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Tavis: During this month, we celebrate black history, and no issue sparks more controversy than a debate over reparations for slavery. Simply put, should African American descendants of former slaves be compensated?

At the center of that debate is Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan. On February 29th, he'll deliver a major address on the issue of reparations, a speech I am certain that will renew this divisive debate. Minister Louis Farrakhan joins us tonight from Phoenix, Arizona. Brother Minister, nice to see you.

Min. Louis Farrakhan: Thank you for having us as a part of your show, Brother Tavis.

Tavis: I'm delighted to have you on. Let me start by giving you a chance to explain to our audience... I suspect there are many outside of black America and perhaps some inside of black America, who don't know exactly what Saviours' Day is, and so the word is out that you're going to give a major address on reparations on Saviours' Day. Briefly tell the audience what Saviours' Day is.

Min. Farrakhan: Saviours' Day represents the celebration of the birth of the man that came to North America to teach the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Master Fard Muhammad, who was born . And every year, on or about his birthday, we celebrate his birth and the founding of the Nation of Islam in North America.

Tavis: Let me spend the balance of our time... And I'm glad I have you on for the entire show because I want to spend the balance of this show playing devil's advocate, if you will, and give you a chance to address some of the issues that so many have, speaking of issues, with the whole notion of slavery reparations.

Let me just walk down a list of them, and get your responses. This is perhaps not first on the list, but it's high up on the list, and that is, we hear white Americans say, 'I didn't own any slaves. I wasn't a slavemaster. I didn't have any slaves as chattel or as property. Why should I, in the 21st century, be asked to pay reparations?'

Min. Farrakhan: Well, it's very true that the present generation of whites had nothing to do with our enslavement. But the fact of the matter is that black people as a people have been set at naught by slavery and by the government of the United States of America complicit in slavery from the very beginning. And since black people have been set at naught and robbed completely of the knowledge of themselves--their names, their language, culture, religion, God, and history--then it seems to me that it is only right that the government of the United States and the people of the United States accept responsibility, even if they did not do it themselves.

You know, O.J. Simpson was found innocent of murder, but found guilty because he was said to be responsible. The whites of today are responsible for the condition that has been handed down on us, and the favor that has been handed down to them. And until and unless America faces up to the evil of slavery and what it has done to put black people in America in the condition that we're in, then race relations in America can never, ever get better and the wounds will never heal.

Tavis: There are those who point to people like Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan and Bill Cosby and--not just names of persons that we all know. Indeed, most of those black folk are richer than most white folk I know. But they point to even people like myself, admittedly, who are a part of the black middle class and say that black folk are doing better now than they've ever done before, and 'Y'all don't need reparations. You're doing extremely well as a people, better than you've ever done before.'

Min. Farrakhan: You know, Tavis, even though there is a larger middle-class black community than ever before of so-called--and I say so-called--successful black people, we cannot judge the condition of an entire nation by a group of successful black people. You are successful, maybe I'm successful, others are successful; but we've got nearly 40 million people in America that are still suffering and falling further and further behind. And those that have done well have not pooled their resources to help the masses come out of the condition that the masses are in. So we don't want the middle class, the successful ones, to be used as a mannequin in the store of democracy to sell to the masses of black people that we can achieve just like you have achieved, when in reality the ignorance--the pervasive ignorance--and the racism that exists in America will allow a few to escape, but the masses are caught in the fisherman's net.

Tavis: Speaking of the masses, there are those who say, Minister Farrakhan, that it is because there are too many folk in black America, too many of the masses, who by their own doing have found themselves socially, economically, politically disenfranchised. Nobody put a gun to black men's head and said, 'More of y'all should go to jail than go to college.' No one put a gun to sisters' heads, so many of them, and said, 'Have babies before you are wed.' The point is that there are a lot of folk who point to the conditions of black America and say not slavery--not slavery--but the condition that black folk are in today is a condition of their own making and, 'If y'all would right the ship, you wouldn't need a check for reparations.'

Min. Farrakhan: You know, that's a very wicked thought, Tavis, because when you say 'condition,' you're looking at an effect. But until you and others are able to look at the cause that produced this effect, how dare any white man say to us that there's a gun in our hands, and we are the culprit that have produced the condition that we're in. Granted, we contribute to it, but there's a whole scenario.

Brother, that's what America needs to look at, the cause that produced this effect. And I would debate with anybody, when you sit down and look at the cause of black-on-black violence, the cause of the guns in the black neighborhood, the drugs in the black neighborhood, the guns in the black neighborhood, black organizations and black leaders set at naught by a counterintelligence program of the government of the United States--no, no, no. This government cannot escape culpability for the problems that exist. And until America is willing to face her own wicked hand in our condition, there will never be any peace, and judgment will come down on this nation as it came down on Pharaoh in Egypt and as it came down on the wicked slavemasters of the past.

