Ruby Macie Muhammad (née Grier) ( – died March 2, 2011) was an African American religious figure and centenarian known as the "Mother of the

Nation 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 Afr ...

." She was born on a farm in

Sandersville, Georgia The city of Sandersville is the county seat of Washington County, Georgia, United States. The population was 5,813 in 2020. It is also a part of the Central Savannah River Area. Sandersville is known as the "Kaolin Capital of the World" due to ...

and grew up in Americus. No birth certificate exists to confirm her age, and it has been reported with significant disparity, although she claimed in newspaper interviews that she was born Ruby Macie Grayer on March 20, 1897. Later research, however, suggests she was born in 1907, a decade later, based on the listing of Ruby Macie Grier, recorded as aged 3, in the

1910 census The 1910 United States census, conducted by the Census Bureau on April 15, 1910, determined the resident population of the United States to be 92,228,496, an increase of 21 percent over the 76,212,168 persons enumerated during the 1900 census. ...

. Her mother, died when she was very young, and she was raised by a woman she called her aunt, although she would later say that this woman was probably not her biological aunt. She did not know her father until she was a teenager. Community records in Sandersville, where she was born, indicate her father died at age 107 and her great-grandfather died at age 110.

Mother of Islam

Muhammad spent her early years working in the fields and joined the

in 1946 and was named "Mother of the Nation of Islam" in 1986 by Minister

Louis Farrakhan Louis Farrakhan (; born Louis Eugene Walcott; May 11, 1933) is an American religious leader who heads the Nation of Islam (NOI), a Black nationalism, black nationalist organization. Farrakhan is notable for his leadership of the 1995 Million M ...

. This is an

honorary title A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify their generation, official position, military rank, professional or academic qualification, or nobility. In some languages, titles may be ins ...

; Muhammad, who was married twice, was not the widow of

Elijah Muhammad Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Robert Poole; October 7, 1897 – February 25, 1975) was an American religious leader, black separatist, and self-proclaimed Messenger of Allah who led the Nation of Islam (NOI) from 1933 until his death in 197 ...

, who founded the Nation of Islam. In 2006, Muhammad moved into a senior center in

Rancho Cordova Rancho Cordova is a city in Sacramento County, California, United States. Incorporated in 2003, it is part of the Sacramento Metropolitan Area. The population was 79,332 at the 2020 census. In 2010 and 2019, Rancho Cordova received the All-Ame ...

Sacramento, California Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento Rive ...

. In 2008, Muhammad, then known as Ruby Pittman (the name of her first husband), received a motorized wheelchair as a donation from a scooter store.

Personal life

Ruby Muhammad was married to John Pittman and had four children. After her first husband died she married James Hyder in 1967.

References

External links

''Sacramento News & Review'' interview with Ruby Muhammad, July 13, 2006Ruby Muhammad's website, owned by her daughter Paulette Helton
1900s births 2011 deaths 20th-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women African-American centenarians Age controversies Members of the Nation of Islam People from Americus, Georgia People from Sacramento, California People from Sandersville, Georgia American women centenarians {{US-reli-bio-stub