Louis Farrakhan

Louis Farrakhan (; born Louis Eugene Walcott, May 11, 1933) is an American religious leader, black supremacist, anti-white and antisemitic conspiracy theorist, and former singer who heads the Nation of Islam (NOI). Prior to joining the NOI, he was a calypso singer who used the stage name Calypso Gene. Earlier in his career, he served as the minister of mosques in Boston and Harlem and was appointed National Representative of the Nation of Islam by then NOI leader Elijah Muhammad. He adopted the name Louis X, before being named Louis Farrakhan.

After Warith Deen Mohammed reorganized the original NOI into the orthodox Sunni Islamic group American Society of Muslims, Farrakhan began to rebuild the NOI as "Final Call". In 1981, he officially adopted the name "Nation of Islam", reviving the group and establishing its headquarters at Mosque Maryam. The Nation of Islam is an organization which the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes as a hate group. Farrakhan’s antisemitic statements and views have been condemned by the SPLC, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),*
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* and other monitoring organizations. According to the SPLC, the NOI promotes a "fundamentally anti-white theology" amounting to an "innate black superiority over whites". Farrakhan's views and remarks have also been called homophobic. He has disputed these assertions.

In October 1995, he organized and led the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. Due to health issues, he reduced his responsibilities with the NOI in 2007. However, Farrakhan has continued to deliver sermons and speak at NOI events. In 2015, he led the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March: Justice or Else.

Farrakhan was banned from Facebook in 2019 along with other public figures considered to be extremists.

Early life and education

Farrakhan was born Louis Eugene Walcott on May 11, 1933, in The Bronx, New York City, the younger of two sons of Sarah Mae Manning (1900–1988) and Percival Clark, immigrants from the Anglo-Caribbean islands. His mother was born in Saint Kitts, while his father was Jamaican. The couple separated before their second son was born, and Farrakhan says he never knew his biological father.

In a 1996 interview with Henry Louis Gates Jr., he speculated that his biological father, "a light-skinned man with straight hair from Jamaica", may have been Jewish.

After his stepfather died in 1936, the Walcott family moved to Boston, where they settled in the largely African-American neighborhood of Roxbury.

Walcott received his first violin at the age of five and by the time he was 12 years old, he had been on tour with the Boston College Orchestra. A year later, he participated in national competitions and won them. In 1946, he was one of the first black performers to appear on the Ted Mack '' Original Amateur Hour'', where he also won an award. Walcott and his family were active members of the Episcopal St. Cyprian's Church in Roxbury.

Walcott attended the Boston Latin School, and later the English High School, from which he graduated. He completed three years at Winston-Salem Teachers College, where he had a track scholarship.
In 1953, Walcott married Betsy Ross (later known as Khadijah Farrakhan) while he was in college. Due to complications from his new wife's first pregnancy, Walcott dropped out after completing his junior year of college to devote time to his wife and their child. Farrakhan is the father of 9 children and grandfather of basketball player Mustapha Farrakhan Jr.

Career and activities (1953–1996)

In the 1950s, Walcott began his professional music career as a singer billed as "The Charmer". At this point, earning $500 a week, Walcott was touring the northeastern and midwestern United States, sometimes also using the nickname "Calypso Gene". In 1953–1954, preceding Harry Belafonte's success with his album '' Calypso'' (released in 1956), he recorded and released a dozen cheeky, funny tunes as "The Charmer" in a mixed mento/ calypso style, including "Ugly Woman", "Stone Cold Man" and calypso standards like "Zombie Jamboree", "Hol 'Em Joe", "Mary Ann" and "Brown Skin Girl". Some were reissued: "Don’t Touch Me Nylon" has mild, explicit sexual lyrics as well as "Female Boxer", which contains some sexist overtones and "Is She Is, Or Is She Ain't" (inspired by Christine Jorgensen's sex change operation).

In February 1955, he was headlining a show in Chicago, Illinois, called ''Calypso Follies''. There he first came in contact with the teachings of the Nation of Islam (NOI) through Rodney Smith, a friend and saxophonist from Boston. Walcott and his wife Betsy were invited to the Nation of Islam's annual Saviours' Day address by Elijah Muhammad. Prior to going to Saviours' Day, due to then-Minister Malcolm X's media presence, Walcott had never heard of Elijah Muhammad, and like many outside of the Nation of Islam, he thought that Malcolm X was the leader of the Nation of Islam.

In 1955, Walcott fulfilled the requirements to be a registered Muslim/registered believer/registered laborer. He memorized and recited verbatim the 10 questions and answers of the NOI's Student Enrollment. He then wrote a Saviour's Letter that must be sent to the NOI's headquarters in Chicago. The Saviour's Letter must be copied verbatim, and have the identical handwriting of the Nation of Islam's founder, Wallace Fard Muhammad.

After having the Saviour's Letter reviewed, and approved by the NOI's headquarters in Chicago in July 1955, Walcott received a letter of approval from the Nation of Islam acknowledging his official membership as a registered Muslim/registered believer/registered laborer in the NOI. As a result, he received his "X." The "X" was considered a placeholder, used to indicate that Nation of Islam members' original African family names had been lost. They acknowledged that European surnames were slave names, assigned by the slaveowners in order to mark their ownership. Members of the NOI used the "X" while they were waiting for their Islamic names, which some NOI members received later in their conversions.

