Louis Farrakhan: The Man, The Myth...

Louis Farrakhan: The Man, the Myth

Farrakhan Speaks

The US Gov't (284kb .au) - Issuing a challenge (95kb .au) - Race in America (156kb .au)

About the Mother Wheel (585kb .au) - A word to Messrs. Dees, Kuby et al (81kb .au)

The Minister's Separatist Inclinations

INTRODUCTION

The following monograph should in no way be considered an exhaustive study of the Nation of Islam or of Louis Farrakhan, nor is it an endorsement of their opinions. It is a cursory overview of a very closed and secretive organization, through the looking glass of one mans life. It examines only some of the more widely publicized incidents of their long histories.

Louis Farrakhan is a very complicated man. He is not a clown or a buffoon. He is more often than not, correct when expounding on today's social ills. He has a keen sense of human psychology, and knows his audience intimately. He also comes possessed of a superb demagogic ability.

In his political respects he's more like a Patrick Buchanan, than he or Buchanan, would be willing to admit. Both men appeal to elements within their demographics that live in alienation, and anger. Both men articulate this in a way that none of their peers are either capable of, or willing to do. Farrakhan's only advantage is that it is socially acceptable for his followers to wear uniforms.

Ultimately, Louis Farrakhan is like the Nation of Islam itself, a uniquely American phenomenon. In this context we look at the Man and the Myth.

BEGINNINGS

Louis Farrakhan was born Louis Eugene Walcott in May of 1933. Young Louis was the good son of Caribbean immigrants, living in depression era New York. His family moved to a West Indian enclave in Boston, where he grew-up as an Episcopal choir boy, honors student, and talented musician. In 1946, he appeared on Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour -- An impressive young violinist. He has been married to the same woman for 40 years; They have 5 daughters, and 23 grandchildren.

In the early 1950's, after dropping out of college and, "Smoking three, four or five reefers..", He began working as a calypso singer variously billed as "Calypso Gene" or, "The Charmer". While still in his early 20's in 1955, he heard Elijah Muhammad "the Messenger", speak. He was then recruited by Malcolm X into Boston's Black Muslim Temple No. 11, which Malcolm had recently founded. Farrakhan eventually took over the ministry of Temple 11 as Minister Louis X, when Malcolm was sent to Temple No. 7 in Harlem.

During that time, Farrakhans musical talents were put to use in the recording of "A White Man's Heaven, Is a Black Man's Hell", among other popular titles released by the sect.

THE LOST AND FOUND NATION

The organization which Farrakhan had become involved with, was founded in 1930 in Detroit, by one Wallace D. Fard, "the Master". He's been variously reported as a silk or scrap merchant who was inspired to the calling upon a return from Mecca. He eventually declared himself Mahdi, or Savior.

As an official Nation publication describes it: "In 1930, On July the Fourth, the day of America's Independence celebration, He announced the beginning of His mission which was to restore and to resurrect His lost and found people, who were identified as the original members of the Tribe of Shabazz from the Lost Nation of Asia. The lost people of the original nation of African descent, were captured, exploited, and dehumanized to serve as servitude slaves of America for over three centuries. His mission was to teach the downtrodden and defenseless Black people a through [sic] Knowledge of God and of themselves, and to put them on the road to Self-Independence with a superior culture and higher civilization than they had previously experienced. He taught us the ways of love and peace, of truth and beauty. We are being led into the path of a new spiritual culture and civilization of complete harmony and peace, one of refinement in the pursuit of happiness and eternal joy in the Supreme Knowledge of God and the Science of everything in life."

Elijah Muhammad Fard disappears after a few years, and in 1934 is replaced by Elijah Poole, an itinerant Baptist preachers' son -- Latterly called Muhammad. Elijah was a small, thin-lipped, intense man, who favored crescent and star embroidered fezzes. He had a tremendously focused single minded determination. The organization that he built up from store front preacher beginnings, became a multi-million dollar religious and business empire at the time of his death, selling salvation, pomades, and newspapers.

