France is currently facing record debt, a high-budget deficit and political fragmentation. Social unrest driven by frustration over poor school conditions, teacher shortages, living costs and declining public services has added to the list of problems French officials are being asked to solve.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is blaming far-left groups for the protests. According to the BBC, a leaked internal intelligence report prepared for the Paris police department accused student unions and political movements “aligned with the radical left” of manipulating student demonstrations and relying on violence as an electoral strategy ahead of the 2027 presidential elections. It named, in particular, La France Insoumise (LFI), translated to France Unbowed, a far-left political party.

While some demonstrations escalated into riots, looting and arson on Oct. 17, the protests, which began in mid-September and have drawn hundreds of thousands of participants, have largely been peaceful.

LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a presidential candidate who has supported the protests, denied the claims and instead accused the prime minister of being “responsible for the chaos” either due to “incompetence or a worst-case strategy,” according to the BBC.

Marine Le Pen, a leader of the far-right National Rally party and a presidential contender, posted a video on social media also blaming LFI leader Mélenchon. Her party has taken a step further to blame immigrants for the chaos in France, the BBC reports.

However, French authorities had not implicated immigrants in the violence, according to the BBC. In addition, Reuters reported that government officials acknowledged shortcomings in their security response to the Oct. 17 unrest.

The political debate over the protests has extended beyond France, with U.S. President Donald Trump weighing in and blaming the unrest in France and elsewhere in Europe on immigrants and Muslims. It is an unfounded allegation and familiar tactic he has also used in the U.S.

“If Europe doesn’t close its borders and bring the criminals out, like the people that are protesting, Europe is finished,” he said at the White House on Oct. 19, according to Al Jazeera. “When I look at France, when you look at Italy, when you look at all the turmoil and the hatred, that’s not about school.

That’s about people coming into the countries that hate the country.” His unfounded comments come ahead of the midterm congressional elections in the U.S. He did not present evidence to support his claims.

French President Emmanuel Macron disputed President Trump’s characterizations. “We’ve had people claiming that we were invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists, which is completely false,” he said to reporters during a trip to Qatar, according to The Associated Press. He added that some leaders on the other side of the Atlantic are “using our country for their own political campaigns.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a statement on Oct. 21 denouncing attempts to blame the French protests on Muslims and immigrants.

“Politicians who blame immigrants and Muslims for the economic problems those very same politicians caused are using a transparently dishonest, dangerous tactic,” Washington, D.C.-based CAIR said in the statement.

“President Trump, Vice President Vance and other political leaders should be working to solve the cost-ofliving crisis that their Iran war escalated rather than blaming Muslims and immigrants for economic protests in France that have nothing to do with Islam or immigrants. We echo the condemnation of these false narratives and urge all public figures to stop weaponizing misinformation for political gain.”

French citizens interviewed by the BBC argue that politicians are overlooking the underlying causes of the unrest.

When the BBC’s Europe editor spoke to Lisa Cordat of the Fédération Syndi-cale Étudiante, a national student union in France involved in the demonstrations, she said it was “insulting” to suggest that demonstrators were being manipulated or “told to do this, or do that” by politicians.

“Student anger comes from the ground up,” the student said, according to the BBC.

Another interviewee, Lina, told the BBC: “Politicians are hunting for scapegoats but don’t ask why it all happened. The root causes of Saturday [Oct. 17]. We feel scared and abandoned.”

A teacher identified as Mar told the BBC that violence on Oct. 17 distracted from weeks of legitimate demonstrations for better public services. “Politicians aren’t listening to what the students need, or what teachers need or what the French people want,” she said. “They’re using the violence to election-campaign to become president and to try to make their opponents look bad.”

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Growing dissatisfaction has resulted in the latest waves of protests in France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and other European countries.

The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, taught on what dissatisfaction brings. “We are living in the time when dissatisfaction is 100 percent throughout the world of man and mankind. Therefore we are living among the dissatisfied persons, daily and nightly,” He wrote in chapter 23 of His seminal book, “The Fall of America.”

His National Representative, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, in an April 28, 1995, message titled, “What’s Troubling America,” said of his Teacher, “The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said 30% dissatisfaction could lead to a change that affects 75% of the world. But when you get 100% dissatisfaction, it leads to a total change.”

Minister Farrakhan has also warned that there is now “100% dissatisfaction all over the Earth.”

“Seven billion people on our planet are upset, angry, dissatisfied with those who lead and govern their lives and the institutions that have been put into place by various governments to govern [the] lives of the people of the Earth,” the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said in a message titled.

