CHICAGO (FinalCall.com) – The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan will continue to teach and guide the next generation of Black leaders and thinkers in a message on the campus of Chicago State University, January 25.
Hosted by the Chicago State University African-American Studies Program and the African- American Male Resource Center, the Minister is scheduled to speak on the topic: “Education: Black People and the Future.”
According to the center’s director, Ronald “Kwesi” Harris, it promises to be memorable, with students and educators from Milwaukee and other areas around Illinois planning to travel to the event. The AAMRC specializes in recruitment, retention and support for Black male students at the university. Mr. Harris said the campus is buzzing in anticipation of the Minister’s appearance.
“This will be continuing and carrying on what we initiated by bringing a leader with presence on the world stage, not just nationally, but internationally, a world traveler to speak to the students,” said Mr. Harris. “It also shows the historic nature of it,” he added.
After being effectively banned from college campuses for over a decade, Minister Farrakhan spoke at several last year. He spoke at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi in March, at the historic Howard University in Washington, D.C. in April, and in November, he addressed students at Prairie View A&M University in Prairie View, Texas.
Mr. Harris said he saw the message delivered to Prairie View A&M and immediately felt it was a model for what he desired the students to see and hear on his campus.
“Sometimes our great thinkers are not given an opportunity to share their thoughts. This will be with the young people, up close and personal,” said Mr. Harris.
In a November 2011 radio interview, Minister Farrakhan discussed his most recent college appearances.
“I have always been on college campuses now affecting almost three or four generations of our people, but in the last 10 or so years, it has been taboo for Louis Farrakhan to be on college campuses, particularly the college campuses of our Black students,” said the Minister. “This is because those forces that have seen me as anti-Semitic or anti-White or racist or however they wish to describe me–feel that it is not in their best interests that I speak to Black students, but thanks be to Allah, this past year, with Nation of Islam Student Associations on these campuses, the students have invited me and their professors and their chancellors and school presidents have agreed that I should come and I am so very grateful for the opportunity to talk to our young people.”
Leonard F. Muhammad, longtime aide to Minister Farrakhan worked closely with the faculty and staff of Chicago State University to make the event a reality. He said the Minister’s insightful guidance is critical at this time and especially thanked university president Wayne D. Watson, for his encouragement and support of the event.
“Our young people–even the ones on college campuses–are growing up without being sensitive to the real needs for the future of our people, and without a message such as what will come from Minister Farrakhan, we’ll have a generation of young people, only concerned with themselves and self-gratification,” Mr. Muhammad told The Final Call. “The Minister’s message of responsibility and the role of education in the rise of our people is absolutely critical at this time, and I believe that parents as well as city officials and church leaders should all salute the Minister and follow his lead to help sensitize our young people so we can do better than what we’ve been doing during the early part of this decade,” Mr. Muhammad added.
