Farrakhan, Louis 1933–

Louis Farrakhan 1933–

Islamic Minister

At a Glance…

Inflammatory Rhetoric

Active in the Fight Against Drugs and Crime

Continues to Inspire Debate

Sources

Perhaps no contemporary African-American orator has so inflamed both his admirers and his detractors as Louis Farrakhan. The leader of the controversial Nation of Islam, a religious organization founded by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad in the 1930s, Farrakhan has invited scorn for passing allegedly anti-Semitic and racist remarks while winning praise for his advocacy of clean living and black self-help. Although he entered the national limelight through his participation in Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign, Farrakhan has been an important figure in black struggles for power and representation since his earliest days as a young minister under Elijah Muhammad.

Farrakhan was born Louis Eugene Walcott in New York City in 1933, the son of a schoolteacher and a domestic worker. In the 1950s he attended Winston-Salem Teachers College in North Carolina, but the rhetorical skills he honed there would take him to the pulpit rather than the classroom. In his youth, Walcott studied music, learning violin and guitar. Later, while living in Boston, he put the latter instrument to use in a nightclub act, calling himself Calypso Gene and singing political lyrics to Caribbean-style music. His talents as an entertainer caught the eye of Malcolm X, the renowned black activist who was then the most powerful and charismatic of Elijah Muhammad’s ministers. Walcott was recruited into the organization and began calling himself Louis X, preaching impressively and receiving the name Farrakhan from Elijah himself.

Farrakhan grew close to Elijah Muhammad very quickly. By the early 1960s he was head of the Nation of Islam’s Boston mosque. In 1965, Malcolm X left the organization in favor of a more inclusive and secular black activism—his new vision embraced the intentions of the U.S. Constitution—and was assassinated by a group from the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan, who had been close to Malcolm, replaced him at the Harlem mosque and eventually took over his job as the Nation’s press spokesman in 1972. Farrakhan has been a devoted preacher of Elijah Muhammad’s gospel ever since, and by the mid-1980s had emerged as one of black America’s most influential and uncompromising voices. In spite of his fiery pronouncements as a speaker, he leads a quiet and decidedly comfortable domestic life in what People described as an “opulent mansion of marble and limestone” in the Hyde Park section of Chicago. He has been married to his wife, Khadijah, for 36 years; their nine

At a Glance…

Born Louis Eugene Walcott, May 11, 1933, in New York, NY; son of a schoolteacher and a domestic worker; married Khadijah (Betsy), c. 1954; children: nine. Education: Attended Winston-Salem Teachers College.

Musician and singer, c. late 1950s; Nation of Islam, minister, 1965—, became leader; worked with Jesse Jackson on presidential campaign, 1984; founded POWER (People Organized and Working for Economic Rebirth), an entrepreneurial group; lecturer.

Addresses: Office —Nation of Islam, 734 West 79th St., Chicago, IL 60620.

children have in turn given the Farrakhan family 22 grandchildren. When he presents speeches at universities and other institutions, he is flanked by a personal security force called the Fruit of Islam.

The Nation of Islam began when Elijah Muhammad (born Elijah Poole) began to preach the divinity of a man named Wallace Fard; Fard allegedly revealed himself as the Muslim god Allah to Muhammad. The organization advocated religious and political militancy, proclaiming that civilization had begun with black men who were God’s chosen people. Whites, according to this doctrine, were devils, the subhuman creation of an evil magician named Yakub. These malevolent beings were said to be committed to the destruction of the black race, as evidenced by centuries of oppression and slavery. Allah would punish His enemies, and Nation of Islam literature brims with reference to Armageddon. As Thomas Landess and Richard Quinn wrote in their book Jesse Jackson and the Politics of Race, the Nation of Islam awaits a time when “Allah is to deliver the United States of America and indeed the whole world into the hands of the blacks, whose destiny is to rule over all.”

Yet the Nation of Islam’s doctrines differ radically from those of orthodox Islam. The sermons of Elijah Muhammad, and later of Farrakhan, combine ideas and beliefs from the Muslim Qur’an (also known as the Koran, or book of sacred writings) with Christian principles and images. They reportedly even invent “scripture” at times. In fact, when Elijah Muhammad’s son Wallace Deen Muhammad traveled to the East to study Islam, he decided his father was a fake and renounced the Nation’s earlier teachings. Elijah, who died in 1975, willed the holdings of the organization to his sons—mainly Wallace—much to Farrakhan’s disappointment. But Wallace’s disavowal of his father’s philosophy eventually drove many of Elijah’s followers into Farrakhan’s derivative group.

