Louis Farrakhan
From Freepedia
Louis Farrakhan (born Louis Eugene Walcott, May 11, 1933 in Bronx, New York, also known as "The Charmer" as a Calypso musician) is the leader of the largely African American Nation of Islam.
Walcott was raised in the West Indian community in the Roxbury section of Boston. His mother had emigrated from the Caribbean island of Saint Kitts in the 1920s; his father was a Jamaican cab driver from New York but was not involved in his upbringing.
Early in life, Walcott was an up-and-coming calypso singer and violinist. At the age of six, he was given his first violin and by the age of 13, he had played with the Boston College Orchestra and the Boston Civic Symphony. A year later, Walcott won the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. He was also one of the first blacks to appear on the popular show.
Popularly known in Boston as "Calypso Louie," he recorded several Calypso albums under the name "The Charmer." [1]
In 1955, while headlining a show in Chicago entitled "Calypso Follies," Walcott first came in contact with the teachings of the Nation of Islam. He had been inspired by Malcolm X and he had accepted a friend's invitation to attend the Nation of Islam's annual Saviours' Day address by Elijah Muhammad. Walcott accepted Elijah Muhammad's teachings that day and became "Louis X" later to be renamed Louis Farrakhan by Elijah Muhammad. Nation of Islam doctrine explains that because in mathematics the 'X' represents an unknown variable, followers use it to represent their lost, unknown African surnames. The followers accept this 'X' as a symbol of the rejection of their slave names and the absence of a "proper" Muslim name. Eventually, the 'X' is replaced with an Arabic name more descriptive of a person's personality and character.
After joining the Nation of Islam, Farrakhan quickly rose through the ranks to become Minister of the Nation of Islam's Boston Mosque. He was appointed Minister of the influential Harlem Mosque from 1965 to 1975.
After Elijah Muhammad's son, Warith Deen Mohammad, was installed as Supreme Minister of the Nation of Islam, he disavowed many of his father's beliefs and practices. He brought the group closer to mainstream Islam and renamed the organization as the Muslim American Society.
By 1976 Farrakhan became disillusioned with Warith Deen Mohammad's leadership and quietly walked away from the movement. In 1978 Farrakhan, with a few supporters, decided to rebuild the Nation of Islam. In 1981, he publicly announced the restoration of the Nation of Islam as an organization that followed Elijah Muhammad's teachings.
On October 24, 1989, at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington, DC., Louis Farrakhan stated that he had a vision of being abducted in 1985 by an invisible pilot in a UFO and carried up on a beam of light to a "human built planet" known as the "Mother Wheel." There the voice of Elijah Muhammad informed him that the president and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under the direction of Gen. Colin Powell, were planning a war, which Farrakhan said he later came to realize was "a war against the black people of America, the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan." "I saw a city in the sky," Farrakhan said, after which the UFO "brought me back to Earth and dropped me off near Washington; over to Tyson Corners and Fifth Street I think...to make The Announcement."
On January 12, 1995, Malcolm X's daughter, Qubilah Shabazz, was arrested for conspiring to kill Farrakhan. It was later alleged that the FBI had used a paid informant, Michael Fitzpatrick, to set up Shabazz. After Shabazz's arrest, Farrakhan held a press conference in Chicago in which he accused the FBI of attempting to exacerbate division and conflict between the Nation of Islam and the family of Malcolm X. Nearly four months later, on May 1, U.S. government prosecutors dropped their case against Shabazz.
On May 6, 1995, a packed public meeting in Harlem, New York termed A New Beginning featured Louis Farrakhan and Malcolm X's widow, Betty Shabazz. Originally organized by community activists as a fund raiser for Qubilah Shabazz's legal defense, the meeting marked the first public rapprochement between Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam and the Shabazz family.
On October 16, 1995 Farrakhan convened a broad coalition of black men in what many say was the largest march in American history, the Million Man March. The calming of Farrakhan's fiery rhetoric in recent years possibly signals a change of direction in the Nation of Islam, and may also be due as well to the seriousness of the advanced prostate cancer with which he was diagnosed years ago, but is evidently now in remission.
