaking in 1964.
Leader of the Nation of Islam
In office 1934–1975
Preceded by	Wallace Fard Muhammad
Succeeded by	Warith Deen Mohammed
Personal details
Born	Elijah Robert Poole (1897-10-07)October 7, 1897 Sandersville, Georgia, U.S.
Died	February 25, 1975(1975-02-25) (aged 77) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Clara Muhammad (1917–72; her death) (8 children)
Occupation	Leader of the Nation of Islam
Religion	Nation of Islam

Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Robert Poole; October 7, 1897 – February 25, 1975) was an African-American religious leader, who led the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1934 until his death in 1975. He was a mentor to Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, Muhammad Ali, as well as his own son, Warith Deen Mohammed.

Elijah Muhammad was born Elijah Robert Poole in Sandersville, Georgia, the seventh of thirteen children of William Poole, Sr. (1868–1942), a Baptist lay preacher and sharecropper, and Mariah Hall (1873–1958), a homemaker and sharecropper.

Elijah's education ended at the third grade to work in sawmills and brickyards. To support the family, he worked with his parents as a sharecropper. When he was sixteen years old, he left home and began working in factories and at other businesses.

Poole married Clara Evans (1899–1972) on March 7, 1917. The Poole family was among the hundreds of thousands of black families forming the First Great Migration leaving the oppressive and economically troubled South in search of safety and employment. Poole later recounted that before the age of 20, he had witnessed the lynchings of three black men by white people. He said, "I seen enough of the white man's brutality to last me 26,000 years".

Moving his own family, parents and siblings, Elijah and the Pooles settled in Hamtramck, Michigan. Through the 1920s and 1930s, Poole struggled to find and keep work as the economy suffered during the Great Depression. During their years in Detroit, Elijah and Clara had eight children, six boys and two girls.