Hence, Louis Walcott became Louis X. Elijah Muhammad then replaced his "X" with the "holy name" Farrakhan, which is a corruption of the Arabic word فرقان ''furqan'', which means "The Criterion". On a very different tone from his calypso songs, he recorded two tunes as Louis X, criticizing racism in ''A White Man's Heaven Is a Black Man's Hell,'' a record album which was issued on Boston's ''A Moslem Sings'' label in 1960. The summer after Farrakhan's conversion, Elijah Muhammad stated that all musicians in the NOI had to choose between music and the Nation of Islam.

After nine months of being a registered Muslim in the NOI and a member of Muhammad's Temple of Islam in Boston, where Malcolm X was the minister, Farrakhan became his assistant minister. Eventually he became the official minister after Elijah Muhammad transferred Malcolm X to Muhammad's Temple of Islam No. 7 on West 116th St. in Harlem, New York City. Louis X continued to be mentored by Malcolm X, until the latter's assassination in 1965.

The day that Malcolm X died in Harlem, Farrakhan happened to be in Newark, New Jersey on rotation, 45 minutes away from where Malcolm X was assassinated. After Malcolm X's death, Elijah Muhammad appointed Farrakhan to the two prominent positions that Malcolm held before being dismissed from the NOI. Farrakhan became the national spokesman/national representative of the NOI and was appointed minister of the influential Harlem Mosque (Temple), where he served until 1975.

Farrakhan made numerous incendiary statements about Malcolm X, contributing to what was called a "climate of vilification." Three men from a Newark, NOI mosque— Thomas Hagan, Muhammad Abdul Aziz (aka Norman 3X Butler) and Kahlil Islam (aka Thomas 15X Johnson)—were convicted of the killing and served prison sentences. Only Hagan ever admitted his role.

Leadership of the Nation of Islam

Warith Deen Mohammed, the seventh son of Elijah and Clara Muhammad, was declared the new leader of the Nation of Islam at the annual Saviours' Day Convention in February 1975, a day after his father died. He made substantial changes in the organization in the late 1970s, taking most of its members into a closer relationship with orthodox Islam, and renaming the group "World Community of Islam in the West", and eventually renaming it the American Society of Muslims, to indicate the apparent changes which had occurred in the group. He rejected the deification of the Nation of Islam's founder Wallace D. Fard as Allah in person, the Mahdi of the Holy Qur'an and the messiah of the Bible, welcomed white worshipers who were once considered devils and enemies in the NOI as equal brothers, sisters, and friends. At the beginning of these changes, Chief Min. Warith Deen Mohammed gave some Euro-Americans X's, and he extended efforts at inter-religious cooperation and outreach to Christians and Jews. He changed his position and title from Chief Minister Wallace Muhammad to Imam Warith Huddin Mohammad, and finally changed them to Imam Warith Al-Deen Mohammed.

Farrakhan joined Mohammed's movement and followed Imam Warith Al-Deen Mohammed, and eventually became a Sunni Imam under him for years from 1975 to 1978. Imam Mohammed gave Imam Farrakhan the name Abdul-Haleem. In 1978, Imam Farrakhan distanced himself from Mohammed's movement. In a 1990 interview with ''Emerge'' magazine, Farrakhan said that he had become disillusioned with Mohammed's movement and decided to "quietly walk away" from it rather than cause a schism among its members. In 1978, Farrakhan and a small number of supporters decided to rebuild what they considered the original Nation of Islam upon the foundations established by Wallace Fard Muhammad, and Elijah Muhammad. This decision was made without public announcement.

In 1979, Farrakhan's group founded a weekly newspaper entitled ''The Final Call'', which was intended to be similar to the original ''Muhammad Speaks'' newspaper that Malcolm X claimed to have started, Farrakhan had a weekly column in ''The Final Call''. In 1981, Farrakhan and his supporters held their first Saviours' Day convention in Chicago, Illinois, and took back the name of the Nation of Islam. The event was similar to the earlier Nation's celebrations, last held in Chicago on February 26, 1975. At the convention's keynote address, Farrakhan announced his attempt to restore the Nation of Islam under Elijah Muhammad's teachings.

On October 24, 1989, at a press conference at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington, DC, Minister Farrakhan described a vision which he had on September 17, 1985 in Tepoztlán, Mexico. In this 'Vision-like' experience he was carried up to "a Wheel, or what you call an unidentified flying object", as in the Bible's Book of Ezekiel. During this experience, he heard the voice of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam.

He said in the press conference that Elijah Muhammad "spoke in short cryptic sentences and as he spoke a scroll full of cursive writing rolled down in front of my eyes, but it was a projection of what was being written in my mind. As I attempted to read the cursive writing, which was in English, the scroll disappeared and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad began to speak to me." lijah Muhammad said "President Reagan has met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan a war. I want you to hold a press conference in Washington, D.C., and announce their plan and say to the world that you got the information from me, Elijah Muhammad, on the Wheel."

