Sister Claudette Muhammad

Civic leader Sister Claudette Muhammad was born on February 13, 1938 in Houston, Texas to Ernestine Edith Johnson Henderson and Travis Johnson II. After graduating from Kearny High School in San Diego, California in 1956, she attended San Diego Junior College. From 1978 to 1979, Muhammad studied at the Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny in Côte d'Ivoire. She then graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. in 1982 with her B.A. degree in international relations and third world studies and subsequently studied international law at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Baltimore, Maryland.

In 1960, Muhammad was hired as a technical librarian for General Dynamics Astronautics. In 1962, she worked as a secretary for U.S. Congressman Lionel Van Deerlin in Washington, D.C. Muhammad was hired in 1968 as a special assistant to Otto Kerner, Jr., the commissioner of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Commission) and served in this capacity until 1969. In 1973, she was hired as the director of community outreach for Federal City College (later known as the University of the District of Columbia). Muhammad left Federal City College in 1975 to start her own public relations consulting firm. In 1984, she was named chief of protocol for Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan. The following year, Muhammad was hired as director of Washington D.C. Deputy Mayor Curtis McClinton’s program for economic development, holding this position until 1986. She then served as national deputy director for the Nation of Islam’s Million Man March in 1995, coordinator for Minister Louis Farrakhan’s International Friendship Tour in 1997, and national deputy director for the Million Family March in 2000. Muhammad subsequently went on to serve as a commissioner on the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes from 2005 to 2006 and again in 2009, when she also was named the national director of fundraising for the Nation of Islam.

Muhammad served on the executive board for the Millions More Movement and has been a member of the Nation of Islam since 1988.

Muhammad’s memoir, Memories, was published in 2006.

Muhammad lives in Washington, D.C.

Sister Claudette Muhammad was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 8, 2022.