A MAN WITH A PLAN: LOUIS FARRAKHAN In our ninth installment of The Black Fist: Best & Brightest Everyday Black History Series, We are going to take a look at the life of a strong black visionary, a man with a plan, The Minister Louis Farrakhan. Louis Farrakhan was and is a very complex brother. A man who loves his people, one who speaks out boldly against racism and oppression heaped upon black people here in the hells of north america and around the world. So without further ado, General Nikki X likes to call this one....."A Man With A Plan." LOUIS FARRAKHAN (1933- ) Louis Farrakhan was born Louis Eugene Walcott, on May 11, 1933 in the Bronx, New York. He is the leader of the Nation of Islam. Walcott was raised within the West Indian community in the Roxbury section of Boston. His mother had emigrated from the Caribean island of Saint Kitts in the 1920s; his father was a Jamaican cab driver from New York but was not involved in his upbringing. As a child, he recieved training as a violinist. At the age of 6, 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 went on to win national competitions, as well as the Ted Mack Amateur Hour. He was one of the first blacks to appear on the popular show. In the 1950s, Walcott became an up-and-coming Calypso singer. Popularly known in Boston as "Calypso Louie," he recorded several Calypso albums under the name "The Charmer." 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 Saviour's Day address by Elijah Muhammad. Walcott accepted Elijah Muhammad's teachings that day and was renamed "Louis X." Adoption of the "X" surname is a tradition within the Nation of Islam. In mathematics, "X" represents the unknown variable. In the purview of the Nation of Islam, followers accept the "X" surname as the rejection of their slave name. Eventually, the "X" name is replaced by a proper Muslim name more descriptive of the individual'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 Influence Harlem Mosque and served in that capacity from 1965 to 1975. After Elijah Muhammad's son, Warith Deen Muhammad, 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 remained the organization the Muslim American Society. By 1976 Farrakhan became disillusioned with Warith Deen Muhammad's leadership and quietly walked away from the movement. In 1978 Farrakhan, with a few supporters, decided to rebuild the Nation of Ialam. 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's Corner 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'a 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 4 months later, on May 1, U.S. government prosecutors dropped the case against Shabazz. On May 6, 1995, at 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 activist 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 said was the largest march in American history, the Million Man March. The calming of Farrakhan's fiery rhetoric in recent years possibly signaled a change of direction in the Nation of Islam, and much also due as well to the seriousness of the advanced prostate cancer with which he was diagnosed years ago, but is evidently 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 New Panther Party leader Malik Zulu Shabazz, Al Sharpton, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) and other prominent black Americans marked the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March by holding a second march, the Million More Movement on October 14, 2005 through October 17, 2005, in Washington. 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 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 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 are similarity in that we are rising our people up from nothing, but don't compare me with your wicked killers." Farrakhan has referred to Jews, Palestians Arabs, and Asians as "bloodsuckers" and stated that "Murder and lying come easy for white people." He has also been accused of calling Judaism a "gutter religion" although Farrakhan and his defenders deny this. An article in the NOI's periodial, Final Call, states that Farrakhan instead used the expression "dirty religion," and that "...in Minister Farrakhan's vocabulary the phrase 'dirty religion' has a particular meaning...' "dirty religion' is the distorted faith which emerges from its manipulation by hypocrites or sinners." (http://www.finalcall.com/national/rabbis2-28-200.htm) 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 Jeffery 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 Joesph Liberman. The following are links to the interview, parts one, two and three: Interview with Farrakhan Part 1 (http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/10-11-00.html) Interview with Farrakhan Part 2 (http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/10-12-00.html) Interview with farrakhan Part 3 (http://www.polyconomics.com/searchbase/10-16-00.html) Although Farrakhan has denied he dislikes Jews, it must be noted that Elijah Muhammad, whom Farrakhan has, arguably, patterned himself after, once allowed the leader of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell to address the Nation of Islam in Chicago in 1963. Indeed, Rockwell paid Muhammad what he believed to be a compliment when he called the NOI leader the "Adolf Hitler of the black man." Not only did Muhammad allow Rockwell to speak, he applauded him enthusiastically. In response to NOI members who