The Honorable Elijah Muhammad
Biography Sketch - Nation of Islam

Español: https://noi.org/esp-honorable-elijah-muhammad/

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A Historic Look At The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad

Thirty-four years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was born on or about Oct. 7, 1897 in Sandersville, Georgia. The exact date of his birth remains unknown because record keeping in rural Georgia for the descendants of slaves was not kept current, according to historians and family members. Nevertheless, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said his birth took place some time in the first or second week of October in 1897 and set forth Oct. 7th as the anniversary date of his birth.

Indeed, life in the rural South at the turn of the century was quite hard. Poverty and survival were at war with each other. Elijah Poole, the son of a minister, and whose parents, William (later named Wali) and Marie Poole, had 12 other children, had to quit school after barely finishing the third grade to work in the fields as a sharecropper so his family could eat.