“The Intensifying, Universal Cry for Justice,” delivered on February 22, 2015, in Chicago. “Every nation on Earth now: If you listen to the politics of each nation, they’re running on a theme, or a plan, about ‘change’ to satisfy the dissatisfied elements.”

For the Nation of Islam’s Student European Regional Minister Abdul Hakeem Muhammad, based in the UK, the uprisings in France and other countries are a consequence of broken promises.

“My general view on what is taking place in France is something that governments throughout the world are guilty of, which is publishing manifestos prior to an election and making promises to the people that they don’t keep once elected,” he said to The Final Call.

“As a consequence of that, we’re going into a global shift where the people, now, are starting to hold their governments more acutely to account.” He added that people no longer care about the destruction of their towns and cities caused through protest “because these beautiful towns and cities are no longer affordable for the average citizen to enjoy.”

“The people have reached the point of breaking, and what you’re seeing in Paris is a people who have broken. They can’t take any more promises that will not be fulfilled,” he said.

Unrest in France

For citizens of France, dissatisfaction had been brewing over time, according to residents of suburban Paris interviewed by The Final Call. Teacher staffing shortages at a school in the Paris region quickly became the catalyst to what has been described by multiple media outlets as the country’s worst period of civil unrest in decades.

“The anger in France, everybody’s angry; White, Black…. [No one] is okay with the government…. Nobody agrees. The dissatisfaction is at a very, very high level,” Sister Darikatine X, a member of the Nation of Islam who lives in the suburbs of Paris, told The Final Call.

Teachers began demonstrating on Sept. 17. High school students joined the demonstrations, and the frustration quickly spread to other schools and universities.

By early October, students were blockading schools and clashing with police, while teachers and labor unions joined larger demonstrations on rising living costs, wages and public services. Large nationwide demonstrations continued throughout October.

“It started in September. The students in high schools were complaining about overcrowded classrooms, and sometimes they don’t have heating in winter. The staff members, the teachers, [are] not enough for all of the students,” Brother Ghislain X, another resident of suburban Paris and a member of the Nation of Islam, said to The Final Call.

“Several things that I think people are fed up with, the way school is structured and organized by the government, but now it’s more than just school. People complain also about the prices that’s up. Also, the oil for cars that’s going up. It started with the students, but now there are also other complaints, and so that’s becoming a big protest now.”

The demonstrations escalated on Oct. 17, when approximately 550,000 people participated in nationwide protests, according to France’s Interior Ministry. Organizers estimated there were 800,000 participants. Although the demonstrations were largely peaceful, looting, arson and clashes with police occurred in several cities over that weekend.

“There are young people who smashed things. They destroyed shops, also, and school blockades during the week, and also fighting. They fight against the police,” Bro. Ghislain X said.

Authorities responded to the protests with increased security measures and localized curfews in various French cities. Sis. Darikatine X said she believes negative police response intensified the protests. She also expressed concern about reports of serious injuries among young protesters during confrontations with police.

“The level of violence is very, very high. That’s why the response from the high school students and all the people who joined them are so strong,” she said.

The current events in France and across Europe beg the world to listen to the warning and guidance of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. In a message delivered in a 2015 interview with Cliff Kelley on Chicago’s WVON 1690 AM radio station, Minister Farrakhan warned:

“[S]ince unjust and wicked people have been in positions of power and governance over the people—and there is no justice, there’s 100 percent dissatisfaction all over the Earth— then governments, now, have to pay money to mobilize their police and then militarize their police.”

Youth rising The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan also warned the world’s governments about the rising up of young people due to growing dissatisfaction. “Have you noticed every revolution that is taking place on the Earth?

Look in the faces of those who are rising against their governments—that’s right: It is disenfranchised young, jobless people. Not only are young Black people in America unemployed, young people are unemployed all over the world,” Minister Farrakhan said in Part 23 of his 2013 weekly lecture series, “The Time and What Must be Done.”

He continued: “When you look at the austerity measures going on in Greece, in Spain, in Italy, in France, look at who is rising up: It is the youth! If you look at Libya, if you look at Syria, if you look at Egypt, if you look at Tunisia, if you look in Bahrain—wherever there’s revolution or strife against a constituted authority, it is the young who are rising up!”

“It’s reached a point where people are very fed up, especially young people,” Bro. Ghislain X said, speaking of the uprisings in France. He expressed how young people are different from the generations before them and desire more respect from their governments, bearing witness to what the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said.

“It started in France and now Belgium started to do the same thing, and it’s still the young people who started the blockades and all of the protests.