During that same press conference Farrakhan stated that he believed his "experience" was proven: "In 1987, in ''The New York Times'' Sunday magazine and on the front page of ''The Atlanta Constitution'', the truth of my vision was verified, for the headlines of ''The Atlanta Constitution'' read, 'President Reagan Planned War Against Libya.'" Farrakhan added "In the article which followed, the exact words that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad spoke to me on the Wheel were found; that the President had met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and planned a war against Libya in the early part of September 1985."

Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz, was arrested on January 12, 1995 accused of conspiracy to assassinate Farrakhan in retaliation for the murder of her father, for which she believed he was responsible. According to Stanford University historian Clayborne Carson, " er familyresented Farrakhan and had good reason to because he was one of those in the Nation responsible for the climate of vilification that resulted in Malcolm X's assassination"."Farrakhan helped build climate for Malcolm X's death"
Stanford University News Service, January 17, 1995, accessed December 3, 2010 Some critics later alleged that the FBI had used paid informant Michael Fitzpatrick to frame Shabazz, who was four years old when her father was killed. Nearly four months later, on May 1, Shabazz accepted a plea agreement under which she maintained her innocence but accepted responsibility for her actions.

Farrakhan visited Turkey at invitation on February 18, 1996 and met with the country's leading Islamist political figure, Necmettin Erbakan, and his Welfare Party's officials. He said that the Turkish people must decide whether it wants to have a secular or Islamic government.

Million Man March

That year in October, Farrakhan convened a broad coalition of what he and his supporters claimed was one million men in Washington, D.C., for the Million Man March. The count however fell far below the hoped-for numbers. The National Park Service estimated that approximately 440,000 were in attendance. Farrakhan threatened to sue the National Park Service because of the low estimate from the Park Police.

Farrakhan and other speakers called for black men to renew their commitments to their families and communities. In Farrakhan's 2 hours he quoted from spirituals as well as the Old and New Testaments and termed himself a prophet sent by God to show America its evil. The event was organized by many civil rights and religious organizations and drew men and their sons from across the United States of America. Many other distinguished African Americans addressed the throng, including: Maya Angelou; Rosa Parks; Martin Luther King III, Cornel West, Jesse Jackson and Benjamin Chavis. In 2005, together with other prominent African Americans such as the New Black Panther Party leader Malik Zulu Shabazz, the activist Al Sharpton, Addis Daniel and others, Farrakhan marked the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March by holding a second gathering, the Millions More Movement, October 14–17 in Washington D.C.

Views

Racism and black nationalism

The Anti-Defamation League classifies Farrakhan as a racist and the Southern Poverty Law Center considers the Nation of Islam (NOI) as a hate group and a black nationalist organization. According to the SPLC, the NOI's theology claims black superiority over whites. According to the NOI, whites were created 6,600 years ago as a "race of devils" by an evil scientist named Yakub, a story which originated with the founder of the NOI, Wallace D. Fard.

The split in the NOI into two factions after Eljiah Muhammad died in 1975, was caused in part because new leader Warith Mohammed wished to reject the Yakub myth, while national spokesman Farrakhan wanted to reaffirm it. At an event in Milwaukee in August 2015, Farrakhan said: "White people deserve to die, and they know, so they think it’s us coming to do it".

Antisemitism

Both the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center classify Farrakhan as an antisemite. Farrakhan has accused Jews of controlling the media, government, and global economy, along with being behind the Atlantic slave trade, Jim Crow laws, and black oppression in general. He regularly calls Jews "Satanic" and has repeatedly praised Adolf Hitler as a “very great man.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center included some of Farrakhan's comments on its list of the Top 10 antisemitic slurs in 2012.

"Gutter religion" remarks

In June 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" by explaining that he was instead referring to what he believed was 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:

Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust

In response to Farrakhan's speech, Nathan Pearlmutter, then Chair of the Anti-Defamation League, referred to Farrakhan as the new "Black Hitler" and '' Village Voice'' journalist Nat Hentoff also characterized the NOI leader as a "Black Hitler" while he was a guest on a New York radio talk-show.

In response, Farrakhan announced during a March 11, 1984, speech which was broadcast on a Chicago radio station:

At a later meeting of the Nation of Islam at Madison Square Garden in 1985, Farrakhan said of the Jews: "And don't you forget, when it's God who puts you in the ovens, it's forever!" He has also claimed that German Jews financed the Holocaust in a speech at the Mosque Maryam, Chicago in March 1995: "German Jews financed Hitler right here in America...International bankers financed Hitler and poor Jews died while big Jews were at the root of what you call the Holocaust". Almost three years later at a Saviors' Day gathering in the same city, he said: "The Jews have been so bad at politics they lost half their population in the Holocaust. They thought they could trust in Hitler, and they helped him get the Third Reich on the road."

Incidents and comments since 2002

On March 23, 2002, Farrakhan visited Kahal Kadosh Shaare Shalom in Kingston, Jamaica