The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780679774068)

Drawn from recently declassified FBI files, and interviews with family members and former apostles, The Messenger renders a daring portrait of one of African-American history's most controversial leaders.

In this explosive biography, investigative journalist Karl Evanzz recounts the multidimensional life of a semiliterate refugee from the Jim Crow South who became the influential founder of the Nation of Islam. Considered the "Prophet" by his followers and a threat to national security by J. Edgar Hoover, Elijah Muhammad moved four million African Americans to convert to his heterodox version of Islam, and inspired the lives of Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jesse Jackson, and Louis Farrakhan. But his increasingly insatiable hunger for power ultimately led Elijah Muhammad down a path of corruption, ultimately betraying his teachings and his devoted believers by womanizing, fathering thirteen illegitimate children, and abetting in the murders of those who criticized him, not least of whom, his chief disciple, Malcolm X.


Author: Karl Evanzz
ISBN-10: 0679774068
ISBN-13: 9780679774068
Publisher: Vintage
Language: English
Published: 01/09/2001
Pages: 704
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.44lbs
Size: 7.98h x 5.22w x 1.46d