Louis Farrakhan (born
Louis Eugene
Walcott; May 11, 1933) is the National Representative of
the
Nation of Islam. He is an
advocate for
black interests, and a
critic of American society. Farrakhan has frequently referred to
Judaism as 'a gutter religion'. Farrakhan has been widely
criticized and praised for his political views and often
controversial rhetorical style. In 1996, he was awarded the
Al-Gaddafi
International Prize for Human Rights founded by the current
Libyan leader
Muammar
al-Gaddafi.
Early life
Farrakhan
was born in The Bronx,
New York
and raised as Eugene Walcott within the West Indian
community in the Roxbury
section of Boston, Massachusetts
. His mother, Sarah Mae Manning, had emigrated
from Saint Kitts and
Nevis
in the 1920s; his father, Percival Clarke, was a
Jamaican
cab driver
from New York, but was not involved in his upbringing.
Farrakhan's grandson Mustapha is a guard on
the University of
Virginia
basketball team.
As a child, he received training as a violinist. At the age of six,
he was given his first violin and by the age of thirteen, he had
played with the Boston College Orchestra and the Boston Civic
Symphony . A year later, he went on to win national competitions,
and was one of the first black performers to appear on
Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour, where he also
won an award. A central focus of his youth was the Episcopal St.
Cyprian's Church in Boston's Roxbury section.
In Boston, Walcott
attended the prestigious Boston Latin School
and English High School,
graduating from the latter. He attended college for two
years at
Winston-Salem
Teachers College, where he went to run track, but left to be
with his wife (born Betsy Ross) in Boston who was pregnant with
their child. Due to complications from the pregnancy, Walcott
dropped out of college to devote time to his wife.
In the 1950s, he recorded several
calypso albums as a singer under the name "The
Charmer." One his famous songs
Is She Is, Or Is She
Ain’t? was about
transwoman,
Christine Jorgenson.
Nation of Islam
Early involvement
In 1945,
while headlining a show in Chicago
entitled
"Calypso Follies," he first came in contact with the teachings of
the Nation of Islam. A friend
from Boston, sometime saxophonist Rodney Smith, introduced him to
the NOI's doctrine and he attended the annual
Saviours' Day address by
Elijah Muhammad. He joined the Nation of
Islam in July 1955, becoming Louis X. The "X" was a placeholder
following the dropping of the
slave name,
referring to the loss of the unknown surname of his slave
forefathers, and preceding the Islamic name some Nation members are
given later in their conversion.
Thirty days after that, Elijah Muhammad stated that all musicians
in the NOI had thirty days from the date of this announcement to
give up the music world completely. Farrakhan did so after
performing one last time at the Nevel Country Club.
After joining the Nation of Islam, Farrakhan quickly rose through
the ranks to become Minister of the Nation of Islam's Boston
Mosque.
He was appointed Minister of the influential
Harlem
Mosque and
served in that capacity from 1965 to 1975.
Leadership
In 1977, after wrestling with the changes and consequent
dismantling of the NOI structure by
Warith Deen Muhammad, Farrakhan walked
away from the movement. In a 1990 interview with
Emerge
magazine, he expressed his disillusionment with the changes and
said he decided to "quietly walk away" from the organization rather
than cause a schism among the membership. In 1978 with no public
notice, Farrakhan and a small number of supporters privately
decided to rebuild the original Nation of Islam upon the foundation
established by
Wallace Fard
Muhammad and Elijah Muhammad.
In 1979, the Nation of Islam's newspaper,
Muhammad Speaks
was reestablished by Farrakhan under the name
The Final Call. In 1981, Farrakhan and
supporters held the first annual Nation of Islam Saviors' Day
convention in Chicago since 1975. At the convention's keynote
address, Farrakhan made his first public announcement of the
restoration of the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad's
teachings.
On January 12, 1995,
Malcolm X's daughter,
Qubilah Shabazz, was arrested for
conspiracy to assassinate
Farrakhan.
It was later alleged that the FBI
had used a
paid informant, Michael Fitzpatrick, to frame Shabazz. After
Shabazz's arrest, Farrakhan held a press conference in Chicago in
which he accused the FBI of attempting to exacerbate division and
conflict between the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X's family. Nearly
four months later, on May 1, U.S. government prosecutors dropped
their case against Shabazz.
On May 6,
1995, a packed public meeting in Harlem, New York
, termed A New Beginning, featured Louis
Farrakhan and Malcolm X's widow, Betty
Shabazz. Originally organized by community activists as
a fund raiser for Qubilah Shabazz's legal defense, the meeting
marked the first public rapprochement between Farrakhan, the Nation
of Islam and the Shabazz family.
