(FinalCall.com) – The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan wrapped up 2011 with a tour of the Caribbean delivering a clarion call for unity, and independence through self-determination to the leaders of these nations as well as the youth.
This was a consistent theme throughout this year, beginning with his 2011 Saviours’ Day message. In it, he presciently warned the tumult being witnessed in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain was headed to America.
“You’d better prepare because it will be coming to your door, America,” Minister Farrakhan told a crowd of over 16,000 with thousands more watching globally via live Internet webcast. The year 2011 saw the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement begin in New York city, then spread across the United States. In many instances, the protesters were met with significant force by police. By all accounts, the movement was one of the most noteworthy events of the year.
During that message, the Minister also advised President Obama to remember his words to other nations concerning freedom of assembly and the freedom to protest. These disturbing events now seen on foreign shores are a sign that the Great Mahdi–God Himself, the Saviour–is in the world today and all tyrants will be sat down, the Muslim leader warned.
A few days later, with the conflict in Libya growing, Minister Farrakhan was interviewed by radio talk-show host Cliff Kelley of WVON 1690 AM in Chicago on March 10. The Minister again used the airwaves to warn Pres. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for their arrogance in meddling in Libya’s affairs.
Min. Farrakhan instructed Americans to look beneath the surface to see who stands to benefit from the unrest, and warned Pres. Obama to be careful of the words coming from advisors lobbying him to move in with military forces to depose Col. Gadhafi. One video snippet posted by The Final Call went viral gaining nearly 300,000 views in one day. The popular Google-owned YouTube removed the video at about the 400,000 mark due to “inappropriate content.” After numerous complaints and emails from Farrakhan supporters, the YouTube restored the video.
It was then on to Pittsburgh, where Minister Farrakhan would speak March 11 at a townhall meeting hosted by talk show host Bev Smith. During the days prior to the event, Ms. Smith received calls from Jewish leaders expressing their displeasure at her decision to invite Min. Farrakhan.
Despite their attempts the Minister was joined by Rep. James Clyburn, (D-S.C.) and longtime civil rights activist Dorothy Tillman, who gladly paid her own way and stepped in to fill the slot vacated by Melanie Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation who backed out just days before the townhall meeting fearing the loss of future funding, according to Ms. Smith.
Though saddened by the unnecessary controversy fomented by those determined to make mischief, Minister Farrakhan was unapologetic in his delivery of a clear message as a warner from God, and again pledged support for Ms. Smith, who received death threats in the days leading up to the event. There was also a reported bomb threat at the August Wilson Center the day of the townhall meeting.
“I love the truth and I love you and I refuse to compromise my principles to get along,” said Min. Farrakhan. “My love of God makes me put my trust completely in Him.”
Ms. Smith told The Final Call the threats did not rattle her and her faith in God and love of the truth keeps her protected. “Honey, I’ve been shot at before. I’ve marched against the Ku Klux Klan before, and my daughter’s school was threatened and I had to have the FBI for six weeks put the key in my door here in Pittsburgh because I went into the prisons and talked about how White prison guards were treating Black inmates. I had my car stolen, I was shot at, and the hole is still in the window at the old radio studio–but do you see me?”
Next, the Minister would travel to Jackson, Mississippi as the keynote speaker at the 6th Annual Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement Conference on March 25.
A full media contingent was present including a film crew from France. Lines wrapped around the auditorium as a diverse crowd, packed the McCoy Auditorium on the campus of Jackson State University. Again, days prior to the event, a coalition led by Jewish rabbis publicly expressed their displeasure that Min. Farrakhan was chosen as the keynote speaker.
“Wherever I go, it seems as though there is controversy,” Minister Farrakhan said. “Have you ever seen Whites so afraid of something that a Black man is saying that they don’t want you to hear it? asked Min. Farrakhan. “A liar is always afraid when there is a bold person that is willing to speak the truth and give his life for that truth.”
Wasting no time, Allah moved Minister Farrakhan to speak publicly and boldly about his relationship with embattled leader Col. Muammar Gadhafi, his longtime brother and friend. Holding a press conference March 31 at Mosque Maryam, the international headquarters of the Nation of Islam, the Minister said the bombing of Libya ended hope in Africa and in the Middle East that President Obama would usher in a different type of U.S. policy. Col. Gadhafi has been hated by America for his revolutionary ideology and stand against imperialistic exploitation of poor nations. The media will never report the good Col. Gadhafi did for many across the globe, the Minister said.
“It’s a terrible thing for me to hear my brother called these ugly and filthy names when I cannot recognize him as that. So even though the current and the tide is moving against him, what kind of brother would I be if a man has been that way to me, and to us, and when he is in trouble, I refuse to raise my voice in his defense?” asked Min. Farrakhan as the audience exploded into cheers and applause. “I love Muammar Gadhafi and I love our president. It grieves me to see my brother president set a policy that would remove this man, not just from office, but from the earth,” he added.
