E-mail a friendMinister Louis Farrakhan
airdate October 13, 2005
Minister Louis Farrakhan became the Nation of Islam leader in '77. But, music was his first love. He gained fame as a calypso singer and gifted violinist. While headlining a show in Chicago, he attended a Nation of Islam convention and ultimately converted. Although controversial, Farrakhan shares pulpits with ministers from various denominations and addresses diverse organizations. In '99, he battled prostate cancer and came back to the public stage in '00, still maintaining a demanding schedule.
Minister Louis Farrakhan
Tavis: Ten years ago this weekend, Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan organized the largest and most successful gathering of African American men in U.S. history. This weekend, there are a number of events planned in Washington to commemorate and celebrate the MillionMan March anniversary. Front and center, as always, will be the minister himself. Leading up to this weekend, Minister Farrakhan's been on a 23 city tour, mobilizing black men and others for his Millions More Movement. Mr. Farrakhan, nice to have you here.
Louis Farrakhan: It's a pleasure to be here with you again.
Tavis: Glad to have you here again. I started by saying that you've been on this tour, mobilizing black men and others for this Millions More Movement. So 10 years ago, the Million Man March, ten years later, the Millions More Movement. Explain the difference, the distinction.
Farrakhan: The Million Man March was designed specifically to change the image of young black men that were seen in the movie 'Colors,' 'Boys in the Hood,' 'Menace to Society,' 'Time' magazine, 'Newsweek,' and the regular press, showed young black men as savage or bestial and berserkers, going around with guns and killing - which was true, but that's not the total image of us. So I felt that we needed to change that image, so I went around the country on a 'Stop the Killing' tour.
Then I went around again, appealing to black men specifically. So as in the Bible, everything starts in the Genesis with God making a man in his own image and after his likeness, and seeing that he did not want the man to be alone, he gave him a woman to help him meet the obligation that God had put upon him. So I felt that 10 years ago was a Genesis for us, a new beginning. And I wanted us to start like God started, trying to make a man again. But a man in the image - and likeness of God. And that's why we started with the theme "atonement, responsibility, and reconciliation.'
Tavis: All right, so 10 years later, we have the Millions More Movement, and so it's not just about black men this time.
Farrakhan: That is correct.
Tavis: It's about black men, black women, and others. Talk to me about what you're trying to do differently this time around.
Farrakhan: Well, as you know, we called for one million, and God blessed us with nearly two million men. Three years later, our women got together in Philadelphia, and they had a march equal to what the men did in Washington. Then later, the youth had a million - a youth march. It didn't quite reach those numbers, but it was effective. Then the million workers. So here we have the organizers of the Million Man March, the organizers of the Million Woman March, the organizers of the Million Youth and Worker March all under an arc.
Because we know that a march is just for a day, but a movement has a goal and a purpose bigger than a march. And that must be to, number one, make a demand on government in the repair of the damage of a people that have suffered 300 years of chattel slavery, 100 years of Jim Crow and lynching, and 50 years of governmental abuse of our leaders and our organizations. So there's something that government must do.
But the main responsibility to change our condition rests with ourselves. So we're marshaling and mobilizing the talented tenth, those learned professionals with their gifts, skills, and talents in a programmatic way to help address the problems of the masses.
Tavis: I can imagine there's somebody watching right now, some persons watching right now who will say, 'Brother minister, I was with you until you listed government first, and then black people second, in terms of the order of responsibility.' How do you respond to people who say, you've got - maybe there is a role for government to play. We certainly see that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which I want to come back to in a second. But why list government first, black people second? Was that by design or was that...
Farrakhan: No, no, no. We are first.
Tavis: Yeah, okay.
Farrakhan: Government has a role to play, but whether they play their role or not, the role and the responsibility is on our shoulders. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to us, "There's no power in the Heavens above or in the Earth below that can stop us from achieving what God wills for us, if we would get our own foot out of our own way.'
So the responsibility is ours, but the more we mobilize and the more we organize, then we can put to the government the demands that government should do and ultimately must do to correct the wrong that government is responsible for.
Tavis: All right, since you went there, talk to me about what your assessment is of the role that government has played or not played, the way they responded or did not respond. This march comes on the heels of and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and these issues of race and class and race and poverty. So you spoke earlier about the preexisting conditions leading up to the Million Man March 10 years ago. Talk to me about the conditions and how you view this propitious moment in black history leading up to this anniversary.
