The Nation of Islam intertwined religion with politics long before the famed Attica Uprising. In 1963, for the first time, New York State prisons’ population was majority Black. In 1964, a landmark supreme court case Cooper v. Pate ruled that prison authorities must give equal treatment to imprisoned practitioners of different faiths; in other words, a Black man has a right to practice his Islamic faith in prison. As the prisoners’ rights movement expanded in the 1970s, broader racial and political tensions spilled into the nation’s jails and prisons. In a Journal of Black Studies article, Christopher E. Smith quotes C. Eric Lincoln’s characterization of the Black Muslim movement as “a dynamic social protest that moves upon a religious vehicle.”
Nation of Islam was influential in expanding rights for incarcerated people, both for Black Muslims and broader civil rights in prison. But, fearing another uprising and the ramifications of the group’s philosophies in general, authorities perceived it as a threat, in part because of its roots in organizing and activism.
Zoe Colley writes in the Journal of American Studies that the Nation of Islam was characterized by Jeffry Ogbar as the “chief inspiration” of the Black power movement and it is inextricably intertwined with the radicalism of the 1960s. She asserts that a narrow focus on the Nation of Islam’s impact on prisons alone is inadequate. “Historians dutifully acknowledge the group’s strong appeal to prisoners… but they rarely deviate from this standard narrative to consider the wider significance of the phenomenon.” That “wider significance” continues to be debated even today.
After the Attica uprising, New York prisons enacted a number of reforms, such as providing an alternative to pork for Muslims, more nutritious food, higher levels of accountability and transparency with the outside world, and a general reduction of the strict regime of discipline that was more or less carried over from the state’s 19th century invention, the Auburn System of corrections.
Ayers explained to JSTOR Daily that the version of the Nation that reemerged in prisons in 1996 was different from the one that existed in the 1960s. Prison authorities allowed this newer iteration of the religion under the condition that it act solely as a study group, Ayers explains. He asserts that there continue to be differences between the faith’s priorities and practices inside prisons versus outside. “Our concerns are not the same. We are dealing with how to survive inside,” said Ayers. He explains that the version of NoI in prisons acts as a guide to parole hearings, self-discipline, respect and responsibility, and life after incarceration.