The energy and the way of thinking of young people are very different, and maybe the governments think that the young people will be the same as the old generation,” he said. “But they are really, really different. They don’t accept the way things are structured in their countries.”

As demonstrations intensified in France, students, labor unions and other groups also mobilized in Belgium, Italy, Albania and Greece. Protesters raised similar concerns over education funding, public services, economic pressures, wages, housing and government accountability.

On Oct. 9, approximately 30,000 people marched in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, during a national strike organized by major trade unions. Transportation, flights, schools and childcare were disrupted. Police used tear gas and water cannons on demonstrators and detained and arrested at least 21 people. Confrontations continued throughout October.

In Italy, students demonstrated in Milan, Rome and Turin on Oct. 16, over education funding and government policies. Demonstrations on living costs and public services intensified during the Oct. 17-18 weekend, with clashes, looting and property damage reported in several cities. In Milan, police detained 271 people, including 32 who were formally arrested, according to Reuters.

Student-led demonstrations intensified in Albania in mid-October, as part of a broader anti-government movement, leading to clashes with police and attacks on government buildings and businesses. Protesters raised concerns about government accountability and demanded Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation.

In Athens, the capital of Greece, students began demonstrating on Oct. 13. Protesters set up tents near the parliament building to draw attention to student housing costs.

Another encampment was established on Oct. 20, and approximately 10,000 people marched in Athens on Oct. 21.

Distress and confusion

While students and young people have been leading some of Europe’s latest protest movements, housing-rights organizations, labor unions and public-sector workers have also been protesting in Ireland, Spain and Portugal over rising rent, housing shortages, evictions, wages, working conditions and rising household expenses.

On Oct. 14, more than 300,000 teachers, health workers, civil servants and other public employees participated in a nationwide strike in Ireland. Schools closed and thousands of medical appointments were canceled.

In Spain and Portugal, housing-rights protesters have staged demonstrations and encampments in recent weeks, demanding action on rising rent, housing shortages and evictions. Demonstrations continued throughout October.

The uprisings in Europe are only examples of the distress and confusion of nations the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad warned about. In part 10 of “The Time and What Must Be Done,” the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan echoed his teacher in a message on the signs of distress and confusion plaguing the nations of the Earth.

“[I]f you’ll read, or look at the news, ‘Are the nations in distress?’ My God! There are 17 nations in Europe that were taking austerity measures to address their debt crisis.

They are in distress because their economies are collapsing,” the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said. He referenced a quote from a previous French labor minister, Michel Sapin, telling the French people that the country is “totally bankrupt.”

At the end of the second quarter of 2026, France’s public debt stood at approximately €3.6 trillion ($4 trillion), or 119% of gross domestic product, according to France’s national statistics agency. The debt-to-GDP ratio was at its highest level since 1946, according to French newspaper Le Monde.

In recent years, three West African countries—Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger—have ended French military deployments in their territories and established the Alliance of Sahel States.

Niger is also taking control of uranium mining operations associated with a French company. However, the extent to which these developments have affected France’s current economic reality has not been established.

“Even if it affects the French country, French people will never have this information officially, and some of them do not even understand the correlation of what’s going on,” Sis. Darikatine X said.

Bro. Ghislain agreed. “They’ll never say in the French government, officially, that the economic situation of France is linked to the fact that those countries in Africa decided to take their resources back, so they don’t speak about it,” he said.

On the confusion of nations, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan questioned in part 10: “Are the heads of our government confused? You mean you can’t sit down in a room and agree on a way forward to solve the problems of the American people?”

The same questions can be asked of France and other European countries. Sis. Darikatine explained that in Europe, the European Parliament plays a major role in legislation.

The European Parliament represents 450 million people who live in the European Union (EU), according to the parliament’s website. It works alongside the Council of the European Union to adopt new legislation and approve the EU budget, thus influencing national policies. Individual governments still retain substantial authority over their own budgets, education systems, policing and other policies.

Whether the latest wave of protests across Europe is reflective of 100% dissatisfaction remains to be seen.

Sis. Darikatine X attributed the lack of adequate government response to the protests in France to the country’s failing political structure and does not believe the protests will lead to change.

“Whatever the party, right, left, whatever, center, none of them can do anything actually, because the European law is above everything. So even if the protest goes much further than it is today, I don’t think we’re going to see major change,” she said.

Bro. Ghislain X agreed, arguing that while French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the violence in an Oct. 18 televised address, he offered no meaningful solution. “They offer no solution for the people, so I don’t see any evolution. No evolution, but revolution,” he said.