On October 16, 1995 Farrakhan convened a broad coalition of nearly
1.5 million men in Washington, D.C. for the
Million Man March. Farrakhan, along with
New Black Panther Party
leader
Malik Zulu Shabazz,
Al Sharpton, Addis Daniel and other
prominent black Americans marked the 10th anniversary of the
Million Man March by holding a second march, the
Millions More Movement on October 14,
2005 through October 17, 2005, in Washington.
In a 2005
Black
Entertainment Television (BET) poll, Farrakhan was voted the
'Person of the Year'.
In a February 2006 AP-AOL "Black Voices" poll, Farrakhan was voted
the fifth most important black leader with 4 percent of the
vote.
Hurricane Katrina
In
comments regarding the destruction of large parts of New Orleans
after Hurricane
Katrina, Louis Farrakhan stated that there was a hole under one
of the key levees that failed, and implied that the levee's
destruction was a deliberate attempt to wipe out the population of
largely black sections within the city. Farrakhan later said
that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin told him
of the crater during a meeting in Dallas, Texas
. Farrakhan further claimed the fact that the
levee broke the day after
Hurricane
Katrina is proof that the destruction of the levee was not a
natural occurrence. Farrakhan has raised additional questions and
has called for federal investigations into the source of the levee
break.
These
accusations, however, are countered by many experts, including the
Independent Levee Investigation Team from the University
of California, Berkeley
. The findings of this panel are that the
overtopping of the levees by flood waters, the often sub-standard
materials used to shore up the levees, and the age of the levees
contributed to these "scour holes" found at many of the sites of
levee breaks after the hurricane.
Praise for Barack Obama
Farrakhan said the
Iraq War, the nation's
faltering economy and the increased number of natural disasters
were signs of "a nation in peril." He said those problems provide
the broader context for then-Senator
Barack
Obama's popularity.
In response to Farrakhan's remarks, the
Obama campaign promptly released a response
distancing himself from the minister. "Senator Obama has been clear
in his objections to Minister Farrakhan's past pronouncements and
has not solicited the minister's support," said Obama spokesman
Bill Burton. Obama himself "rejected and denounced" Farrakhan's
support in an
NBC debate.
Farrakhan subsequently denied his comments constituted an
endorsement, saying he would not tell any one of his followers how
to cast their vote, but that they should vote "their own
self-interest."
Right-wing Web sites such as
World Net Daily reported that during his
February 24, 2008 "Saviours' Day" speech, Farrakhan called Obama
"the
Messiah". However, Farrakhan quoted in
context during his speech, said, "Sen. Obama is not the Messiah for
sure, but anytime, he gives you a sign of uniting races, ethnic
groups, ideologies, religions and makes people feel a sense of
oneness, that’s not necessarily
Satan’s work,
that is I believe the work of God."
Following the
2008 presidential
election, Farrakhan explained during a
BET
television interview, that he was "careful" to never endorse Obama
during his campaign. "I talked about him — but, in very beautiful
and glowing terms, stopping short of endorsing him. And
unfortunately, or fortunately, however we look at it, the media
said I 'endorsed' him, so he renounced my so-called endorsement and
support. But that didn’t stop me from supporting him."
Financial Support
A speech given by Louis Farrakhan on October 16, 2000 thanks
LeVan Hawkins,
Barry Hankerson,
Prince Carl Kenai,
Steve Harvey, and
Russel Simmons for financial support.
Health problems
Farrakhan announced that he is seriously ill in a September 11,
2006 letter to his staff, Nation of Islam members and supporters.
The letter, published in
The Final
Call newspaper, said that doctors in
Cuba discovered an
ulcer. According to the letter, subsequent
infections caused Farrakhan to lose 35 pounds. He urged the
Nation of Islam leadership to carry
on while he recovers.
Farrakhan was released from his five-week hospital stay on January
28, 2007 after major abdominal surgery. The operation was performed
to correct damage caused by
side
effects of a
radioactive "seed"
implantation procedure that he received years earlier to
successfully treat
prostate
cancer.
Following
his hospital stay, Farrakhan released a personal public "Message of
Appreciation" to supporters and well wishers and weeks later
delivered the keynote address at the Nation of Islam's annual
convention in Detroit
.
Controversy
Farrakhan has been the center of much controversy, and critics
claim that some of his views and comments have been
racist or
homophobic.
Farrakhan has categorically denied these charges, and has stated
that much of America's perception of him has been shaped by media
sound bites. This defense is echoed by religion scholar
Mattias Gardell who argues that, when
considered in the context of Farrakhan's typically lengthy
lectures, many of Farrakhan's controversial comments take on a more
nuanced or thoughtful meaning that cannot be conveyed in a
sound bite.
