Clarence 13X - Opposition

Opposition

NOI leaders were angry that Clarence 13X freely taught portions of their doctrine that they only revealed to committed members; although one of their captains repeatedly asked him to stop, he refused. Clarence 13X also experienced conflict within his family: his children did not revere him, and hostility quickly developed between core Five Percenters and some of his sons when Willeen Jowers brought them to visit him.

On December 9, 1964, Clarence 13X was shot twice in the torso while at a popular gathering place in the basement of a Harlem tenement. He was brought to Harlem Hospital, where he was treated and released. He later claimed that he died and returned to his body a short time later. In a 2007 study of the Five Percent movement, American journalist Michael Muhammad Knight speculates that this caused his followers to see him as a Christ figure. The identity and motivation of the shooter are unknown; Knight notes that law enforcement and rival Muslim groups both had a motive to attack Clarence 13X. Some Five Percenters have speculated that the attack was part of a robbery attempt or retaliation for unpaid gambling debts. Clarence 13X's companions reported that he instructed them not to seek revenge on the shooter and to forswear violence. While recuperating from his wounds, Clarence 13X sought to distinguish his movement from other Islamic movements, abandoning Arabic greetings for English expressions.

The Five Percenters soon attracted attention from media and law enforcement. Local papers published negative coverage of the group, casting them as a violent hate group or a street gang. The New York Amsterdam News reported that Clarence 13X had threatened to kill white children if his group did not receive a government subsidy. In 1965, the FBI initiated an investigation of his group and may have provided sensationalized rumors to the press. That year, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover deemed Clarence 13X as a "Harlem rowdy", but feared that he would form ties with more dangerous groups. The FBI developed a detailed file on Clarence 13X; in 1967, Hoover described him as a potential threat to the President of the U.S., and sent a detailed folder about him to the United States Secret Service.