The “nationalist rally,” which Alfred and his family pass on their way to church at the beginning of Chapter 4, and whose supporters Alfred later encounters, further reflects the culture of the time. During the century from the Civil War (1861–65) to the setting of the novel (1960s), African Americans struggled with the question of whether to try to live with whites or separate from them. Marcus Garvey, who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1916, led one of the first popular black nationalist movements. However, it was Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam (NOI) and Malcolm X’s Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) that dominated the black nationalist scene in Harlem in the 1960s.
The roots of the NOI were in Detroit, where a salesman named Wallace D. Fard (pronounced fa-ROOD) founded the Temple of Islam in the early 1930s. In just a few years, Fard developed the Temple into a force for economic independence and racial separatism. He advocated the rejection of white society and warned against the evils of the “blue-eyed devil.” Fard taught strict adherence to religious principles through his University of Islam and the Muslim Girls Training Corps. White authorities came to distrust Fard as a violent subversive. Fard disappeared in 1934 when he was offered a choice of leaving Detroit or going to prison. Elijah Muhammad, Fard’s top lieutenant, took charge of the Temple of Islam and was the most powerful black nationalist in the country for the next forty years.
Elijah Muhammad moved the NOI’s headquarters to Chicago where he built the Temple of Islam Number 2 in the latter 1930s. Under Muhammad’s leadership, there were eventually more than one hundred temples nationwide. He further emphasized financial growth for the NOI, sometimes drawing criticism for the Nation’s leaders’ accumulation of worldly possessions. The disciplined lifestyle of the black Muslims made them attractive employees, and the workers donated freely to the NOI.
The NOI glorified women but severely limited their freedom. Their role was domestic and parental, and their purity was to be above reproach. However, critics pointed out that NOI leaders sometimes used women as sex objects; Elijah Muhammad himself allegedly fathered several illegitimate children.
The NOI flourished in the late 1950s and 1960s even as it stood in contrast to the Civil Rights Movement, which was led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and sought peaceful integration. During this period, one of the NOI’s most charismatic leaders was Malcolm X, head of the Harlem Mosque; he was a former prison inmate and brilliant speaker who was especially effective in large groups and on television. One of his catch phrases was that the movement should fight white racism and violence “by any means necessary.” Despite the popularity of Malcolm X, the NOI censured him in 1963 for his notorious remark that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was tantamount to “the chickens coming home to roost.” Malcolm X left the NOI in 1964 and formed the OAAU. Many blamed the NOI when he was assassinated the next year.
The question of race was complicated in Harlem in the 1960s, and Lipsyte does not dodge the issue. Certainly we see the results of white racism against blacks in The Contender. But in the first chapter of the novel, we also see Major and his gang using racial slurs in an attempt to intimidate and manipulate Alfred. Even more blatant is their prejudice against Jews. Consistent with racial stereotypes, they accuse the Jewish grocers of indulging in greed (“They go pray for more dollars”) and a modern form of slavery, exploiting black employees for mercenary purposes. When Alfred tries to defend the Epsteins, he only causes more problems. Major and his undisciplined gang would be a disgrace to the NOI, but many of the racial issues are the same.
