Louis Farrakhan Sr. is an American religious leader, African-American activist, and social commentator. He served as the minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem, and was appointed by the longtime NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, before his death in 1975, as the National Representative of the Nation of Islam.
Background
Louis Eugene Walcott was born on May 11, 1933, in the Bronx, New York, United States, and grew up in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. Farrakhan was the son of West Indian immigrants. His father was a Baptist minister, his mother a domestic worker.
Education
In high school, Farrakhan was an honor student, a good track athlete, and an active Episcopalian. He attended the prestigious 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.
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. "
Career
After college Farrakhan 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. 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 soon afterward, his son, Warith Deen Muhammad, began to move the group away from racist demagoguery and toward Sunni Islam. He even sold off Elijah Muhammad’s vast properties, which included bakeries, restaurants, and other businesses. Meanwhile, Farrakhan went through a period he later described as “sleep”, traveling throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
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.
Only that year did Farrakhan attract national prominence. In November of 1983, Jackson announced himself as a candidate for the United States presidency, and soon afterward sought Farrakhan’s help in obtaining the release of Navy Lieutenant Robert O. Goodman, an African American pilot shot down and captured by Syrian forces in Lebanon. With his many connections among radical Muslims, Farrakhan was able to persuade Syrian president Hafez al-Assad to release the pilot, thus boosting Jackson’s public image. 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.
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.
In October 1995, he organized and led the Million Man March in Washington, D. C., calling on black men to renew their commitments to their families and communities. His next big appearance in the news came in early 1996 when he toured some 23 countries, including Libya, Sudan, Iraq, and Iran. Particularly controversial was Farrakhan’s acceptance of financial aid from Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi, a long-time enemy of the United States and supporter of terrorism. After Qaddafi tried to give Farrakhan $1 billion, Congress subjected him to close scrutiny as a possible agent of a hostile government; and many African Americans, who themselves had fought for America in foreign wars, resented Farrakhan’s gesture of siding with an enemy. When Farrakhan visited Sudan, one of the few places on earth in which black people were still being bought and sold as slaves, many critics were outraged.
Farrakhan denied the existence of slavery in Sudan, so two reporters for the Baltimore Sun went to that country, where they promptly purchased and freed two slaves in August of 1996.
The following month, Farrakhan harshly addressed the National Association of Black Journalists, calling them slaves of white newspaper owners, and telling them they were afraid to write the truth. The National Newspaper Publishers Association/Black Press of America had meanwhile voted Farrakhan their “Newsmaker of the Year.” As early as March of 1996, however, the Economist reported that some black leaders were backing away from Farrakhan’s movement.
Farrakhan had fallen almost as quickly as he had risen, and that fall came not as a result of any powerful confrontation, but simply because much of America had lost interest in his message - or at least, in the more outlandish aspects of that message.
Due to health issues, he reduced his responsibilities with the NOI in 2007. In 2013, however, Farrakhan has been very active, including delivering weekly online sermons throughout the year as well as speaking at large public NOI events as well as smaller venues. Since 2010, Farrakhan has advocated L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics and the use of its "auditing" technique despite not being a Scientologist. In 2015, he led the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March: Justice or Else.
Farrakhan is the leader of the religious group Nation of Islam (NOI) and served as the minister of major mosques in Boston and Harlem, and was appointed by the longtime NOI leader, Elijah Muhammad, as the National Representative of the Nation of Islam.
After joining the Nation of Islam in 1956, 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.
Politics
In 1955, Louis Farrakhan joined the Nation of Islam, an African-American movement and organization rooted in elements of traditional Islam and black nationalism, with then leader Elijah Muhammad. Farrakhan was disappointed when he was not named Elijah Muhammad’s successor following his death. He instead led a breakaway group in 1978, which he also called the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan’s group preserved the original teachings of Muhammad, unlike his successor, the fifth of Muhammad’s six sons.
Farrakhan came into the political realm when supporting Jesse Jackson's bid for the presidency. He also later filed a lawsuit against President Ronald Reagan, claiming his administration’s sanctions actions against Libya and travel ban violate freedom to worship and freedom of speech. He’s been critized for his early association with anti-American leaders like Libya's Moammar Gadhafi and Cuba's Fidel Castro, but has dialed back his rhetoric in recent years.
Views
Farrakhan is known for his controversial anti-Semitic, anti-white and anti-homosexual comments. He received sexual discrimination complaints filed with a New York state agency when he banned women from attending a speech he gave in a city-owned theater in 1993. The next year he gave a speech only women could attend. In his speech for women, as The New York Times reported, "Mr. Farrakhan urged the women to embrace his formula for a successful family. He encouraged them to put husbands and children ahead of their careers, shun tight, short skirts, stay off welfare and reject abortion. He also stressed the importance of cooking and cleaning and urged women not to abandon homemaking for careers.
As the leader of NOI, Farrakhan has preached the organization's theology that blacks are superior to whites, that whites were created 6, 600 years ago as a "race of devils" by an evil black scientist named Yakub, and that "white people deserve to die."
Farrakhan was also active in the fight against drugs and crime, advocating for clean living and black self-help. Under his leadership, the Nation of Islam created a clinic for AIDS patients in Washington, D.C., forcing drug dealers out of public housing projects and private apartment buildings. The Farrakhan-led movement also worked with gang members in Los Angeles to do the same.
Quotations:
“You don’t smack the doctor when he points out what’s wrong. You don’t hate the doctor when he points out what’s wrong. You say, ‘Thank you, Doctor. What’s my prescription for healing?’”
"You’re just not going to be happy unless there is happiness in the home."
"Your professional lives can’t satisfy your soul like a good, loving man."
Membership
Farrakhan and his family were active members of the Episcopal St. Cyprian's Church in Roxbury.
Personality
Farrakhan was, and remains, a magnetic figure, with a powerful speaking style that rivals and often surpasses Jackson’s. And few could help but be impressed by Farrakhan’s core group of followers and bodyguards, the Fruit of Islam. Many of them former convicts, they had cleaned up their lives and were transforming some of the worst neighborhoods in the country.
To many, it seemed that, whereas Jackson and other civil rights leaders offered only more federal programs and more talk, Farrakhan offered solutions. Farrakhan soon emerged as one of America’s most visible and recognizable public figures, with his impeccably clean-cut appearance, his soft-spoken manner, and his broad smile.
During the early to mid-1990s, he appeared at the center of an old squabble which resurfaced when Qubilah Shabazz, the troubled daughter of Malcolm X, allegedly plotted to have him killed in retaliation for her father’s murder. In May of 1995, after she was charged with conspiracy, Farrakhan took the high road by appearing at a fundraiser for her defense. There he shook hands with Betty Shabazz, who just a few months before had told the New York Post that she believed Farrakhan was responsible for her husband’s death. Saying that they were both “victims of a wider conspiracy,” Farrakhan embraced Shabazz, ending a thirty-year disagreement and paving the way for her appearance on the stage of the next and greatest drama of his life, the Million Man March.
The core of Farrakhan’s work as a literary figure is in his oratory. In parts of the speech, sentiments expressed by Farrakhan were laudable in the view of almost any observer, including the millions who watched the speech on live television. He urged listeners to take a pledge to practice non-violence except in self-defense, to eschew family violence, and to work for the economic and social betterment of their families. Elsewhere in the speech, Farrakhan described himself as a doctor who tells the patient - in this case, the nation - that the patient is sick.
Interests
Playing classical music on the violin.
Connections
Farrakhan and his wife, Betsy, had nine children and lived in a mainly white upscale neighborhood on the far South Side of Chicago.