Louis Farrakhan

Louis Farrakhan (born Louis Eugene Walcott, 1933) is a leader of one branch of the Nation of Islam, more popularly known as the Black Muslims. Beginning in the mid-1970s he emerged as a popular and militant spokesman for Black Nationalism.

Louis Eugene Walcott was born on May 11, 1933, and grew up in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. After joining the Nation of Islam in the 1950s, he took the name Louis X (a standard Nation of Islam practice indicating that one's identity and culture were stolen during slavery) and later Louis Farrakhan. In high school he was an honor student, a good track athlete, and an active Episcopalian. After two years of college he embarked on a career as a professional violinist and singer who used such stage names as "Calypso Gene" and "The Charmer."

At the age of 21, in 1955, Farrakhan was taken by a friend to hear Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad was the second head of the movement, having attained his position following the mysterious disappearance of founder W.D. Fard in 1934, and had overseen its growth to tens or hundreds of thousands of members with an extensive network of farms, restaurants, stores, schools, and other businesses and institutions. Muhammad's message excoriated "white devils" and promised that the day would soon arrive when God would restore African Americans, who were regarded as the original humans, to their rightful position as leaders of the world. Muhammad also imposed strict standards of behavior on his followers, who were forbidden from smoking, drinking, fighting, eating pork, and other behaviors regarded as destructive and were commanded to say prayers, attend religious services regularly, improve their education, and provide extensive service to the movement. Farrakhan joined the movement soon after hearing its leader speak.

The newcomer's ability and dedication were quickly appreciated by Muhammad, who appointed him minister of the Boston mosque. After the death of Malcolm X in 1965 he was appointed leader of the important Harlem Temple No. 7 and official spokesperson for Elijah Muhammad. He was also given the symbolically important task of introducing Muhammad at rallies on Savior's Day, a major Nation of Islam holiday celebrating Fard's birthday.

Elijah Muhammad died in 1975 and was succeeded by his son Wallace Muhammad, who proved much quieter and more moderate than his father. At Wallace Muhammad's invitation Farrakhan moved to Chicago to work in the movement's headquarters. Soon Wallace Muhammad began to pursue a program of moderation for the movement, abandoning its antiwhite rhetoric (and even admitting whites to membership) and building bridges to the larger world from the Islamic community. That program resulted in a movement that today functions as a relatively conventional expression of Islam.

Farrakhan became a major voice of the "purist" faction composed of members who rejected the move toward moderation. He resigned from the movement in 1978 and organized a new Nation of Islam that closely resembled Elijah Muhammad's original movement, with dress and behavior codes and Muslim institutions and businesses. The racial theology and bitterly antiwhite rhetoric of Elijah Muhammad once again became standard. The reconstituted movement grew quietly but steadily as Farrakhan opened mosques in American cities and reached out to the wider African American community through publications and a radio show.

Farrakhan's movement, which in 1983 was estimated to have between five and ten thousand members, remained relatively obscure until March 1984, when controversy suddenly erupted over his association with presidential candidate Jesse Jackson. Farrakhan, who had earlier counseled his devoted followers to avoid political involvements, had thrown his movement behind Jackson, providing, in addition to rhetorical support before African American audiences, bodyguards for the candidate. Farrakhan had registered to vote for the first time and urged his followers to do the same. Jackson had returned the favor by appearing as the featured speaker at the Muslim Savior's Day rally in February 1984.

In March, however, Farrakhan condemned Milton Coleman, an African American reporter for Washington Post, as a traitor after Coleman disclosed that Jackson had, in a conversation with campaign aides, referred to Jews as "Hymies" and to New York City as "Hymietown." In a speech, Farrakhan said of Coleman, "One day soon we will punish you with death," although he later denied that he was threatening Coleman's life. In the ensuing controversy it became known that Farrakhan had acclaimed Hitler as "a very great man" and had pronounced Judaism a "gutter religion." He also described the creation of Israel as an "outlaw act." Jackson never repudiated Farrakhan's support, but the Muslim's profile was lowered throughout the rest of the campaign.

Controversy about Farrakhan deepened when it became known that during the 1980s he had visited Libya and received a $5-million interest-free loan from dictator Muammar Gaddafi to help build Muslim institutions and businesses. Farrakhan explained that he sought to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for African American self-improvement programs from all of the groups, including Arabs, that had been involved in the slave trade and the destruction of African culture.