Tavis: Let me continue playing devil's advocate. There are some folk--I speak now, Brother Minister, of folk inside of black America, because as you well know there is not a universal agreement inside of black America that reparations ought to be the agenda. There is no uniform definition of what reparations ought to be. So first, what do you say to folk who say, 'If we gave y'all a check, y'all wouldn't know what to do with it. You'd go out and use it to buy cars and to buy the kinds of items that you already have a record of spending money on anyway,' and that 'The money wouldn't even be well spent if we gave y'all a check.'

Min. Farrakhan: You know, it's not about a check, Tavis. A fool and his money will soon part. The enemy can print money and give you money, but if he doesn't allow you to get the sense of how to use the power of a dollar to gain what you really need to repair the damage, then a check won't do. So to give black people money is not just the answer. That may be a part of the answer, but that will not repair the damage.

You got a people that know nothing about themselves. You've got a people that have been taught systematically to hate themselves and to love other than themselves. A check will not solve that problem. But it is teachers that have that kind of knowledge, that impart that knowledge to our people that will help to heal that mental wound. But then if America realizes what she has done to us, and if she gave reparations to the Japanese and reparations to Italian Americans and German Americans and even Chinese Americans--what is wrong with the African American who has been set at naught?

No, reparations is a right cry, and it will take the face, the mask of civility off of white people, and then you'll see them as they are. But this cry for justice is coming up, and it will not go down. We'll force you to recognize the evil that your hands have done and what justice is that we deserve.

Tavis: How do you respond to folk, as I continue here in Black History Month to raise these devil's advocate questions... How do you respond to folk who say that the problem here is that black leaders, again to my earlier point, have not come together uniformly to say that we want reparations? Let me tell you what I mean by this, and give me 30 seconds to set this up.

I had the occasion any number of times, as you know, to interview President Clinton when he was in the White House. One of those conversations, one of those interviews on national television came when I traveled with him to the continent of Africa. He went to a 7-, 8-nation tour of Africa, you recall, during his presidency. I was with him on that trip and did a live interview from Ghana--no, South Africa, as a matter of fact. We talked to the president in South Africa. One of the questions I got a chance to ask him, in advance of his trip to Goree Island, was whether or not he in fact was going to apologize for slavery.

You recall there was a lot of heat he was taking back then about whether or not he should apologize for slavery once he landed on African soil, on the soil in the motherland. There were a lot of black leaders on that trip. Pretty much everybody who's anybody, except you, was on the plane with the president on Air Force One traveling to the continent of Africa. And one of the reasons it occurred to me, as I traveled with the president, that he wasn't going to apologize for slavery is that all the black leaders in America who were traveling with him could not agree on whether or not he should apologize for slavery and whether or not reparations should then come after that. Half the Negroes on the plane were saying, 'Mr. President, it ain't your fault. You ain't gotta apologize.' The other half of the black leaders were saying, 'Maybe you should apologize.' And so the president... My point is he got cover and didn't have to apologize because black leaders could not come together on this question. So how do you respond to folk, having said all of that, who say to you that y'all can't come to the government or anybody else asking for something until y'all figure out what y'all really want to do?

Min. Farrakhan: You know, there's always been a handpicked group that placate the feelings of the slavemaster and his children. I would imagine that just being on Air Force One was compensation for slavery for some of those quote-unquote 'Negroes.' But that won't work with me, and that won't work with tens of thousands, yea, millions of black people.

There's a new crop of leadership coming up. Randall Robinson is a man that has made it in America. A brilliant black man, an intelligent black man. He wrote a book called 'The Debt.' He is of the middle class, but you couldn't get him on Air Force One to act in that silly manner. But those Negroes that spoke that, they won't be in leadership over our people in a few days. In South Africa, brother, before Nelson Mandela came out of prison, it's these kinds of handkerchief-head, knee-bending, back-scratching, head-scratching, shuffling Negroes. It's these kind that they put tires around their neck with gasoline in it.

Don't you be surprised at what will come up from the masses of black people in their anger and hurt over leadership that refuses to speak to the needs of our people. We're not asking for what we don't deserve. Now, some of these same Negroes will tell you that the Jews deserve payment, reparations, for the Holocaust--12 years of their suffering in Nazi Germany. Here we are, 400 years in America, suffering from the first century of our presence to this very day, and you mean to tell me a black man can be a leader of black people and can't see the need to redress our grievance? Then those kind of leaders will be buried in the sand of ignominy in just a few days.

Tavis: Let me ask you how it is that you think this issue is ever gonna get traction. Randall did in fact--Randall Robinson, you referenced earlier--did in fact write a brilliant book about 'The Debt,' and I think made the case as good as anybody could make for why America does in fact owe black America a debt, if in fact one believes that. Randall, I think, made the best case.

But the question is this: John Conyers, Democratic member of the House out of Detroit, you know well, has for years now, almost a dozen years now--every single Congressional session, he has introduced legislation not for reparations, Brother Minister, as you know--

Min. Farrakhan: Just to study the problem.

Tavis: There you go. Just to have a commission to study the problem. That--

Min. Farrakhan: And it never has gotten out of committee.

Tavis: You know my question, then.

Min. Farrakhan: Exactly.

Tavis: How is this issue gonna get traction, and you can't get a commission established at a committee?