Then, on Apr. 2, Minister Farrakhan delivered an historic message on the campus of Howard University. The campus hosted a four-day conference bringing together leaders from several historically Black colleges and universities to discuss the direction of student activism and their role in solving the problems plaguing the Black community.
Minister Farrakhan was very happy to have the opportunity to speak to the best and brightest young minds within the Black community.
“As an elder–if you will–I could not help but feel great joy over what I heard from these young giants of ours,” said the Minister after taking the stage to a rousing standing ovation at a packed Cramton Auditorium. “This probably is one of the sweetest moments that I have had in a long, long time,” he added.
At the close of his message, Minister Farrakhan gave copies of the book, The Secret Relationship Between Black and Jews Volumes One and Two as well as a DVD of the message he had just delivered on to all the conference participants.
In the month of May, Minister Farrakhan delivered two important messages to the members of the American Clergy Leadership Conference. On May 17 he spoke to them in Chicago at the Life Center Church of God in Christ led by Pastor T.L. Barrett Jr., and on May 28 he spoke to them again in Harlem, New York at the historic Salem United Methodist Church.
Minister Farrakhan said the “Death Angel” is already in America. This is shown by the devastating tornadoes that have destroyed towns across the land over the past few months and the winter storms that struck over the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011. Even with a Black president, Barack H. Obama, Minister Farrakhan said, America will not escape God’s judgment.
“We voted for our brother Barack, a beautiful human being with a sweet heart, and now, he is an assassin. They’ve turned him into them,” said Min. Farrakhan. “America can sit down tyrants, but who will sit her down?”
Archbishop George Augustus Stallings, Jr., national president of the American Clergy Leadership Conference, told The Final Call he admires Minister Farrakhan because he leads by example, and is a man of principle, at a time when many spiritual leaders sacrifice principle for popularity.
“The sterling quality that I appreciate most about the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan is that he is uncompromising when it comes to spiritual principles and he does not base his message on what will tickle the ear or what is popular to receive an applause,” Archbishop Stallings said. “What is more important to him is principle rather than power. It is service rather than being served.”
On June 8, Minister Farrakhan came to the aid of longtime friend and civil rights activist Dorothy Wright Tillman and her daughter Jimalita, as they fought the City of Chicago to maintain control of the Harold Washington Cultural Center in the historic Bronzeville neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.
The Minister said Dorothy Wright Tillman has always been an outspoken defender of the people.
“I’m here to defend the honor, the integrity, the warrior spirit of a woman and to defend her legacy because this cultural center represents what’s deep within her being for us,” he said.
In a June 15 press conference at the Millennium United Nations Plaza Hotel in New York, Minister Farrakhan lambasted NATO, the U.S. government and all those who had joined in the military operation to kill Col. Muammar Gadhafi as a “coalition of demons”
“I am happy to see the press, but it’s irrelevant to me if you print one word, or no words. I’m here to make a statement,” he told the international media contingent gathered there.
Minister Farrakhan’s words were translated into Arabic and viewed internationally live via Internet webcast in several African nations, including Libya.
During his remarks lasting a little over 45 minutes, the Minister announced to the world that God’s period of grace and time for America to repent is over. The United Nations has also embarked on a destructive course by supporting deadly U.S. and Western-instigated aggression against Libya, he added.
On August 6, in remarks wrapping up the Nation of Islam’s 4th Annual Educational Conference themed: “Developing A Nation of Readers” Minister Farrakhan told parents, students and educators that the time is now to create a new educational reality, rendering the old White supremacist educational system and its curriculum irrelevant. “If a curriculum does not prepare a student for life itself, then it is a worthless curriculum,” said Min. Farrakhan.
Minister Farrakhan returned to Harlem on August 13 to deliver the keynote address at the Millions March in Harlem, where a crowd stretched for blocks down Malcolm X Boulevard. The gathering in the historic Mecca for Black culture and political thought was organized by the December 12th Movement to demand an end to the U.S.-NATO military assault on Libya, to denounce imperialist moves to recolonize Africa.
“We must speak truth to power or die! We must not be afraid to tell the truth even if it means we lose our lives because there is nothing more precious in this universe than truth,” said the Minister. “We are in great trouble as we speak and if our leaders will not tell us and guide us properly then they’re going down and they’ll take us down with them. This is why the Bible says ‘if the blind lead the blind both fall in the ditch’ and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said the ditch represents hell and destruction. Right now as a people we’re in hell and we are being destroyed and there are forces that are planning our destruction.”