In the early 1960's in the time leading up to his expulsion, Malcolm X - Farrakhans teacher- had become estranged to his mentor, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. This breach of trust centered on the older mans illicit sexual liaisons with his secretarial staff, and his financial misdealings. These dark secrets lead Malcolm to renounce Elijah, and reject his teachings. In turn, this created an irreparable schism in the sect. Farrakhan opted to stay with Elijah Muhammad, and became a sworn enemy to the traitorous Malcolm.

Malcolm X meanwhile had pilgrimaged to Mecca, and between revelations adopted a new attitude towards white folks. At least the demonic rhetoric regarding them was gone. He set up a new organization based on Moslem precepts fitted to a black nationalist world view, and called it the Organization of Afro-American Unity. The creation of a rival sect to the Nation not being enough, Malcolm was held to be responsible for persuading the mother of one of Elijahs illegitimate children to file a paternity suit. Throwing this, the deepest held secret of the Nation into the limelight of a court battle was the final breach. Not long afterwards, Malcolm X would be murdered before a packed house at the Audubon Ball Room in Harlem.

Two months before Malcolms murder, Farrakhan editorialized in "Muhammad Speaks" that, "the die is set and Malcolm shall not escape.. such a man is worthy of death".

After spending most of the next 30 years trying to defend his involvement in the affair, Farrakhan pleaded that his pedagogy "may" have contributed to an atmosphere that made Malcolms death possible.

Elijah Muhammad cast the young Farrakhan in the role of a new Malcolm; Only he refused him the intimacy that he had allowed his previous protégé. This galled Farrakhan. He could never establish himself as an equal to Malcolm. It was reported that during one of his pleas for access to Elijah that he was told by him, "I shall never teach another student the way I taught him [Malcolm]".

When Elijah died in 1975, the mantle was passed down to his son Wallace, although not without resistance from Farrakhan. One of his heated late night pleas for support from the elders of the Nation was secretly recorded, and given to Wallace who immediately reined in the upstart rival. What was left of the late Elijahs estate was being eaten up in legal wrangling as he had died without leaving a will. The fighting eventually included several of Elijahs illegitimate children, as well as his recognized ones.

The younger Muhammad, when he took over at the helm, immediately set a course veering sharply away from his fathers' race-baiting, and cult of personality. He set it towards a more orthodox Islamic path, in line with the late Malcolms ideas. Farrakhan and other ministers who were trained in his father's school, were returned to the main mosque where an attempt towards re-education took place. Wallace made them learn Arabic for instance, so that they may say their prayers properly. Not aware that this training might come in handy, Farrakhan chaffed even more; He was seething inside. Seeing no progress, and probably sensing the danger that the pretender posed, Wallace sent Farrakhan off to relative obscurity.

BEAN PIES AND GENOCIDE

By 1978 Farrakhan had broken with Wallace, now called Warith Deen Muhammad, and had established himself as the head of the Nation of Islam (NOI).

Headquartered in a former Chicago funeral parlor, he began his career as hate monger, and preeminent Afro-nazi of the early 1980's. At one point his organization even had slight acquaintance with Tom Metzger, the notorious white supremacist, Klansman, and founder of the White Aryan Resistance (WAR) organization.

Farrakhans early teachings to his Nation, like Fard and Elijahs', maintained that the black man was the original man, and was being held down by a vast conspiracy concocted by the white man. He held that the black man had actually created the white man, "simply a germ."

The Minister, Center Stage In Farrakhans version of Frankenstein: 6000 years ago, on a far away island, an ancient black scientist named Yakub, created the white man as a "graft". But, the cunning white man got away. The white man then proved to be such a devil, that he took over the world. All of the other races are to be held in his sway until the day of redemption comes.

"The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him," He said to a New York audience, "I will fight to see that that vicious beast goes down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring upon us for 400 years. And I'm home to stay!"