After his time of greatest publicity during the presidential campaign of 1984, Farrakhan continued his extensive public speaking schedule and continued to wield influence among African Americans far beyond the membership of his own movement. He and his wife, Betsy, had nine children and lived in a mainly white upscale neighborhood on the far South Side of Chicago.

In 1993, on his 60th birthday, Farrakhan performed a violin concert on Chicago's South Side in an attempt to better his image. The "concert" was held at a Temple, in hopes that tensions between Farrakhan and the Jewish community could be mended. Besides the "Clean n Fresh" product line, Farrakhan opened a $5 million restaurant in March 1995. The Salaam Restaurant and Bakery was built with funds collected from followers and the sale of the Final Call, an Islamic newspaper.

Farrakhan has always had a loyal following. This fact was most evident on October 16, 1995 in Washington D.C. Farrakhan had called upon at least one million African American men to converge on the nation's capital to reinvigorate their community. The "Million Man March" was to create a solidarity amongst the African American community. Many feel that the march was also designed to help bridge a gap between white and African America. Farrakhan had support from the likes of Maya Angelou, Jesse Jackson, Stevie Wonder and a host of other notable personalities. The march surprised many, not only because of the sheer force of attendance, but because Farrakhan was able to not only promote, but deliver a non-violent protest in Washington D.C.

Further Reading

Farrakhan has given few interviews and has not been the subject of a major biographical study. One helpful article is Clarence Page's "Deciphering Farrakhan," in Chicago magazine (August 1984). The Nation of Islam's newspaper, The Final Call, provides a general exposition of Farrakhan's outlook. Other articles pertaining to Farrakhan include "No Innocent Abroad" by Jack E. White, Time (February 26, 1996) and "Million Man March" by Eric Pooley, Time (October 16, 1995). □

Louis Farrakhan
1933-

Nation of islam leader

The Charmer

Born Louis Eugene Walcott in the Roxbury section of Boston in 1933, Gene was the younger of two sons of Mae Clark, an immigrant from Barbados. Walcott's father, a Jamaican immigrant, was largely absent in Gene's life, but his mother more than made up for the absence. Her children attended St. Cyprian's, an Episcopal church, and were close with the pastor, Nathan Wright. She also paid for her sons to take music lessons. Gene became an accomplished violinist, scholar, and athlete, winning an athletic scholarship to college in North Carolina. Frustrated with the racism he encountered in the South, he dropped out of school to take up a career as a calypso singer and became known as "the Charmer." He was losing patience with the religion of his youth and told Henry Louis Gates, "I couldn't understand why Jesus would preach so much love and why there was so much hate demonstrated by white Christians against black Christians." In 1955, after hearing Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X speak, he converted to the Nation of Islam, a branch of Islam established in the 1930s by Wallace D. Fard in the black community of Detroit. Walcott took the name Louis X in keeping with Fard's teaching. Fard had taught that black people were the original people of the earth. Whites, the "blue-eyed devils," were interlopers. Their oppression of black people was destined to end when blacks woke up and discovered their real humanity, rejected their "slave names," and began to adopt the diet and pure lifestyles of their African ancestors. Fard disappeared in June 1934. His successor, Elijah Muhammad, proclaimed Fard a Prophet and Savior, and 26 February came to be celebrated as Savior's Day. Louis X led a temple in Boston from 1956 until the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965. He changed his name again, to Louis Farrakhan, and took over leadership of Temple No. 7 in New York City. When Muhammad died in 1975, leadership of the Nation of Islam passed to his son, Wallace Deen Muhammad, who steered the organization toward orthodox Sunni Islam. In 1977 Farrakhan broke with Wallace Deen Muhammad to reestablish the Nation of Islam according to the teachings of Fard.

Anti-Semitism

Under Farrakhan's leadership the new Nation of Islam enjoyed a period of financial and organizational growth; its membership—perhaps thirty thousand strong—and racially exclusive ideology left it at the fringe of American religious movements. In 1984, however, Jessie Louis Jackson's campaign for the U.S. presidency pushed Farrakhan into the national spotlight. Registering to vote for the first time, Farrakhan offered Jackson's campaign his clean-cut and bowtied security force, the "Fruit of Islam," to protect the candidate. Farrakhan's rhetoric, always fiery and racially charged, discredited Jackson's campaign among white liberals and black moderates. When a black reporter quoted Jackson's reference to New York City as "Hymietown," Farrakhan further inflamed the situation by threatening the reporter with reprisal. Later that year Farrakhan criticized the state of Israel and complained that Jews used "God's name to shield your dirty religion." It would have been hard in any case for Farrakhan to distance himself from charges of anti-Semitism, and though he claimed repeatedly not to be anti-Semitic, he regularly referred to the existence of a powerful and secretive Jewish cabal.