booed Rockwell, Muhammad chastised them, saying, "If they speak the truth for us, what do we care if they are white?...we'll stand on our heads and applaud!" Louis Farrakhan has also alluded to a figure called "Yacub, (or Biblically, "Jacob")" in regards to whites. According to Farrakhan's mentor, Elijah Muhammad, blacks were born righteous and turned to unrighteousness," while the white race was "made unrighteous by god who made them (Mr. Yacub)." In comments regarding the decimation of New Orleans, Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina, Louis Farrakhan citing "very reliable information," stated that there was a 25-foot hole under one of the key levees that failed, and implied that the levee's destruction was a deliberate attempt to wipe out the population of largely black sections within the city. Farrakhan later revealed that the information was current New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who told him of the crater during a meeting in Dallas, Texas. Farrakhan cited the fact that the levee broke the day after Hurrican Katrina passed as proof that the destruction of the levee was not a natural occurrence. Additional questions have been raised and a federal investigation into the source of the levee break is ongoing. A FEW WORDS FROM GENERAL NIKKI X: Today, Minister Louis Farrakhan remains a strong leader of the Nation of Islam, under the teachings of The Honorable Elijah Muhammad (Peace be upon him), who recieved his divine teachings from Master Fard Muhammad (Peace be upon him)...... Well there you have it folks! The life and times of Minister Louis Farrakhan. It only proves it doesn't matter where you started or what name you were born with -- It's all about who and what a person has evolved into and where they are today. In The Black Fist we've adopted a saying, "Dogs and slaves are named by their masters, Free Black men and Free Black women name themselves!" And that is the affirmation and beliefs we, the legitimate members of this organization, live and operate by today! It doesn't matter in the organization called 'The Black Fist" what a person was yesterday, all that counts is what and how a black person operates his/her life today. For example: The black race right here in good ol' Sinsinnati have a wicked, ungodly black devil(s) running around amongst us who are so concerned and worrying themselve(s) so sick they actually look old, ugly, miserable, worn out, tired, evil and recieve (but rarely take their) medication from the University of Cincinnati hospital in their pursuit of "alerting" others of who someone may or maybe not have been in the past that they themselves still run around with a "slave name," not even attempting to change it but even worse waited damn near 12 years to research and find out what their own child's Afirican name meant, the name given to the child by the father who hated the mother so much he refused to reveal what the name meant. General Nikki X knows this to be a fact, for this particular "black devil amongst us" some years back asked Black Fist Generals Kabaka Oba and Nikki X right outside of Pastor Damon Lynch III's church, New Prospect Baptist Church to be exact, to look in one of our African books (knowing "we" would have that extensive knowlegde, based on "our love" of the black nation) to look into one of those books and reveal to this evil black devil what her sons' name means....(?) Of course, Kabaka & General Nikki X were more than willing to help out this evil black devil. Ultimately, we never got around to revealing what the name meant because "we" noticed the evil old looking devil getting even more older looking and more evilier in her words and deeds toward the black community, as a whole and upon Kabaka Oba's closer observation and based on the rhetorical slander and defamation of Kabaka and The Black Fist membership by this ungodly black devil, Kabaka informed General Nikki X that this black devil was just that a black devil and "we" should steer clear of this obviously mentally unstable black devil lady. I agreed with Kabaka and we proceeded in "our" joint pursuit of fighting against police brutality, fighting the Klu Klux Klan and reuniting the Black man and the Black woman for a strong black family. The agenda of The Black Fist, as laid down by General Kabaka Oba and General Nikki X. The truth is to be told not sold. Regardless of the pages on the calendar. It's just that simple. And Minister Louis Farrakhan is a shining example of telling the truth to our beautiful black nation regardless of how we may be in denial of said truth. General Nikki X believes in telling the truth and not re-inventing Black Fist history based on bedfellows. And she also believes the old saying, "Anything worth having is worth fighting for!" Sometimes the medicine one must take to heal oneself is not the best tasting medicine but if you swallow it quickly and accept that this medicine IS the medicine that can absolve you of your "ills", most in general a "sane" person will take their medicine, feel better and never know what hit them! An "insane" person will run around [sick with wickedness] lying and instigating bullshit and in the end, also.....never know what hit them! STAY TUNED FOR OUR TENTH INSTALLMENT COMIN' BLACK ATCHA SOON. RIGHT HERE ON THE ONLY "OFFICIALLY WEBSITE OF THE BLACK FIST," THE BLACK FIST BLOG! BLACK FIST, BLACK POWER, BLACK NATION!!!