Muhammad and Farrakhan—and Malcolm X while he was in the group—were greatly influenced by the Black Nationalist movement. This movement has existed as long as the United States itself and argues that American blacks can only achieve freedom and independence by establishing their own nation. Some nationalists imagined this territory within the United States, others envisioned it in Africa. Elijah Muhammad wrote in his speech “What Do the Muslims Want?” that the black nation might be “either on this continent or elsewhere.” The Nation of Islam has long asked the U.S. government to provide reparations to black citizens—like those paid to Japanese-American internees of U.S. detention camps during World War II—to pay for a black nation. “Blacks are already separate,” Farrakhan told People. “What does America owe us? Reparations must include the freeing of all blacks from state and local penitentiaries. Then let us ask our brothers and sisters in Africa to set aside a separate territory for us, and let us take the money that America is spending to maintain these convicts and [invest it in] a new reality on the African continent.” That Farrakhan specified Africa in 1990 suggests that the United States no longer offered the hope of a new reality for the Muslims.

Inflammatory Rhetoric

It may be that whites found Farrakhan particularly threatening not so much for his critiques—these echo many of the basic charges leveled by a whole spectrum of black activists at white society—as for his rhetoric. Newsweek reported his saying that whites have “practiced a form of genocide” on black people worldwide and that “there is a war being planned against black youth by the government of the United States under the guise of a war against drugs and gangs and violence.” The idea of a conspiracy to kill or ruin the lives of black people strikes many of Farrakhan’s critics, especially white ones, as far-fetched, even fanatical. Yet the insistent use of race by white politicians as a means of attacking the welfare system and so-called “hiring quotas”—not to mention the extreme force used by urban police on black men, as captured on videotape by a witness to the beating of Rodney King by officers in Los Angeles—lend a certain credibility to Farrakhan’s theory in many listeners’ minds. “The masses of black people,” he remarked to People, “in terms of median income, crime, youth unemployment, are going backwards. Even though we don’t have the violent riots that we had in the ’60s, there are quiet riots of unemployment, poverty, disease, hopelessness, and crime.”

Farrakhan has received considerable attention for his attacks on Jews, a frequent target of Nation of Islam rhetoric. His harsh criticism of Israel goes much further than the specific critiques of those who object to its policies. According to Newsweek he claims that Israel “practices deceit, murder, lying and uses the cover of bible and religion and prophecy as the shield for that dirty, unclean practice.” He has expressed his support for several of Israel’s Middle Eastern enemies, particularly Libya, which granted the Nation of Islam a substantial loan in the 1970s. Although he has claimed that his critics misrepresented his remarks in order to smear him, Farrakhan has been quoted several times as calling Judaism a “gutter religion.” This remark alone precipitated a huge controversy over free speech, ethnic solidarity, and bigotry.

But Farrakhan’s statement, along with Jackson’s notorious reference to New York City as “hymietown” (utilizing a derogatory term for Jews), seriously alienated many of Jackson’s potential supporters during his bid for the nomination as Democratic presidential candidate. When Milton Coleman, a black journalist, reported Jackson’s remarks in the Washington Post, Farrakhan allegedly promised Coleman, “One day soon, we will punish you with death [for acting] for white people and against the good of yourself and your own people. This is a fitting punishment for such dogs.” Although Farrakhan never publicly acknowledged issuing this ambiguous threat, it is consistent with the tenor of many Nation of Islam pronouncements. Most damaging of all, however, was Farrakhan’s reference to Adolf Hitler—the German leader who during the Second World War ordered the extermination of millions of Jews and other ethnic minorities—as “wickedly great.” Although Farrakhan attempted to qualify the remark afterwards, its initial impact has never subsided.