Voice for Black Unity

The best known and most outspoken leader of the Nation of Islam, Farrakhan seemed to revel in controversy, His anti-white, anti-Semitic, anti-American culture rhetoric left few people unmoved, Even his supporters cringed when, in an interview on Reuters Television, he argued that "Many of the Jews that owned homes, the apartments in the black community, we considered them blood-suckers because they … didn't offer anything back to our community." Farrakhan accused the U.S. government of introducing crack cocaine to the inner cities "as a method of exterminating blacks." Still, Farrakhan and his supporters insisted that his basic message was positive. He called for black unity in the face of white intolerance and oppression; he wanted blacks to face the threats to their culture and identity by building stronger character within stronger communities. Blacks, he argued, needed to exercise their power to rebuild "a more perfect union."

Million Man March

As the guiding voice behind the Million Man March, Farrakhan moved beyond his formal role as simply the outspoken leader of a fringe Islamic sect. Though he did not abandon his racial and religious extremism, his leadership of the march in Washington on 16 March 1995 marked the beginning of Farrakhan's move toward the mainstream of the civilrights movement. Working with Christian and secular leaders of the African American community, Farrakhan called for black men from around the country to come to the National Mall for a day of speeches and community building. The march was held on a weekday so that the men who attended would have to sacrifice a day of work or school to attend. He encouraged women to stay at home in order to embody the ideal of family values as the men were being called to take more responsibility for their children and communities. Though its implications were clearly political, Farrakhan believed the March had "essentially a religious theme—atonement—disconnected from public policy."

Beyond the March

In January and February of 1996, responding to what Farrakhan claimed was divine inspiration, he made a "World Friendship Tour," meeting with leaders of Third World countries, including Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi of Libya, Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, and Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan, some of the most distasteful dictators in the world. Molefi Kete Asante, an Afrocentric scholar, complained that "What Farrakhan did, in my judgment, was to take the legitimacy of the march and put it in his back pocket, and march around to these terrible governments, as if somehow he was the leader of a million black people." In 1999 Farrakhan, though being treated for prostate cancer, remained among the most controversial religious leaders. Respected as a legitimate and powerful voice by many black Americans, feared or dismissed by most whites, his political and racial identity was inseparable from his religious worldview.

Sources:

Henry Louis Gates Jr., "The Charmer," New Yorker, 12 (29 April & 6 May 1996): 116-132.

Mortimer B. Zucker, "Louis Farrakhan's White Noise," US News and World Report, 119 (6 November 1995): 96.

Louis Farrakhan , 1933–, African-American religious leader, b. New York City, as Louis Eugene Walcott. A former calypso singer known as "The Charmer," he joined the Nation of Islam ( Black Muslims ) in 1955, eventually becoming minister of the Harlem Temple after Malcolm X broke with the religious group. After Elijah Muhammad died and his son steered the Black Muslims toward Sunni Islamic practice, Farrakhan founded (1977) a reorganized Nation of Islam that adhered to the elder Muhammad's teachings. Often denounced as anti-Semitic and antiwhite, Farrakhan has stridently criticized white Americans while emphasizing African-American self-improvement. In 1995 he was one of the chief organizers of the Million Man March, a day of renewal for African-American men in Washington, D.C. In 2000, Farrakhan publicly reconciled with W. Deen Mohammed, Elijah's son. In 2006, Farrakhan, suffering from illness, gave the day-to-day responsibilities for running the Nation of Islam to its executive board.

Farrakhan, Louis (1933– ) US leader of the Nation of Islam, a black separatist organization. A controversial figure, he was recruited into the Black Muslims in the 1950s by Malcolm X. Farrakhan was a charismatic advocate of its racial exclusivity. In 1976 he formed the Nation of Islam, which claimed greater adherence to the teachings of Elijah Muhammad. His powerful oratory stresses the importance of self-discipline, family values and community regeneration. His speeches often contain inflammatory anti-white, anti-Semitic and anti-homosexual remarks. In 1995, he organized a large political demonstration, assembling 400,000 men in a ‘Million Man March’ on Washington, D.C.

Farrakhan, Louis, see Nation of Islam

Farrakhan, Louis See NATION OF ISLAM.