tel-05062838 African American Women militantism in the Nation of Islam through Muhammad Speaks (…)

This thesis is about the Nation of Islam (NOI), an African American Muslim organization born in the early 1930s and achieving considerable development and notoriety in the 1960s. More specifically, the study examines black women's activism in this organization through its main newspaper Muhammad Speaks (publication dates: 1960-1975). The decision to focus on this newspaper for this study is due to the scarcity of available sources on this nationalist organization.Women of the Nation of Islam played a very important role in defending and advocating for men and women of color in a key period of African American history (1960s-1970s). They were influential figures (yet largely ignored by scholars) of the links between black politics, religion and activism in the twentieth century. This dissertation thus examines the role of Muhammad Speaks columnists, as black women, in African American activism during the period from the 1960s to the mid-1970s; their positions on the various political, social and educational issues of that era; their visions and positioning in relation to other nationalist and feminist women of the same period, as well as their place and voice within the Nation of Islam.This work demonstrates the contribution of Muhammad Speaks’ women journalists to the campaign for social, political and economic progress for the black population in the US and abroad. It highlights the unique position of Nation women and their activism in the era of the civil rights movement and Black Power. Bringing to the fore forgotten voices in the history of the American Black movement, this work uncovers the essential contribution made by the women of the Nation of Islam during this crucial period. It examines the broader contribution that these women made, through the organization's newspaper, to shaping public discourse in black communities on important issues. This analysis of Muhammad Speaks shows the role that African American Muslim women played in promoting black intellectual expression and preserving black narratives on key discussion issues of the period, such as black beauty, capitalism, Afrocentrism, political activism, birth control, Pan-Africanism, marriage and gender relations.