By Farrakhans original philosophy, the best way for the black man to survive in this otherwise evil white world, was to disjoin from them. Live amongst, but outside of them. It was an introspective exodus that he was calling for. For that one needed pride, an iron will, and self-sufficiency. Hopefully, someday they'd have a homeland, prior to the day of redemption.

According to another of his early prophecies, a giant spacecraft called the "Mother Wheel" is floating 40 miles above the Earth, waiting to rain down bombs on a divinely ordained day when white people will be destroyed and blacks who have embraced Nation will be lifted to majesty. He confirmed his belief most recently on "Nightline" on the 14th of October, 1996. He recounted the tale of a Japan Airlines pilot who claimed he saw it over the Bering Sea, and said his "Mother Wheel" was what prophet Ezekiel saw. He then brought up Pres. Jimmy Carter's stated belief in UFO's as a defense of his. He also said that essentially, the the blockbuster movie "Independence Day", is a good example of what is in store for America, and that we didn't know it because the U.S. Government has classified it "above top secret", and was spending billions to keep it that way.

In a 1985 speech Farrakhan said he was seized by a vision in which he was taken aboard a small spacecraft and transported through a beam of light to the Mother Wheel. In a 1989 speech he reported, that once docked there, he heard the voice of Elijah Muhammad. "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.."

Astral visions aside, Farrakhan has enlarged vigorously from what he managed to salvage of Elijahs movement. Estimates of membership range from 20,000 to 200,000 with some 120 mosques across the country. His business enterprises, vast and varied - from bean pies to publishing - have brought in millions to his organization. But like in all movements, there have been and are, ongoing reports of financial mismanagement, and misappropriation of funds. A strong corollary may be drawn here between Louis Farrakhan, and Jim Bakker -- Although, the Muhammadean amusement park is kept quiet.

His polemics on self reliance, as the growth of his organization has testified, were not all just talk. He moved his empire in the direction it takes, just as he said he would. It has been in fits and starts, small triumphs and failures, but overall it's moved ahead. This has not gone unnoticed in the black community. Warith Deen Muhammad had all but surrendered by 1986. His rump organization was finally dissolved by him in 1995.

When he wasn't singing his psalms of oppression, repression, and genocide, he was driving this message of self-reliance home, both in his speeches and in his sects newspaper, the "Final Call". This call for self-reliance is the side of Farrakhan that appealed to the black Christians, and coalitions. It gave him a patina of respectability to be a strong supporter and practitioner of traditional values. That he has maintained high personal standards vis a vis fidelity and family since his conversion, has never been in dispute. In this respect he does seem to be a righteous man.

This strong collection of oppression theology, and dignity - delivered in an impassioned staccato - had a strong appeal to elements within the black community. Who over-all, and in spite of their privations, remain a largely conservative group.

POLITICS AND MEANING I : JESSE 84 AND 88.

Through-out the early part of the first Reagan administration, Farrakhan preached an existence removed from the white man, his laws, and his society. This attracted a dedicated core of militant black nationalists to his cause, but he found little support beyond the fringe - and often lost more - with his fiery diatribes against mainstream black leaders. When Jesse Jackson jumped into the presidential race of 1984 with his "Hymietown" crack still fresh, Farrakhan was provided with his first entree onto the American political scene.

Jackson had for a long time been an outspoken proponent of the Palestinian cause in the Israeli occupation; He was chummy with Yassir Arafat when he was still a pariah, what with the PLO blowing up airplanes, and murdering innocent women and children. Farrakhan too gave support to the Palestinian cause. They were both black leaders concurrently vilified by the Jewish lobbies. Here were obvious connections to be exploited.