H1N1 Vaccine Conspiracy Theory
On 10/21/2009, Farrakhan told an audience in Memphis he believes
the H1N1 flu vaccine was developed to depopulate. During a
gathering to observe the Nation of Islam's Holy Day of Atonement,
which also marked the 14th anniversary of the Million Man March in
Washington, the (Memphis) Commercial Appeal reported Farrakhan as
saying:
"The Earth can't take 6.5 billion people. We just can't feed that
many. So what are you going to do? Kill as many as you can. We have
to develop a science that kills them and makes it look as though
they died from some disease."
Allegations of Antisemitism
Several of Farrakhan's comments have been deemed
antisemitic by the
Anti-Defamation League. Farrakhan
insists that he respects the religious traditions of all
people of the book.
Jewish distributors
Farrakhan has alleged that in 1985, Jewish distributors blocked a
major urban economic renewal initiative he championed which was
dubbed "p.o.w.e.r." for
People Organized Working for Economic
Rebirth.
The initiative called for a joint enterprise of black businesses
and organizations to produce and distribute a line of cosmetics and
toiletries sold under the
Clean &
Fresh label. Major black haircare companies, including
Johnson Products Co. backed out of the
initiative fearing it could lead to accusations of anti-Semitism.
Johnson Products owner
George
E. Johnson, Sr.
maintained that his company's distributors told him that any
dealings with Farrakhan's P.O.W.E.R. project would lead to having
his own products boycotted. "We knew we could not offend our
distribution channels," a Johnson spokesman, Dorothy McConner,
said. "When I saw that," Farrakhan says, "I recognized that the
black man will never be free until we address the relationship
between blacks and Jews."
"Gutter religion"
In 1984,
after returning from a visit to Libya
, Farrakhan
delivered a sermon that was recorded by a Chicago Sun Times reporter. A
transcript from part of the sermon was published in the
New York Times:
Farrakhan has repeatedly denied referring to Judaism as a "gutter
religion," explaining that he was instead referring to the
Israeli Government's use of Judaism as a
political tool. In a June 18, 1997 letter to a former
Wall Street Journal editor, Jude
Wanniski, he stated:
Neturei Karta
Farrakhan has had friendly relations with leaders of the
Neturei Karta, a fringe Jewish group that is
well-known for its association with and support for
anti-Zionists. While they said that "Minister
Farrakhan has in the past, at times, tended to negatively lump all
Jews together in his rhetoric," Neturei Karta stressed that
"Minister Louis Farrakhan is an extraordinary force for good in the
Black community. His followers are responsible, industrious, modest
and moral. And for this he and they have our respect."
"Black Hitler" characterization
During
Jesse Jackson's 1984 presidential
campaign, Jackson referred to New York City
as "Hymietown" in a discussion with a black
reporter. Though Jackson thought he was speaking off the
record, the reporter printed the quote. Jackson was widely
criticized for the slur and received numerous death threats,
leading Farrakhan to announce, "If you [Jewish leaders] harm this
brother, I warn you in the name of Allah, it'll be the last one you
ever harm."
In response to Farrakhan's speech, Nathan Pearlmutter, then Chair
of the
Anti-Defamation League
of
B'nai B'rith (ADL) referred to
Farrakhan as the new "Black
Hitler",
and
Village Voice journalist
Nat Hentoff, while a guest on a New York radio
talk-show, also characterized the NOI leader as a "Black
Hitler".
In response, Farrakhan said during a March 11, 1984 speech
broadcast on a Chicago radio station:
Farrakhan was
censured unanimously by the
United States Senate for the
speech.
Farrakhan's Vision Experience
On
October 24, 1989, at a Washington, DC
press conference, Farrakhan described a 1985
vision he had while in Mexico
. In
his vision, he said he was carried up to "a Wheel, or what you call
an
unidentified flying
object" as referenced in the
Bible's
Book of Ezekiel 1:15-18. During this
vision experience he said he heard the voice of Elijah
Muhammad.
Mugabe
In 2002
Louis Farrakhan went to Zimbabwe
in support of President Robert Mugabe's intentions to enforce proposed
seizures of white-owned land and property. The seizures were
marked by violence and death and contributed to the collapse of
farming and agriculture. Farrakhan said he was in "full support" of
Mugabe's policies "as it was aimed at correcting a historical
injustice".
Malcolm X's death
After a
60 Minutes interview
which aired on May 14, 2000,
CBS News said
that Farrakhan's "incendiary rhetoric played a role in the 1965
assassination of civil rights leader
Malcolm
X."
