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Murder Of James J. Smith
The murder of James J. Smith occurred on November 20, 1932, when he was stabbed and bludgeoned to death by Allah Temple of Islam member Robert Harris in what he described as a human sacrifice. Contemporary press labeled it the "Voodoo Murder". The killing led to the technical dissolution of the organization, which was reconstituted under the name Nation of Islam. Background Robert Harris was born on August 3, 1888, to parents Alec and Lulu in Mississippi. On July 3, 1929, he moved to Detroit, Michigan. He had a wife, Bertha. James Smith was born on December 25, 1892, in Atlanta. In 1930, a man named W.D. Fard came to Detroit, ultimately founding a group called the Allah Temple of Islam. Among Fard's practices was to give new, Islamic names to members, replacing their inherited 'slave names'. Robert Harris was given the new surname "Karriem". Killing Around 9 a.m. on November 20, 1932, Robert Harris had escorted James J. Smith into a room with a makeshift altar in the home at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allah Temple Of Islam
The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930. A centralized and hierarchical organization, the NOI is committed to black nationalism and focuses its attention on the African diaspora, especially on African Americans. While describing itself as Islamic and using Islamic terminology, its religious tenets differ substantially from orthodox Islamic schools and branches#African-American movements, Islamic traditions. Religious studies, Scholars of religion characterize it as a new religious movement. The Nation teaches that there has been a succession of mortal gods, each a black man named Allah, of whom Fard Muhammad is the most recent. It claims that the first Allah created the earliest humans, the Arabic-speaking, dark-skinned Tribe of Shabazz, whose members possessed inner divinity and from whom all Person of color, people of color descend. It maintains that a scientist named Yakub (Nation of Islam), Yakub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