Farrakhan: In the last 10 years, although many gains were made, we have seen factories close in the inner city and the manufacturing capacity of America ceded to third world, cheap labor markets, which leaves the unlearned, unskilled person, who could labor in a factory, now left in the lurch in - an information or a service oriented society. So in the last 10 years, with factories closing, in some of the cities into which I went, the unemployment rate among black men was in the 50% range. So where do those men find a future?
And so they're being gradually socially engineered into the prison industrial complex, and so the prisons are full, and they're building more, and it's on the stock market, and people are getting rich on the fact that they believe that we are going to fill every jail, the black, the brown, and the poor white. So the conditions, to me, that Katrina exposed was the horror of the level of poverty that exists in the richest nation on the Earth. The index for poverty has increased steadily over the last four years.
And in the last time they looked at it, 1.5 million children were added to the roll of those suffering poverty. Race and class enter into this dynamic. I had a talk with a - beautiful lawyer, a brilliant lawyer the other night, and he raised the question that if on those roofs in the ninth ward were white faces with blonde hair and blue eyes, would the government have been so slow in responding to the cry for help? We charge the government of the United States not just with ineptitude, but with criminal negligence that has led to the loss of life of so many, because government did not respond in the appropriate and proper and timely manner.
Tavis: It's one thing to say that government did not respond in the appropriate and timely manner, another thing to say that what government did was malign neglect. You did not say that, but I'm asking you if that's your feeling, that government, what we saw here was malign neglect on the part of government for these black faces.
Farrakhan: Well, if - a child is left in an automobile with the windows up, and mom just runs into the store to shop for something, but she's in a long line. And when she comes out her child is dead, then the government can charge her with criminal neglect, even though her motive was not to kill her child. We don't know what the - government's motive was, but we can say they certainly did not respond appropriately to the greatest tragedy in American history.
So that, to me, is criminal negligence that must be pursued by us so that those who have lost their lives and their property may get justice from a government that may not be concerned enough after the television lights leave that area.
Tavis: Your eloquence and commentary notwithstanding, how do you respond to people who say that the mission here for this march may be right, the methodology for this march may be right, but the man at the center of the march is the wrong man? How can y'all rally around Louis Farrakhan?
Farrakhan: Well, you know, there's a scripture in the Koran that says 'God knows best where to place his message.' If God used me to make the call, whether people like me or dislike me, the call for the Million Man March was right and proper. So it was God who touched the hearts of those men. Farrakhan only gave a word, but God touched their hearts, and they came.
Today, the condition of the masses of the black and the brown and the poor is such that in my heart, I knew we had to do something about this, so I'm making the call on the tenth anniversary of the Million Man March. And in that room is the whole spectrum of black thought, of Latino thought, of Native American thought. That didn't happen in a vacuum. It happens because the condition of the Native American, the Latino, and the black and the poor is such that even though it is I who have made that call, in spite of the baggage that I carry and our disagreements as human beings - there's disagreements with the NAACP or the Urban League or the black activists and the Reparations Brothers and the radicals.
But we're all in the room, and the only way we can help to reshape each other's thinking, is by an act of lawful dialogue. But in the past, we've been separated by the way the media represents me to them and them to me and us to each other, but now we're in the same room. So I believe, in spite of what they say, I would remind them that Jesus said, "You can tell a tree by the fruit it bears.' And if the message is good, the messenger can't be bad.
Tavis: In 30 seconds, let me ask you whether or not you, as we sit here on the eve of this anniversary and this wonderful march, are hopeful. Are you hopeful?
Farrakhan: Oh, I always remain hopeful. We've worked very hard, those of us that have worked. I can't tell you what figure, what number we're looking at, because I really don't know, but so many have worked very hard. And as the scripture says, well, "One man will plant, another will water, but it will be God who will give the increase.' We've done the best that we can, and now we leave it to God to give the increase.
Tavis: Always glad to converse with you. Nice to see you, Minister.
Farrakhan: It's my pleasure, Tavis.
Tavis: Thank you, sir. Up next on this program, former 'Judging Amy' star Amy Brenneman. Stay with us.
Back to October 13, 2005