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An ascetic little man, Elijah sternly demands that his followers give up tobacco, dope and alcohol, bathe often, pray toward Mecca five times a day, even if it means falling upon their knees in the streets. Moslem women should dress modestly, use no lipstick, never allow themselves to be alone in a room with any man except their husbands. Attacking all forms of dependence upon whites, Elijah set up a Moslem restaurant, cleaning business, barbershop, butcher shop, grocery store and department store on Chicago's South Side, a cafe in Harlem, a cafe and a farm near Atlanta, also bought himself a luxurious, 18-room house near the University of Chicago. He founded "Universities of Islam" in Chicago and Detroit (the latter accredited by the local school board through the ninth grade) to teach his dogma to children and teenagers. Sample from his official temple creed: "There is no good in white men. All are the children of the devil."
Muhammad also trained muscle. Each congregation has its "Fruit of Islam" force of young men, who take judo training in their temples, are commanded by Muhammad's son-in-law, burly "Supreme Captain" Raymond Sharrieff. The F.O.I. protects its racist chief as if he were in constant danger of assassination. At each mass meeting, the F.O.I, frisks every male who attends, while "Sisters" in flowing white robes and headpieces stand inside a separate entrance (segregation by sexes also) to frisk each woman, put all potential weapons such as nail files in checking bags.
"Worse Every Day." Muhammad's doctrine of total hate found a ready medium in some Negro newspapers, which began to exploit Negro hopes and fears after the Emmett Till case. The Pittsburgh Courier, Negro national weekly, and the Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch, booming West Coast Negro paper, not only gained attention from his personal column, but also found their circulations boosted fast by Moslems who hawked the papers on street corners as a spiritual duty. Such leading Negro Harlem politicos as Congressman Adam Clayton Powell (pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church) and Manhattan Borough President Hulan Jack have curried Moslem favor, even though full-fledged Moslems are enjoined not to vote.*
Thus far the Moslems have been strictly law-abiding—a fact that worries some cops more than minor outbreaks of violence. "It's getting worse every day," says a Los Angeles police official, "and I only wish I knew what it's going to take to light the fuse." The Moslems themselves talk of 1970 as their DDay, expansively predict that before that time the big white nations will have eliminated each other with atomic warfare and Black Africa will stand unchallenged. Says Chicago Urban League's Negro Director Edwin C. Berry: "A guy like this Moslem leader makes a lot more sense than I do to the man in the street who's getting his teeth kicked out. I have a sinking feeling that Elijah Muhammad is very significant."