Even if Farrakhan’s specific remarks about Jews and whites hadn’t generated controversy, his group’s beliefs apparently still disturb many of his critics. His presence on the national political scene has had a remarkably polarizing effect. “Farrakhan has been attacked so vigorously in part because he is black,” wrote Adolph Reed Jr. in Nation. “He is seen by whites as a symbol embodying, and therefore justifying their fears of a black peril. Blacks have come to his defense mainly because he is black and perceived to be a victim of racially inspired defamation.” Farrakhan has not hesitated to charge most of his critics with racism, and many analysts view the reluctance of black leaders to criticize Farrakhan as a symptom of this strategy. In one instance, a New Republic contributor chided Jackson for his cautious handling of Farrakhan’s inflammatory rhetoric: “It’s partly because he doesn’t want to alienate a small but increasingly powerful black constituency, but there’s more to it than that. Jackson is plainly willing to remain silent in the face of bigotry if that’s the only way he can avoid seeming to agree with Farrakhan’s critics. Jackson may or may not be pro-Farrakhan. He is, however, quite firmly anti-anti-Farrakhan.” In 1988 the New Republic dedicated an entire story, entitled “Hate Story,” to Farrakhan’s remarks about Jews. The lengthy quotations from his speeches reiterate his accusation of racism on the part of his critics and indicate the probable social basis for the popularity of his remarks about Jews. “I’m a victim of your bigotry,” he responded to Washington Post critic Richard Cohen, “and now you call me a bigot.” Farrakhan’s attacks on Jews, read in context, indicate that he and many of his constituents see Jewish people as part of America’s power and money elite, and therefore as an integral part of the systematic discrimination that blacks have encountered. That this perception of Jewish monetary control is itself an ancient racial stereotype seems to mean little to them. Jews also receive condemnation for supporting Israel, a region which the Nation of Islam and many other analysts of world politics accuse of mistreating its Arab neighbors. Thus the many-sided conflicts of that region become a white versus black issue.

During both of his bids for the U.S. presidency, Jackson was pressured to distance himself from Farrakhan. In a 1990 interview in People, Farrakhan insisted at once, “I am not the same man that I was four years ago. I have matured as a leader,” but he also claimed that he was deliberately quoted out of context by “Jewish organizations, having connections in the media” and fearing Jackson’s “evenhanded” Middle East policies. Though Jackson eventually conceded during the 1988 campaign that he found many of Farrakhan’s remarks offensive, many in the black community perceived such statements as attempts to placate white constituencies, and even as selling out.

Farrakhan’s popularity in black communities throughout the United States owes much to his refusal to qualify or tone down his language; thus he seems to defy the white establishment simply by ignoring its objections. “Black folk are listening to me more than any black leader on the scene today,” he claimed in People, and whether this statement is literally true or not, he commands a very large following—People estimates that the Nation’s members alone number around ten thousand. This doesn’t include the many Christians and secular activists who attend his speeches and draw inspiration from his uncompromising style. John Hurst Adams, leader of the Congress of National Black Churches, told Time that “Farrakhan is tapping deep feelings based on 400 years of racism and speaks for many other blacks than just his followers.” Though some of Farrakhan’s critics believe that the Muslim minister’s popularity is often shallow and related to the symbol-heavy realm of pop culture, they may forget how much pop culture informs popular debate. The highly politicized rap group Public Enemy’s song “Don’t Believe the Hype” defends the minister against his attackers: “Don’t say you understand / Until you’ve heard the man.”

Active in the Fight Against Drugs and Crime

Farrakhan’s organization generated some positive press through its “dopebusters” program. An unarmed group of Muslims managed to remove drug-trafficking from two troubled Washington D.C. housing projects, Mayfair Mansions and Paradise Manor. Unfortunately, the group’s successes, attributed by many to their rapport with the black community, were tainted by conflicts with the police. In Los Angeles, a series of violent confrontations culminated in the January 1990 death of Nation of Islam member Oliver Beasley. Beasley was shot when he and a group of other Muslims surrounded a police car that had stopped fellow Nation member David Hartley for speeding. Khallid Muhammad, an aide to Farrakhan, encapsulated the Muslim attitude toward police harassment: “Why do you want us to bow down to you—bow in the streets, face down, as though you were God?… We bow down to God and God alone.” In spite of Farrakhan’s history of inflammatory statements, Newsweek’s Lynda Wright and Daniel Glick acknowledged the importance of his participation in the struggle against “drug anarchy.” Over one thousand black men joined the Nation of Islam as a result of this campaign. James Johnson, an 18-year-old veteran of the L. A. streets, told Time’s Sylvester Monroe, “They told me how we were killing ourselves and showed me what’s really going on in society. Minister Farrakhan has a way of getting your attention.”

Another milestone of the 1990 Nation of Islam campaign was its improved relationship with the African Methodist Episcopalian (AME) Church, one of America’s oldest black churches. AME congregationalists in south central Los Angeles, one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the country, worshipped with Muslims and vowed to cooperate with them in rescuing their city from violence and despair. Church pastor Cecil Murray told Time that the groups had come together not to hash over “dogma and doctrine” but to pool their resources to save the neighborhood. The Nation’s appeal to community self-help has earned the approval of many organizations that may or may not agree with the rest of its program. Jim Cleaver, a deputy to Los Angeles supervisor Kenneth Hahn, remarked to Time, “I am not about to become a Muslim. I just respect what they do.” Joseph H. Duff, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), observed in the same article that “the problem of confronting gang violence and drugs is the responsibility of the black male. And Muslims have always been a symbol of strong black manhood.”