When militant Jewish extremists began shadowing Jackson's campaign, and then made threats against him, Farrakhan responded immediately by providing him with a security detail from his Fruit Of Islam (FOI) corps, until the US Secret Service was brought in. This chance allowed Farrakhan to feed upon Jackson's legitimacy by making mutual appearances and delivering speeches on the candidate's behalf. To many potential recruits who previously viewed Farrakhan as being too extreme, here was now a man who stood not so much for racism and flying saucers, but for black pride, and assertiveness. And now, he was standing shoulder to shoulder with the old school civil rights leadership. He was almost conservative.

Here too, was an international figure; Hadn't he after all accompanied Jackson on a successful mission to Syria where they secured the release of downed black American airman Robert Goodman, in '84? Didn't he call prayers for an audience in Syria in fluent Arabic?

While stumping for Jackson at a rally, and complaining about the threats made against him by radical Jews, Farrakhan launched into a shrill attack, calling Judaism a gutter religion, (although he insists that it was not gutter that he said, but "dirty" instead.). And saying that, "Hitler was great... wickedly great". He then described the creation of Israel as an outlaw act, and finished by calling the nations that supported Israel and it's founding, "criminals in the sight of God." Those remarks crippled Jackson's campaign.

Farrakhan had inadvertently subverted his friends presidential bid into a debate about Farrakhan. And in it, Jackson was lost, and Farrakhan found.

Later, in 1988, when he made his second bid, Jackson scrupulously avoided any connection with Farrakhan in any official capacity. But by then, the leader of the NOI had already made his mark. He had gone national.

The 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche -- another preacher of the higher man -- laying insane with syphilis, signed-off on his last letter with, "Having found me, the question is now what to do with me...." Much the same began to apply to Farrakhan: Not as his end, but as his beginning.

MAKING IT.

Thriving as the political bete noire of the American scene, in 1985 Farrakhan defied a Reagan ban on US nationals travel to Libya. There he met with Libyan dictator Colonel Moammar Ghaddafy. A co-religionist, and visionary also. The two struck it off handsomely, and Farrakhan came away with a $5 million loan, as well as with a propaganda coup against the Administration.

Supposedly, the money collected on his pilgrimage to Tripoli went to launch POWER, Inc. "POWER" is an acronym for People Organized and Working for Economic Rebirth. It was essentially a shopping club for blacks, by blacks, to buy black - As administered by the Nation of Islam. Pledging to it, meant buying twenty dollars a month worth of Muslim made soaps and unguents.

Farrakhan promised that the profits it would generate ("We'll have a billion dollar enterprise in five years,") would go to create more black business, black educational, and black health care institutions.

In launching the product line, he mimicked TV commercials in which black people turned to the camera and told America, "I brushed this morning with POWER!"

Farrakhan has told his faithful that "Muslim chemists developed the soap formulas and another Muslim brother who knew the business . . . helped us set up the factory."

But at least one of the products, Aloefresh soap, was made and packaged by a white-owned company in Memphis, then shipped to the Nation's Chicago warehouse, this according to court records.

While the soap program hasn't washed, other ventures have cleaned-up. Besides the publishing arm, the Nation now operates a chain of mini-bakeries specializing in the trademark bean-pie, a chain of bookstores, and owns a number of Chicago properties.

In addition, several NOI security firms around the country with names like X-Men, Inc. and FOI Security, have patrolled local housing projects, and were paid with tax dollars. They have operated in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington D.C. This caused considerable outcry when it became public, and prompted a limited investigation by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Secretary Cisneros reported before a congressional inquiry that he had found no significant irregularities regarding the awarding of those contracts. However, most of the contracts have since been allowed to expire, quietly; This only after the Nation had already earned a reported $20 million in fees.

In Chicago, and despite the statements of the Secretary to the contrary, HUD was conducting an in-depth investigation into the handling of Chicago Housing Authority security contracts with NOI offshoot, New Life Self Development, Inc. Which was operated by Searcy Muhammad, the son-in-law of, and chief of staff to, Louis Farrakhan.

