ABSTRACT
The transition of the Nation of Islam (NOI) into the Islam-based World Community of al-Islam in the West (WCIW) in 1975 provided the foundation and impetus for this community's fight to connect Muslim American communities with American culture. Indeed, the proposition that the WCIW's used the New World Patriotism Day Parades to connect their Muslim community with American culture is an original perspective into the cultural and organizational methods of this community. Given the global retreat of Islam in the face of political repression from communists, nationalists, and colonialists, during the second half of the twentieth century, the emergence and growth of Sunni Islam in America was a radical development. Imam W. D. Muhammad's institutional and theological reforms represented the most far-reaching changes toward bringing the NOI into alignment with Sunni Islam following the death of Elijah Muhammad in February 1975.
