Message to the Black Man In America

Elijah Robert Poole was born on October 7,1897 in Sandersville Georgia. He was the sixth of thirteen children born to William Poole Sr and Mariah Poole. He is famous for being an African American religious leader and the leader of the Nation Of Islaem from 1934 until he died in 1975. He ended his education in the fourth grade to help his family by working as a sharecropper until he left home at age 16 to work in factories. On March 17, 1917 he married Clara evans and like many blacks at the time migrated for the jim crow south to Hamtramack Michigan for better job opportunities. While living in Michigan Poole and his wife had 8 children. In 1931 Poole attended his first speech on Islam and black empowerment by Wallace D Fard. Afterwards Poole became a follower of Fard and adopted the Muslim name Muhammad. After Fard was arrested on murder charges and released under the conditions that he would leave Detroit he turned over leadership to the Detroit group to Muhammad. Muhammad then change the name from the Temple Of Islam to The Nation Of Islam.
Message to the Black Man In American is exactly what the title says. Its written like a testament to the black man on how to find God, uplift and educate his own kind and survive in America. It gives insight on who is god, the Islamic religion how to love and appreciate your race and yourself, how to treat women, whether Christianity is correct and the Quran. With this message Muhammad was trying to uplift African Americans and show them that what society portrays us as is imcorrect. He wanted to give us hope and encourage us to do better and treat our own kind better while trying to show the reader that Allah is God.
The book begins by explaining that Christians view God in three parts, the father the son and the holy ghost. He explains that this is impossible by nature and by mathematics. He explains how Christians view God as a mystery or a spook by calling him a “holy ghost.” He asks the question how can one have a