After a childhood accident, Muhammad received inadequate medical care from a local white doctor which caused him to suffer from debilitating pain throughout his life.
[1] After hearing erroneously that A. D. King was in McComb, Mississippi, Muhammad and his friend Hollis Watkins went to a SNCC meeting in July 1961.
Inspired by the organization's workshops on nonviolence, the two men staged a sit-in at the town's Woolworth branch, which led to his arrest.
Muhammad's first project after his release was a speaking tour to raise money in the wake of Herbert Lee's murder.
Muhammad was arrested again the day of the election when he asked Mayor Charles Durrough of Ruleville, Mississippi to let him monitor the town's polling place.
The mayor, who was an opponent of the civil rights movement, had him detained and he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for interfering with the election.
He later moved to New Orleans where he worked for the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and AFL–CIO as an organizer at the grassroots level.