Vincent Lane, then chairman of the CHA was suspected of graft. Lane was a partner in a failing shopping mall, and was some $3 million in debt. When awarding nearly a million dollars worth of security contracts to New Life, he coincidentally got a lease from a Muslim affiliated grocery to move into the mall. Although the grocery never opened, and he received no rents, just having the signed lease allowed him to renegotiate his debts, and avoid foreclosure. The consummation of the deal was presided over by Farrakhan at a meeting where Lane said, although the deal wasn't NOI sponsored, he wanted assurances that the Minister supported it.

The Nation has also recently opened a $3 million vegetarian restaurant in Chicago called the New Salaam, which accepts white patronage. They are also trying to buy back several farms formerly owned by Elijah Muhammad's Nation. There has been speculation recently that they plan to consolidate the farming and restauranteuring into a sort of Muslim McDonalds, based on the New Salaam. Setting up a chain through their mosques, as they have done in their other ventures, they would grow Muslim, ship Muslim, and sell Muslim.

Farrakhan pleads to his congregants to send, "every penny, nickel, dime, dollar, hundreds of dollars, thousands of dollars that you can spare," To a special fund set-up for the recovery of lost NOI farms.

He has pointed with pride to the 1600 Georgia acres he's recovered. The NOI bought the acreage for $1.3 million in November 1994, putting down about $500,000 and borrowing $850,000 from the seller at 10 percent interest. Eight years ago the entire 3,800-acre farm was sold to a local man for the same price of $1.3 million.

William Smith Muhammad, who managed the farm for the Nation, said the section Farrakhan is buying back is not the choice part of the farm.

"It has been stripped," William Muhammad said. But he continued, "Whatever Louis Farrakhan wants done on the farm, this Brother William is glad to do it. He added, I won't have no trouble getting help. . . . We want to put black people to work, put food on their table."

Farrakhan, while claiming to own nothing, now lives in the opulent 6 bedroom, 19 room Hyde Park, Chicago mansion that was built for Elijah Muhammad in 1972, and which he bought in 1986. He has acquired several of the late leaders other properties as well.

THE NATION AND HEALTH CARE

As the 1980's progressed and AIDS began to take its toll on the black community, Farrakhan was propagating a genocide theory to explain where it came from, saying that whites had unleashed it purposely against blacks, and that Jewish doctors were shooting up black babies with it.

At the beginning of the decade, sowing the seeds for later AIDS diatribes, he intoned in moral indignation, "It's the order of the day. Faggots everywhere, lesbians everywhere, and it's all right, He told a New York City audience. "What happened to America, your beloved America? We're faggots now - put politicians in power and dare them not to elect more sissies to the City Council.."

Repudiating white medicine, but not $600 thousand of federal funds, his Nation later opened the Abundant Life clinic in Washington D.C. It treats the AIDS disease with an elixir based on alpha interferon.

Called "Kemron", the compound has been personally approved by Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi, but thoroughly discredited by science. In the "Final Call" (successor to "Muhammad Speaks", the organization's propaganda sheet) it was advertised as a miracle cure.

Dr. Abdul Alim Muhammad, the Nation's Minister of Health, runs Abundant Life, the Washington D.C. mosque, and is a prophet of interferon. He was also appointed by Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Berry as that city's AIDS czar. He is the most prominent black local dealing with AIDS, in our nations capital.

Alim told a 1992 Nation convention in Atlanta that George Bush played a leading role in developing a policy of genocide against non-white people all over this earth, and, "we believe that the AIDS virus is a direct consequence of that plotting and planning in secret."

Dr. Muhammad was born in 1950 in York, Pa. as Maurice Peters, Jr. The non-practicing surgeon has a unique view about the medical pathologies that afflict black people: "When you walk around with the burden of oppression for centuries, having taken all these blows, taken all these insults, and not just with your own generation, but your father's generation, your grandfather, your great-grandfather-all these people have taken all this oppression -- well that burden is on you, brother!" He said, clutching a kerchief.