Min. Farrakhan: That's why on February 29th my subject is: 'What does Europe and America owe and what does God promise?'

See, it's in America's hand right now. Can you imagine a president of the United States not even willing to say, 'We're sorry for what has been done to black people'? But if you make any statement, Tavis, that could be considered slightly anti-Semitic, they'd be all over you in the morning asking you to apologize. And if you don't apologize for yourself, then stand up and apologize for Louis Farrakhan.

But you mean to tell me these people that set us at naught can't stand up and say 'I'm sorry,' when the pope of Rome has asked Africa and the indigenous people of this planet to forgive the Catholic church for the evils that the Catholic church has done to the indigenous, and America can't even start the process of atonement by offering us an apology?

Hey, Tavis. After a while, it's not gonna be in the hands of the Congress of the United States. It's in the hands of God, and our problem is before his court. And that's why I know that the scriptures will be fulfilled. We'll get justice, all right. If not from the hands of those who perpetrated the crime against us, we'll get justice from God himself. And when he gives it, I feel sorry for those who had a chance to do better and wouldn't even apologize and start the process.

Tavis: Let me ask you, then, um... We--as I said earlier in this conversation, everybody knows, February is Black History Month, and so we celebrate the contributions of African Americans to this place that we live in called America.

Minister Farrakhan on race relations in America

It's not lost on me that in May of this year, as you well know, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education case, the seminal case that declared unconstitutional, illegal, separate but equal education in this country. And then everything else started to fall apart, with regards to segregation, that is. Um, the question, though, is this: If, after all this time, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of that case, we still cannot, to your point, get a single American president to even apologize for slavery--never mind the checks, now. You can't even get an apology for slavery. What does that say to you in Black History Month '04 about the progress or lack thereof we've made in America around the issue of race relations?

Min. Farrakhan: Well, Tavis, in all truth, see, progress can be made if the effort is really sincere. Uh, the 1954 historic decision to outlaw separate but equal in education--if it were really sincere, integration would have been a reality in the education of the country by now. But it has reverted to just what it was. Why? Because, as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, 'Integration is a hypocritical trick to make the black man feel that his 400-year-old enemy has all of a sudden become our friends.'

If you can't get an apology, if you can't even get an elected official--many of whom got there from the vote of black people--to admit that a great wrong has been done to an entire people and that wrong has to be redressed. Otherwise, one of these presidents said, 'I fear for my country when I reflect that God is just and that his justice cannot sleep forever.'

It's not gonna be in the hands of white people to do justice by us in a few days from now. And that's what happened to Pharaoh. The just thing was let the people go. Don't play with their lives. You don't want us. Let them go. But they didn't want to do that, so God stepped in and destroyed Pharaoh and his army. America right now is on her way down. You can see it if you look. All this dancing and music and partying--that's not blinding all the American people. It is as it was. In the days of Noah, they were drinking, dancing, partying when the end came, and in the days of lot in Sodom and Gomorrah, they were doing the same. And so it is today. You're partyin', but your world is comin' down. Justice, or else face the wrath of a mighty God who will not ask no questions when the time of judgment has come.

Tavis: I've got just a couple of minutes here. Our time is never long enough to delve into all these issues. But let me ask you right quick, since you mentioned integration, very quickly, whether or not you think that integration... Many people 50 years after Brown v. Board, certainly on the education front, are starting to think that integration may have been not the best thing for black folk in the first place. Your thoughts on whether integration was a mistake.

Min. Farrakhan: In the South, we had black motels, black hotels, black restaurants, black cleaners, black bus companies, black insurance companies, black this, black that. Now the black man in America is woefully lacking in those industries, those business that give jobs to ourselves and keep our dollar within ourselves to improve our community.

I think that integration, uh, if it were sincere, people respecting each other, people trying to get along with each other...but acknowledging wrong. I have to give Germany credit because Germany acknowledged, 'We did something wrong.' The present generation of Germans did not put the Jewish people in those gas chambers and burn their flesh, but they know it was a former generation that did it. So the responsibility was on the present government of Germany to right the wrong. And they have given billions of dollars and also assistance technically and otherwise to Israel and to the Jewish people. We applaud that. That's right that they should do that.

And it is right that America recognizes the contribution that we have made to make this country great. Our young men, along with young white men and brown men, are dying in Iraq over the misadventure of a president, in my judgment, who is guilty of criminal behavior. Yeah. But if we don't recognize truth and do justice on the basis of truth, we are all lost.

Tavis: Minister Louis Farrakhan, thank you for coming on and taking the time to address these issues about reparations and your views on it, and we look forward to your Saviours' Day speech. I'm sure that'll be making news as well. So thank you for coming on and all the best to you, sir.

Min. Farrakhan: Thank you.

Tavis: It's my pleasure. That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio, on National Public Radio. And we'll see you back here next time for another conversation on PBS. Until then we thank you for watching. We thank Minister Louis Farrakhan for coming on and addressing those questions about his views on reparations and, from Los Angeles, good night and, as always, keep the faith.