Continues to Inspire Debate

Most of Farrakhan’s vocal critics have been politically moderate or centrist whites. Columnist Charles Krauthammer summed up the sentiments of Farrakhan’s opposition in his Time editorial “The Black Rejectionists,” stating, “The new alternative leadership Farrakhan symbolizes is not so much radical … as nihilist. It stands above all for rejection. Farrakhan’s rejection of things American is too long to list, but it includes racial integration and religious tolerance.… The rejectionists have nothing to offer the black community beyond the momentary satisfaction of articulated rage.” Yet, according to Reed, Farrakhan engaged in a “very sympathetic July 23,1990 interview” with The Spotlight, a publication of an extreme right-wing organization called the Liberty Lobby. Reed argued that Farrakhan’s goals are quite compatible with those of ultraconservative whites, since the Nation of Islam’s demand for a separate realm for blacks effectually fulfills the goals of many openly anti-black groups. Furthermore, suggested Reed, the Nation’s emphasis on self-help and economic independence fits in completely with Reagan and Bush-era economics—practices long attacked by activists for ignoring the needs of minorities—and ultimately helps the government to justify cuts in social spending.

The self-help dimension of the Nation’s philosophy embraces everything from spirituality to hygiene. Thus in his speech “Self-Improvement” Farrakhan made the transition from the teachings of Jesus and Muhammad to the introduction of his line of “Clean ’n Fresh” cleaning products. These products, he promised his listeners, can be sold in Muslim markets worldwide and can amass a huge fortune, though he dismissed any profit motive of his own: “That kind of money is what we need to do the positive things that have to be done to lift our people toward total liberation.… So all of this belongs to the membership of the Nation of Islam.” In 1985 Farrakhan started the organization he called POWER (People Organized and Working for Economic Rebirth), a parent company for business endeavors like Clean ’n Fresh. The principle underlying the venture maintains that black people in America need to build their own economic base. This could best be accomplished by recruiting black salespeople to sell black-produced products in black neighborhoods. To this end, Farrakhan secured a $5 million interest-free loan from the nation of Libya. Unfortunately for the venture, Farrakhan’s manufacturers backed out as a result of the negative publicity that followed the “Hymietown” incident and Farrakhan’s own statements about Jews.

Though the fortune envisioned by the minister has not materialized, the idea of an all-black entrepreneurial scheme based on cleanliness and approved by the Qur’an is itself rich in meaning for anyone who hopes to understand Farrakhan and his organization. For his ministrations always presuppose a diseased black community, unwashed and without grace, in need of discipline and capital. His depictions of urban blacks as wild, loud, and immoral appeal to long-standing stereotypes harbored by some segments of the white community. Reed took him to task for these depictions: “This often lurid imagery of [black lower-class] pathology naturally points toward a need for behavioral modification, moral regeneration and special tutelage by black betters, and black middle-class paternalism is as shameless and self-serving now as at the turn of the century.” Several critics have suggested that Farrakhan has exploited his position as a minority leader by claiming to speak on behalf of black people and that he has managed to link any black criticism of him with race treason.

Despite the considerable negative publicity he has gained by making remarks construed as racist and anti-Semitic, Louis Farrakhan has survived as a forceful presence on the black political landscape. Whether he will continue recruiting new members and gaining greater acceptance for his organization will depend on the political and social climate in the coming years, and whether or not he chooses to modify his rhetoric to make his message more accessible. In a period of great crisis in the black community, Louis Farrakhan’s powerful and unconventional ideas have attracted a substantial following; his tenacity has sustained that following. “I have weathered all of the storms,” he told People, “and by the grace of God have come out on top.”

Sources

Books

Bracey, John H., Jr., August Meier, and Elliot Rudwick, editors, Black Nationalism in America, Bobbs-Merrill, 1970.

Eure, Joseph D., and Richard M. Jerome, editors, Back Where We Belong: Selected Speeches by Minister Louis Farrakhan, PC International Press, 1989.

Landess, Thomas, and Richard Quinn, Jesse Jackson and the Politics of Race, Jameson Books, 1985.

Periodicals

Nation, January 21, 1991; January 28, 1991.

New Republic, May 30, 1988; December 18, 1989.

Newsweek, March 19, 1990.

People, September 17, 1990.

Time, April 16, 1990; July 23, 1990.

—Simon Glickman