Free Republic

Former NBA guard Craig Hodges, regarded as one of the league’s premier three-point shooters before Steph Curry, painfully understands his career is defined more by a letter he wrote than his ability to knock down shots. As a star reserve with the Chicago Bulls, Hodges joined his teammates in 1991 for a visit to the White House to celebrate the Bulls’ first NBA Championship with President George H.W. Bush. Hodges, an outspoken advocate for social justice and civil rights during his 10-year NBA career, viewed the trip as an opportunity. Near the end of the celebration, Hodges, dressed in a...

The estate of Malcolm X is suing the federal government, accusing it of playing a role in the 1965 assassination of the civil rights leader. In a lawsuit filed against the Department of Justice (DOJ), FBI, CIA and New York Police Department (NYPD), the estate alleges the agencies all played a significant role in the events leading to Malcolm X’s slaying and then engaged in a decades-long cover-up of their involvement. The complaint says the quartet of agencies were aware of credible threats against Malcolm X’s life but failed to intervene. “As a direct result of the Defendants’ intentional, bad...

Sold-Out Event Raises More Than $620,000 for Civil Rights Work More than 1,000 people turned out on Saturday at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) banquet in Arlington, Va., to hear addresses by several elected officials, including Keith Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress. The event raised more than $620,000 to support CAIR's civil rights and advocacy work on behalf of the American Muslim community. (Another dinner held by CAIR's Southern California chapter (CAIR-LA) over the weekend raised more than $430,000. Some 1,800 people attended that event.) Elected officials who spoke at the sold-out event included Representative- elect Ellison (D-MN),...

Jihadist chat rooms are trash-talking Keith Ellison, a Minneapolis Democrat and the first U.S. Muslim Congressman. Since his 56-percent victory earlier this month, at least two radical Islamic chatrooms have dissed Ellison as, among other things, "the first Jewish Muslim that goes to Congress," the New York Daily News reported Monday. Muslim pundits have said his election was just "a comedy," and labeled him a "fool" trying to "deceive us," according to the SITE Institute, a terrorism investigative group.

Excerpt...From NY Times Arab news reports highlighted the fact that Mr. Ellison would probably take the oath of office on the Koran, something which also upset Muslim-bashers in the blogosphere. Some suggested it meant he would pledge allegiance to Islamic law rather than to upholding the Constitution.

New York Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar, who covers Islam in America, on Friday celebrates Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress. During the campaign, the Power Line blog took the lead in exposing Ellison's past affiliation with the Nation of Islam and its anti-Semitic leader Louis Farrakhan. But MacFarquhar, who went to elementary school in Libya and was once the Times' bureau chief in Cairo, disposes of the controversy in two sentences and frames it as Ellison being "attacked on religious grounds."

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Voters elected a black Democrat as the first Muslim in Congress on Tuesday after a race in which he advocated quick U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and made little mention of his faith. Keith Ellison, a 43-year-old lawyer and state representative, defeated two rivals, television networks said, to succeed retiring Democrat Martin Sabo in a seat that has been held by Democrats since 1963. Ellison, who converted to Islam as a 19-year-old college student in his native Detroit, won with the help of Muslims among a coalition of liberal, anti-war voters. He advocates an immediate U.S. withdrawal from...