His teachings that white people were devils who were created specifically to oppress the Black race quickly gained the attention of the United States government. In , Muhammad was sentenced to four years in prison for preaching sedition and for avoiding the draft during World War II. These two men became prominent within the organization and helped to bring national awareness to the Nation of Islam. Like many of his fellow migrants, Poole found a job in the automobile industry until the Depression forced his family to go on relief for two years.
During his unemployment, Poole met Wallace Fard , the founder of the Nation of Islam who preached a gospel of black Islam and racial supremacy. Poole joined the organization in , changed his name to Elijah Muhammad and soon became such a devoted disciple that Fard made him Chief Minister of Islam. But it was not until , when Muhammad had served his four-year prison sentence for preaching sedition and avoiding the draft during World War II , that he could build the Nation of Islam according to his beliefs.
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Elijah Muhammad rose from poverty to become the charismatic leader of the black nationalist group Nation of Islam, and mentor of Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan.
Poole became an early follower of W. Fard c. Fard appeared in Detroit in , selling silk goods and telling his customers in the African American ghetto of their ancestral "homeland" across the seas. Fard proclaimed Islam the one correct religion for African Americans, denouncing Christianity as the religion of the slave masters. Soon Fard announced the opening of the Temple of Islam. It featured an unorthodox nontraditional form of Islam, but the movement also emphasized African American self-help and education.
Fard disappeared, as mysteriously as he had arrived, in the summer of The movement he had founded quickly developed several smaller groups.
The most important was led by Poole, who had become a top leader to Fard and who had changed his name along the way to Elijah Muhammad. The movement had long had a policy of requiring members to drop their "slave" names. Settling in Chicago, Illinois, Muhammad built what quickly became the most important center of the movement. Chicago soon featured not only a Temple of Islam, but a newspaper called Muhammad Speaks, a University of Islam, and several apartment houses, grocery stores, and restaurants—all owned by the movement.
Temples were opened in other cities, and farms were purchased so that "pure" food could be made available to members. The movement was very controlled.
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