"That's why your mind is crazy, that's why your mind is filled with anxiety, that's why your blood pressure is sky high," he said. " When you let it out, there's healing in that. And if in the process, some of your oppressors and slave masters die, so what? Everybody has to die some time, don't they? So why shouldn't your slave master die now? They got to die anyhow!.. If you're white today, it ain't worth living anyhow", Alim said. "Would you shoot a dog and put it out of its misery? Or a horse? Well, certainly white people is equal to dogs and horses!"

In another speech, this time touting the benefits of his miracle drug, Dr. Alim said, that he personally had saved about 40 patients by using interferon tablets. He told his mosque congregation that year that patients need only take one pill a day for six months, and then they were cured forever.

A undercover television crew went into the Abundant Life clinic posing as AIDS sufferers. It appeared to be a normal physician's office in every respect, excepting the overly large photo of Farrakhan gracing the wall, and strangely, Lyndon LaRouche pamphlets in the racks. Otherwise, an all black staff was busy with patients and papers, while white coated nurses flitted about.

The intake counselor was a pleasant young black lady outfitted in pseudo-Arabic chic, which is popular with NOI women. One of her first questions to the prospective client was, "Are you taking AZT?" . When answered to affirmatively, she instructed the client to cease, and to throw it away, it was "white mans poison."

Based on the regimen that she went on to offer, a monthly supply of the potion Kemron, would cost around $250, and as Dr. Alim points out, could cure you in 6 months. Meanwhile, a local Washington AIDS buying club could get the same amount of interferon for about $60.

In another instance, the interferon tablets being distributed through the Nation were tested by a pharmaceutical lab. They were found to be totally lacking in active ingredients. The interferon, which is highly unstable, had broken down. The crudely labeled, expensive little bottles, held nothing but pasty aspirins.

POLITICS AND MEANING II: TRUTH SOJOURNER

That Farrakhans rise began with the decline of traditional black leadership during the Reagan years is not remarkable. Indeed, it has several parallels with the rise of the Militia movement under the Clinton Administration. It was the cutting edge response of a small but determined group of people in the middle of a growing crisis. It's flexibility, is its strength. Like all political movements that have survived, Farrakhan and his Nation have learned to play the game.

The Minister in a fiery mood. The black community has been in an increasing crisis for 30 years. Unfortunately, this is itself a symptom of the general disintegration of the American social fabric, which has been failing for a generation. For as many blacks who have succeeded into the middle class, twice as many have fallen into poverty. According to the latest statistics, one third of all black males between 20 and 29 are under the control of the justice system. In births, black illegitimacy rates have reached 60 percent or better in almost every major American city. The black family is vanishing, and urban blacks are particularly vulnerable to this threat of self-destruction. The leading cause of death among young black males, is young black males. Nothing done so far has reversed the trend and honest desperation has become a factor.

With the birth of the "gangsta", a generational shift of cataclysmic proportions has beset black America. A similar sociological event swept through white America in the 1960's with the rise of the "hippy" scene. Since it was a revolution among a more or less privileged group, it was a far less violent and much less radical assault on their social norms. Despite their smelly blankets and pot-parties, the hippy's were as history has shown, a conservative lot. The gangsta's are not as restrained: They are the ultimate expression of urban nihilism .

Farrakhan, by offering discipline and simple lies, is tapping into this reservoir of despair. Since vaulting onto the scene in 1984, he has lost no opportunity to connect. As the influence of the traditional black leadership has declined, his has risen despite repeated gaffs, faux paus, and outright slander.

He has no remaining friends of consequence in the Republican congress, unlike in prior years. Understanding this, he will resort to tactics that stood him well during past periods of reversal. His recent foray into the middle east, meeting with a wide array of U.S. enemies, is a typical Farrakhan maneuver.

Like his initial courtship of Ghaddafy in the mid 1980's, on this most recent 25 nation tour, Farrakhan was able to collect millions in pledges from the dictators he met with. He was able to rankle congressional hackles, and get copious amounts of free press in the process.