On May 20, 2000, Farrakhan publicly rejected CBS News'
characterization of the interview stating, "It appears that the aim
of
60 Minutes, CBS and
Mike Wallace was to make the
American public believe that I, Louis Farrakhan, ordered the
assassination of Malcolm X. It in no way reflected the spirit of
Miss Shabazz and myself and our
attempt to continue the path of reconciliation started by Dr. Betty
Shabazz and me in 1994 and 1995."
In a June 5, 2000, interview titled 'Setting the Record Straight'
with
Jet Magazine, Farrakhan
said "the interview was edited in such a way to give viewers the
impression that Farrakhan had a role in Malcolm's death." Of the
full four-hour interview,
CBS edited the
broadcast portion down to 12 minutes.
In a
February 21, 1990 (which was also the 25th anniversary of Malcolm
X's death) speech at Malcolm X College in Chicago,
Illinois
, Farrakhan gave a presentation on "The Murder of
Malcolm X" and the lingering effects of the
assassination.
Farrakhan and classical music
When Farrakhan first joined the NOI, he was asked by
Elijah Muhammad to put aside his musical
career. After 42 years, Farrakhan decided to take up the violin
once more, particularly due to the urging of prominent
classical musician
Sylvia Olden Lee.
On April 17, 1993, Farrakhan made his concert debut with
performances of the
Violin Concerto in E Minor by
Felix Mendelssohn. Farrakhan said that his
performance of a concerto by a Jewish composer was, in part, an
effort to heal a rift between him and the Jewish community.
The New York Times music
critic Bernard Holland reported that while his performance was
flawed due to years of neglect, "Mr. Farrakhan's sound is that of
the authentic player. It is wide, deep and full of the energy that
makes the violin gleam." Farrakhan has gone on to perform the
Violin Concerto of
Ludwig van
Beethoven and has announced plans to perform those of
Tchaikovsky and
Brahms.
See also
Footnotes
-
http://www.virginiasports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=88842&SPID=10616&DB_OEM_ID=17800&ATCLID=1139460&Q_SEASON=2008
- John B. Judis, He was a very good schoolboy hurdler at English.
Maximum Leader, The New York
Times, August 18, 1996, Accessed on May 19,
2006
- Sing - A - Long with Louis Farrakhan
- Farrakhan continues Hon. Elijah Muhammad's
mission
- The FBI-Manufactured Plot to Kill
Farrakhan
- A New Beginning; Minister Farrakhan and Betty
Shabazz
- [1]
- Poll: Jesse Jackson, Rice Top Blacks, In Survey,
15% Of Blacks See Jackson As 'Most Important Black Leader' - CBS
News
- Katrina survivors speak out
- http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/sayitloud/kane929
- :: BlackElectorate.com ::
- finalcall.com
- www.youtube.com
- Margaret Ramirez and Mike Dorning. Farrakhan sings Obama’s praises Senator has
criticized him, says support not sought, Chicago Tribune,
February 25, 2008 ]
- www.noi.org
- Farrakhan on Obama, Posted October 9, 2008
-
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/Farrakhan_addresses_world_at_Saviours_Day_2008_4427.shtml
Farrakhan addresses world at Saviours' Day 2008, March 5, 2008
- http://www.finalcallmedia.com/media/3/BET_Interview/ BET
Interview with Minister Louis Farrakhan, Posted date: February 6,
2009
- [2] www.unification.net
- Letter from the Honorable Minister Louis
Farrakhan
- http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3220.shtml FCN,
January 30, 2007
- http://www.noi.org/statements/ NOI Statements, 2007
- http://www.sd2007.com/webcast/ Farrakhan 2007 NOI Convention
Webcast, February 25, 2007
- Nation of Islam condemns politically-motivated charges of
racism [3], Nation of Islam Statements,
Oct. 7, 2000
- Who is Farrakhan? [4], Interview with The Arizona
Republic, March 25, 1996
- {{cite web
|url=http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2009/10/19/Farrakhan-suspicious-of-H1N1-vaccine/UPI-63931256011008.
- Letter to Journal News 12/31/99
- Black Candidates Live with More Fear
- Minister Farrakhan rebuts fraudulent "Judaism is a Gutter
Religion" canard
- Press Conference Transcript: October 24,
1989
- CBS News 60 Minutes: Farrakhan Admission On Malcolm
X, Video of admission
- Farrakhan responds to media attacks (Exclusive FCN
Interview)
- Jet Magazine interview
- Min. Farrakhan responds to slanderous news reports
on death of Malcolm X
- The Murder of Malcolm X: Farrakhan address at Malcolm X
College, Chicago, IL., [5]
Further reading
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