Editing Elijah Muhammad (section)

==Early years and life before Nation of Islam==
{{Nation of Islam|Leaders}}
Elijah Muhammad was born Elijah Robert Poole in [[Sandersville, Georgia]] on October 7 1897, the seventh of thirteen children of William Poole Sr. (1868–1942), a [[Baptist]] [[laity|lay preacher]] and [[sharecropper]], and Mariah Hall (1873–1958), a homemaker and sharecropper.

Elijah's education ended at the fourth grade, after which he went to work in sawmills and brickyards.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.biography.com/people/elijah-muhammad-9417458#awesm=~oBHIKFiTWK9maw|title = Elijah Muhammad| date=May 6, 2021 }}</ref> To support the family, he worked with his parents as a [[sharecropper]]. When he was sixteen years old, he left home and began working in factories and at other businesses.

Elijah married [[Clara Muhammad|Clara Evans]] (1899–1972) on March 7, 1917.  In 1923, the Poole family was among hundreds of thousands of black families forming the [[Great Migration (African American)|First Great Migration]] leaving the oppressive and economically troubled [[Southern United States|South]] in search of safety and employment.<ref name="anb.org">{{cite web|last=Mamiya|first= Lawrence H.|title=Muhammad, Elijah|url= http://www.anb.org/articles/08/08-2140.html|work= American National Biography Online|date= February 2000}}</ref> Elijah later recounted that before the age of 20, he had witnessed the [[lynching]]s of three black men by white people. He said, "I seen enough of the white man's brutality to last me 26,000 years".<ref name="An Original Man">[[Claude Andrew Clegg III]], ''An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad'', St. Martin's Griffin, 1998.</ref>

Moving his own family, parents and siblings, Elijah and the Pooles settled in the industrial north of [[Hamtramck, Michigan]]. Through the 1920s and 1930s, he struggled to find and keep work as the economy suffered during the post [[World War I]] and [[Great Depression]] eras. During their years in [[Detroit]], Elijah and Clara had eight children, six boys and two girls.<ref name=AmericanVisions>Richard Brent Turner, "From Elijah Poole to Elijah Muhammad", ''American Visions'', October–November 1997.</ref>