Louis Farrakhan is currently the leader of the Nation of Islam and lives in Chicago, Illinois at the former home of Elijah Muhammad, near the campus of the University of Chicago.
Farrakhan, along with Malik Zulu Shabazz, leader of the New Black Panther Party, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama and other prominent African-Americans marked the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March by holding a second march, the Millions More Movement on October 14, 2005 through October 17, 2005, in Washington.
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Controversy
One of the most controversial quotes attributed to Farrakhan, and which led to him being censured unaminously by the United States Senate, was, "Hitler was a very great man." Farrakhan made this statement in response to a Jewish journalist at The Village Voice referring to him as a "Black Hitler":
"So I said to the members of the press, 'Why won't you go and look into what we are saying about the threats on Reverend Jackson's life?' Here the Jews don't like Farrakhan and so they call me 'Hitler.' Well that's a good name. Hitler was a very great man. He wasn't great for me as a Black man but he was a great German and he rose Germany up from the ashes of her defeat by the united force of all of Europe and America after the first world war. Yet Hitler took Germany from the ashes and rose her up and made her the greatest fighting machine of the twentieth century, brothers and sisters, and even though Europe and America had deciphered the code that Hitler was using to speak to his chiefs of staff, they still had trouble defeating Hitler even after knowing his plans in advance. Now I'm not proud of Hitler's evil toward Jewish people, but that's a matter of record. He rose Germany up from nothing. Well, in a sense you could say there is a similarity in that we are rising our people up from nothing, but don't compare me with your wicked killers."
In 1998, former The Wall Street Journal editor Jude Wanniski attempted to foster dialogue between Farrakhan and those who had labeled him anti-semitic. He arranged for Farrakhan to be interviewed by reporter Jeffrey Goldberg who had written for the Jewish weekly, The Forward and The New York Times. Since the extensive interview was never published in either publication, Wanniski decided to post the transcript on his website in the context of a memo of Senator Joseph Lieberman. The following are links to the interview, parts one, two and three:
In comments regarding the flooding of New Orleans in consequence of Hurricane Katrina, Louis Farrakhan revealed to the press a report that he received, from a "very reliable source" he said, that there was a 25-foot hole under one of the levees that broke, which suggested it may have been busted on purpose to destroy the part of the city where Black people lived. The Final Call Farrakhan in a broadcast leading up to the Million Man March 10th Anniversary revealed that New Orleans' Mayor Nagin during a meeting in Dallas, Texas shared with him the information regarding the 25-foot crater underneath the levee. [2]
Citing the fact that the levee broke the day after Hurricane Katrina passed, others including Baltimore Sun and BlackAmericaWeb columnist Gregory Kane and political commentator, Cedric Muhammad have raised additional questions and called for federal investigations into the source of the levee break.
Farrakhan as musician
As a child, Farrakhan studied classical violin, winning national competitions by the age of 14.
When Farrakhan first joined the NOI, he was asked by Elijah Muhammad to put aside his musical career. But after 42 years of abstinence from playing the violin, Farrakhan decided to take it up once more, particularly due to the urging of prominent classical musician Sylvia Olden Lee.
In early 1993, Farrakhan made his concert debut with performances of the Violin Concerto in E Minor by Jewish composer Felix Mendelssohn, which was widely seen as a response to his critics, such as the Anti-Defamation League, who had charged him with Anti-Semitism.[3][4]
Reviews were mixed, but some critics agreed that Farrakhan, while not on a par with established solo violin performers, had nonetheless put in a creditable performance.[5][6] He has gone on to perform the Violin Concerto of Ludwig van Beethoven and has announced plans to perform those of Tchaikovsky and Brahms.
See also
External links
- Unofficial Site
- Biography on Nation of Islam site
- Newspaper founded by Louis Farrakhan
- Louis Farrakhan's writings
- Critical View
- Black Leaders : Community-based site devoted to Black Leaders ... past and present.
- The Second Time as Farce, Matt Labash, Weekly Standard, 10/31/2005.
Categories: 1933 births | Calypsonians | Anti-Semitism | African Americans | Nation of Islam | People of Jamaican Heritage
