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aia ° © I, BACKGROUND AND ORIGIN? "avy. . ° Around the time of the first World War, the Negroes in the Southern States became attracted to the northern industrial cities, such as Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. They believed implicitly that the North, unlike the South, presented rare opportunities to improve the economic and cultural standards of the Negro. Asa result of the prevalent illtteracy among these pecple and the large numbers of them who immigrated to the North, possibilities for employment diminished. The depression period completely dispelled the rest of their hopes and reduced greatly their living standards. During these years, many militant and cultist groups arose which reflected the Negroes' intense desire for racial improvement and recognition and which based the position of the Negro in American society on the treatment afforded him by the white people. One of the more violent and enduring of these groups was the Nation of Islam (NOI), known at various times as Allah's Temple of Islam, In 1830, there appeared on the sircete of Detroit « Negre paddler * Some of the material concerning the origin of the NOI has been taken from & weill-documénted study of the a lt which appeared in The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. XLII, No. 6, May, 1938.