In the course of his trip, Farrakhan was quoted as saying, "God would destroy the United States, at the hands of the Muslims", and then reportedly won an offer of millions of dollars more in financial help from friend Ghaddafy. That, in addition to earning the 'Ghaddafy Humanitarian Award'!

The Minister, and the Dictator. At home under questioning he shot back at reporters, "Ghaddafy is hated because he's the leader of a small country that is rich. But he uses his money to finance liberation struggles ... He said, 'Brother the wealth of Libya I will put behind the Nation of Islam.' That's more than a building and I'm going to accept it,'' Farrakhan said.

Striking a patriotic note he said, "I'm not an enemy of America. I never said America would be destroyed at the hands of Muslims. America is a preserved area. God has allowed every superpower to be set down by America. And he left America for Himself," Farrakhan said. But adding a dig, he noted that, "Jews had, wrapped their tentacles around the U.S. government.''

While he failed in coercing the government to release the Libyan funds to him, he did get his agenda before Congress, he did get on C-SPAN, the 6 o'clock news, Nightline, and was mentioned in Time and Newsweek. All in all, the free publicity may have been worth not getting the money!

What is old, is new once again.

THE KHALID CONTROVERSY

The era that gave us Rodney King and O.J. Simpson, had also paradoxically seen Louis Farrakhan muzzle and rebuke a trusted Lieutenant, and junior co-founder of the movement, for making, "mocking" speeches, against whites and Jews.

Khalid Abdul Muhammad in a speech to a few dozen students at Kean College in Union, New Jersey in November of 1993 called Jews, ``hook-nosed, bagel-eatin', lox-eatin' impostors." He attacked Catholics: ``The old no-good Pope . . . somebody need to raise that dress up and see what's really under there.'' Gays: ``God does not name holy books after homosexuals.'' And even other blacks, including Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates: ``Who let this Negro out of the gate?''

Not Fans Despite prolonged outcry, and tremendous pressure brought to bear on him, Farrakhan took almost 3 months to do anything significant about Khalid Muhammad. When he did at last demote him, it was not for the content of his subordinates speech, but for the "mocking tone", in which it was delivered.

Khalid was one of Farrakhan's most trusted aides before he was demoted in February of 1994, for his rhetoric at Kean, which included calling Jews ''bloodsuckers.'' At a closed-door rally in Baltimore, Muhammad later defended his remarks, saying, ''Never will I say I am not an anti-Semite.'' He explained that his harsh public rhetoric was to strengthen Farrakhan's standing by being the ''lightning rod to attract the opposition.''

Khalid Abdul Muhammad was born Harold Moore Vann, in Texas in 1946. He has said he joined the Chicago-based Nation of Islam in 1967, after hearing Farrakhan speak at Dillard University in New Orleans, where Muhammad was an undergraduate student between 1966 and 1970.

He remained with the group after Elijahs death under the name Maleek Rashadeen for a year before dropping out and moving to Idi Amin's Uganda to plot black terror. In 1977, he returned when Farrakhan asked him to help revive the separatist Nation of Islam.

''I was in Kampala, Uganda, ready to kill some white folks when I put the call through,'' Muhammad, said in a speech in Baltimore. ''I thought the Nation of Islam was gone, never to come back again. From that point on, I have been at the side of Minister Louis Farrakhan in the rebuilding of the Nation of Islam.''

Muhammad has gone by at least six aliases since 1976, while his wife of at six years, Jennifer Hillings Moore, has gone by at least two, records show.

He was minister of the legendary Muhammad's Mosque No. 7 in Harlem, as well as serving in Atlanta and Los Angeles before being named Farrakhan's national spokesman. That move marked a turning point for Muhammad, who began to crisscross the nation, stepping up his attacks on Jews and whites in the name of black empowerment. Muhammad, calls himself a ''knowledge gangster'' and ''truth terrorist'' who has a large following among mostly young black college radicals, West Coast gang members and old-line black nationalists. While minister of Mosque 27 in Los Angeles, he befriended several prominent rap musicians.

