The Ugly Influence of Louis Farrakhan

Louis Farrakhan is the current leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI), the black Muslim group founded in 1930 by Fard Muhammad and thereafter led to prominence from 1934 to 1975 by Elijah Muhammad.

Farrakhan was born Louis Eugene Walcott on May 11, 1933, in Roxbury, Massachusetts. As a young man in Boston, he became a popular entertainer as a calypso singer, dancer, and violinist. In February 1955, while he was in Chicago, a friend invited him to attend the Nation of Islam’s Saviours’ Day Convention scheduled to be held at a local mosque. Soon thereafter, Farrakhan joined the Nation of Islam, a watershed moment that would propel him to a long and controversial career as a self-described “civil rights” leader and a relentless critic of the United States.

In the 1960s, Farrakhan developed a strong enmity toward Malcolm X, who backed a more moderate vision of black civil rights than the NOI’s radical agenda. Against this already tense backdrop, a 1964 event catapulted Farrakhan’s contempt for Malcolm to soaring new heights. That year, Malcolm X publicly revealed that NOI leader Elijah Muhammad had impregnated several of his teenage secretaries, in blatant violation of his own admonitions against sex outside of marriage. Farrakhan was outraged at what he perceived as Malcolm’s disloyalty and called him a traitor. Ten weeks before Malcolm was assassinated, Farrakhan denounced him in the NOI newspaper Muhammad Speaks. “Only those who wish to be led to hell, or to their doom, will follow Malcolm,” Farrakhan wrote. “The die is set, and Malcolm shall not escape, especially after such evil, foolish talk about his benefactor; such a man is worthy of death and would have been met with death if it had not been for Muhammad’s confidence in Allah for victory over his enemies.”

Prior to Malcolm’s death, several former NOI members who had left the group were physically attacked, and in some cases murdered, by NOI members. Then on February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was killed in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom by three gunmen with ties to the NOI.

As recently as 1993, Farrakhan tried to justify Malcolm X’s assassination when he said in a speech, “Was Malcolm your traitor or ours? And if we dealt with [Malcolm] like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell business is it of yours? A nation has to be able to deal with traitors and cutthroats and turncoats.”

In May 1995, however, Farrakhan spoke for the first time in repentant tones about the slaying, and he admitted to having “helped create the atmosphere” that led to it. “I may have been complicit in words that I spoke leading up to 21 February,” he said. “I acknowledge that and regret that any word that I have said caused the loss of life of a human being.” Immediately thereafter, however, he named the U.S. government as the real villain that had fomented zeal and bitterness inside the NOI’s ranks.

During his long public career, Farrakhan has made numerous statements in favor of violence. He once said, for instance, “It is an act of mercy to white people that we end your world. . . . We must end your world and bring in a new world.” On another occasion, he told his followers, “We are at war and we never stop fighting for justice. You must have force. . . . don’t drop your gun and don’t forget to squeeze.”

In 1984 Farrakhan publicly threatened Milton Coleman, a black Washington Post reporter, with death. He portrayed Coleman as a traitor for having revealed that Jesse Jackson, in a conversation with campaign aides, had referred to Jews as “Hymies” and to New York City as “Hymietown.” “One day soon we will punish you with death,” Farrakhan said of Coleman.

Farrakhan also has a long, well documented history of venom-laced references to the “white devils” and Jewish “bloodsuckers” who purportedly decimate America’s black community from coast to coast. He has referred to Judaism as a “gutter religion,” and to Adolf Hitler as “a great man” – though he later claimed that he had meant only that Hitler was “wickedly great.”

Today Farrakhan ranks among the most influential black figures in America. His October 16, 1995 “Million Man March” drew several hundred thousand attendees. Though officially billed as a “day of atonement,” a significant portion of the event focused on America’s historical and allegedly continuing assault on black people. “The real evil in America,” Farrakhan said that day, “is the idea that under-girds the setup of the Western world, and that idea is called white supremacy.”

The Million Man March featured a roster of guest speakers condemning the racism and injustice that they said permeates American society – from the criminal justice system, to employment practices, to education, to money lending, and to virtually every other conceivable aspect of life.

In 1996 and again the following year, Farrakhan went on “World Friendship Tours” during which he exchanged pleasantries with government leaders in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Sudan – five of the most politically oppressive nations on earth, and all of which were on the State Department’s list of nations that support terrorism. Particularly noteworthy was his visit as an honored guest of Sudan’s Islamic fundamentalist government, which had slaughtered a million black Christians and enslaved hundreds of thousands of its black inhabitants.

In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Farrakhan stated that America had insufficient proof of Osama bin Laden’s and al-Qaeda’s culpability. “They [American government officials] have lied before,” he said, “and there’s no guarantee they’re not lying now.” His next logical leap was to assert that if bin Laden was not to blame, then the U.S. military had no legitimate “reason to fight.” Farrakhan ascribes anti-American sentiment overseas to what he calls a flawed foreign policy that steadfastly supports Israel.