On September 11, Minister Farrakhan delivered a special message at Mosque Maryam to those who attended the three-day 2011 National Vanguard Retreat. Wrapping up three days of spiritual and physical renewal for young women of the Nation of Islam as Muslim women and girls from all across the United States and as far away as Montreal, Canada, the Minister said the enemy’s aim has been to devalue the woman transforming her into a sexual plaything instead of treating her with the reverence and honor she deserves as a serious co-creator with God.
“No matter what your race, color or ethnicity, you have never looked at yourself as a part of The Divine. That will change today,” Min. Farrakhan told the packed auditorium and those viewing live via internet webcast. “God cannot make us the head if the woman is not lifted. If God does not lift the woman, the man will never come up, so if God is going to make a new world and a better world, He is going to make that world coming through a woman,” he added.
Several powerful events took place in Philadelphia, the city hosting the 16-year anniversary commemoration of the Million Man March and Holy Day of Atonement.
In his October 9, keynote address, Minister Farrakhan served notice to leaders still selling the failed promise of America and warned Black people to accept responsibility for their own destiny or face chastisement from God–and ultimately complete elimination.
“Whether you know it or not, we are at war! Our survival as a people is at stake and no weak-kneed, cowardly leaders need to stand in front of Black people today! This is a time for real men! Men that understand that in order for people to be free, sacrifice has to be made, the loss of life has to take place, blood must flow in order for people who are enslaved to be free!” declared Min. Farrakhan.
He followed up with another passionate message delivered Oct. 16 at Mosque Maryam. He again warned Black America was in a struggle for her very survival and offered a stirring call for separation inside America. Create clean, economically viable, progressive, Black-controlled and Black-owned communities, starting with the purchase of land, he said, and get acquainted with the Program of The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, who offered solutions to these problems decades ago.
On Oct. 19, Minister Farrakhan joined the members of Christ Universal Temple as they celebrated 55 years of service within the community. He also delivered encouragement and guidance to 41-year-old Rev. Derrick Wells, the senior minister for the church, taking over for its legendary founder, the Rev. Dr. Johnnie Colemon.
On Oct. 20 it was widely reported by national and international media that longtime Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gadhafi had been killed. Minister Farrakhan waited several days to speak publicly about the events transpiring in Libya and returned to the familiar setting of WVON 1690AM for an in-studio interview with host Cliff Kelley.
Minister Farrakhan entered the studio October 25 with a focused and extremely serious look on his face as Mr. Kelley asked him how he was feeling.
“I feel like I have lost a very, very important member of my own family. I can’t take the assassination of Muammar Gadhafi lightly, as I could not take the assassination of my brother, or my mother, or my wife or my children lightly. That’s the kind of relationship that we had and that we have,” Min. Farrakhan responded. “I’ve come to say to the world that the Nation of Islam mourns the loss of a great brother, leader, the Lion of the Desert, the Lion of Africa, and those who rejoice at his death, your laughter will turn to tears and your joy will turn to sorrow and great pain because of what the Western world and those collaborators will lose as a result of his betrayal and his ultimate assassination.”
Mr. Kelley invited Minister Farrakhan back again Nov. 3 to discuss issues of Black survival during this critical time. Minister Farrakhan again emphasized unity, cooperative economic action, investment and acquisition of land.
Speaking at Prairie View A&M University for the first time since December 1988, Minister Farrakhan addressed nearly 4,000 students in the William “Billy” Nicks arena Nov. 9.
The audience sat and listened attentively for nearly two hours as the Minister in his unique way, gave instruction from the Bible, the Holy Qur’an and historical anecdotes, to prepare the minds of the next generation of Black leaders. Prairie View A&M offered him a $5,000 honorarium to appear, however, he turned it down and asked them to give a scholarship instead.
In his remarks, the Minister challenged the “bourgeoisie” thinking that often infects the minds of the Black community’s educated class.
“What is the purpose of education? Are we just in school to get an education so that we can go out and get a job and make some money, ride in a car, live in a nice home, abandon the ghetto and leave your brothers and sisters behind and think that we’ve made progress in the world? Is this what God intended when he asked us to go after knowledge from the cradle to the grave?” he asked the audience.
“The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s visit has focused the believers and conscious community on self sufficiency. There has been a greater willingness among leaders to have serious discussions about setting a local Black agenda to clearly define our self interests and thereby create a metric to measure the quality of service of public officials and institutions,” said Southwestern Regional Student Minister Robert S. Muhammad.
On Nov. 19, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Minister Farrakhan. There are many members of the Nation of Islam who are also members of Omega Psi Phi, all of whom shared their happiness at hearing that the Minister would be honored in such a manner.
On Nov. 23, Minister Farrakhan delivered analysis of national and international affairs in light of history, scripture, and prophecy for the radio listeners and those tuning in nationwide via internet in an interview with Southwestern Regional Student Minister Robert Muhammad, host of “Connect the Dots” radio show on 90.1 KPFT FM in Houston.