''The brother has a spirit,'' said Professor Griff, a former member of the rap group Public Enemy, which was one of the earliest bands to include excerpts of Muhammad's speeches in its songs. ''If you are about revolution and change you have to lend him your heart as well as your ear.''

Audiences flock to his speeches around the country by the hundreds, and his fame has been spread among the hip-hop generation by rap. There exists a whole underground network in major urban centers that circulates audio and videotapes of Muhammad's fiery lectures.

Muhammad ratcheted up his volume at a time Farrakhan sought to soften his image and to forge alliances with national elected and civil rights leaders. Despite his demotion, Muhammad has continued to speak out. He has founded a youth organization, Unity Nation, that continues to be active in the Washington-Baltimore area.

The generation Farrakhan is reaching through men like Muhammad is younger and are motivated less by We shall overcome, spirituals, than grab a gatt - bust a cap, rap. Which, in a religious leadership role, is what Farrakhan represents.

CONCLUSIONS

As Farrakhan has aged, so has he mellowed -- For Farrakhan. Rarely these days does he talk in public about whites being cast into hellfire. He's patiently avoided references to Hitler. Once on the Arsenio Hall show, he was asked if he was a Black Hitler. Said Farrakhan, "I have never desired to put another human being in an oven. I have never taught that Jews should be exterminated.. If I am righteous, I can never hate another person because of their faith.."

In his Saviors Day speech in 1993, Farrakhan said that he and Elijah Muhammad talked negatively about whites because they had desperately wanted to instill pride and self-confidence in black people. He said that in a society that had taught black people that they were inferior, second-class citizens, the extreme words were necessary to uplift black people.

"I am not a racist," Farrakhan said. "I hate the thought that we would exalt one race of people over another because of one physical characteristic. God does not reward you because you are black and he does not punish you because you are white."

Then in a touching display of magnanimity, Farrakhan defied his image among some people as a racist and a hate monger by praising the contributions of white people, "White folks are proving every day the realm of possibility of human beings," Farrakhan said. "You've got to give them credit."

This was in marked contrast to his 1989 declarations wherein, "The Caucasian people are made from a thought, or determined idea that is contrary to the idea of Allah . . . This is why the Honorable Elijah Muhammad called them a race of `devils.` . . . That is why, throughout their rule, they have never established justice, equity, or freedom."

The wind was blowing from a new direction, now. It was a kinder, gentler Farrakhan being projected in the first half of the 1990's.

Coupled with the constant attention he has shown to mainstream black leadership and his awesome propaganda skills, his rehabilitation is almost complete, despite his trademark (and calculated,) gaffs. In 1984 he was a guest on Jesse Jackson s platform, in 1995 Jackson was a guest on his. The flap over his Rogue countries tour will continue to subside until it is forgotten, or he needs more attention.

But in dealing with him, it has to be kept in mind that Louis Farrakhan is a national figure of the fringe. He is not desperate for legitimization. He does not need acceptance to participate in the political dialog. He is a master of incendiary showmanship, as his 25 nation world tour shows. But although he does not need these things to continue with success, he is beginning to develop a desire for leaving a legacy. This can only be achieved for himself, and his organization, through participation in national politics.

Farrakhan watching over the coming months promises to be very interesting.

PUBLISHERS NOTE: Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam movement are an extreme example of what America really is all about. Does anyone seriously believe that the Minister could challenge the government the way he does in any other place in the world, but here? Do you think such a hyper-critical imam could get loose in Tehran, Tripoli, or Baghdad?

Regarding Farrakhan and all those like him, we Americans should observe Voltaire's adage and say, "Sir, I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend unto death your right to say it." -- And then keep an eye on them.

That is civilization. And besides, every once in a while, Out of the mouths of babes and fools....

If we shut him down, where will it stop?

First published June 1994, revised February 1997

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