“Outside the revolution, I cannot see anything else. Nothing is working in this country,” Sis. Darikatine X said.

Student Minister Abdul Hakeem Muhammad believes that real change must come from the French government. He described this moment as a great opportunity for the government to correct itself.

“If Mr. Macron and his government were to come out and atone to the people for breaking all of these promises and move forward as a man who makes his word his bond, then forgiveness can be accessed from the people,” he said.

“We’re in a time of atonement. The people have pointed out the wrong. The government has to accept the wrong and do something to correct the wrong,” he added.

Then, the French government would be leading European governments by example, “to show them that they have to now be governments, or become governments, of integrity, as opposed to governments who just promise to deceive.”

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In Gaza, more than 100 international humanitarian, human rights and civil society organizations signed a joint statement arguing that continued military attacks, territorial restrictions and obstacles to humanitarian assistance have rendered the ceasefire largely ineffective in protecting Palestinians.

In Lebanon, a New York Times investigation documented widespread destruction after a so-called ceasefire that went into effect in April, including the demolition of predominantly Shiite Muslim villages, the burning of agricultural land and the construction of Israeli military infrastructure inside occupied Lebanese territory.

The Gaza so-called ceasefire went into effect on Oct. 10, 2025, but the ceasefire did not stop Israeli forces from continuing to kill Palestinians and deprive Gaza of much-needed resources, such as aid, equipment and rebuilding materials. In the statement, the 100-plus organizations warned that the killing and deprivation in Gaza “must not be normalized under the cover of a ceasefire agreement.”

“A year on, the pattern is unmistakable. Families are still being killed. Children are still dying of preventable illness. Gaza is still littered with unexploded ordnance. Homes lie in rubble that cannot be cleared, and aid cannot reach the people who so desperately need it,” the statement says.

“This is not what a ceasefire was meant to deliver. It reflects the same conditions that twice led the UN Commission of Inquiry, in September 2025 and again in June 2026, to conclude that Israel has committed genocide. The international community’s responsibility does not end with an agreement on paper.”

The statement shared alarming figures illustrating the impact of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, including conditions during the ceasefire period:

•        Over the past year, Israel has killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including at least 327 children.

•        More than 80% of structures across Gaza have been damaged, with around two-thirds of all structures completely destroyed. Neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, homes have been flattened and agricultural land has been razed.

•        Hundreds of thousands of families are still living in tents, makeshift shelters or damaged homes, leaving them vulnerable for the fourth consecutive winter since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.

•        None of Gaza’s hospitals are fully functioning, and medicines, equipment and fuel remain critically scarce. More than 18,500 patients, including at least 4,000 children, still need medical evacuation, and more than 1,000 people have died while waiting.

•        Approximately 1.4 million people are facing crisis-level hunger or worse through the end of 2026.

Israel has also continued its destructive military operations in southern Lebanon despite an April ceasefire agreement. A New York Times investigation found that after the ceasefire, “Israeli forces deliberately demolished homes, schools, mosques and roads, predominantly in Shiite Muslim villages” in Lebanon.

The Times analyzed satellite imagery and found that 48 out of 60 villages and towns in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon were mostly destroyed. Its investigation documented additional demolitions and destruction after the April ceasefire went into effect.

It also found that roughly 270,000 Lebanese have been displaced from the occupied region, about 16,500 acres have burned since the ceasefire and more than 200 wildfires have been recorded between early April and September.

“Much of the area is now uninhabitable,” the Times reported. “At the same time, Israeli forces built new infrastructure, suggesting plans for a prolonged military presence.”

“The level of violence, the scale and tools of destruction, is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past,” Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said in the Times article. “Every bit of infrastructure is being destroyed, as if to prevent the population from returning anytime soon even if Israel withdraws.”

The Times also referenced words from Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister, who “said his country’s approach to southern Lebanon is modeled on tactics used in Gaza, where the Israeli military reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble.”

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health reported that more than 4,300 people have been killed in the country since March 2, bringing the reported death toll since October 2023 to nearly 9,000. In Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has reported more than 74,000 deaths since October 2023.

Inger Ashing, chief executive officer of Save the Children, described the Gaza ceasefire as “meaningless if children are still being killed and families are still unable to rebuild their lives.”

“Since the ceasefire was announced, nearly one child has been killed every day. Families remain trapped in a devastating cycle of loss and deprivation, unable to recover,” she said in the joint statement.

“Governments that backed this agreement must use their influence to stop the killing and ensure children can access food, healthcare, shelter and education. Gaza’s children have a right to safety and a future. Governments have the power to help secure both, and they must use it.”

Jan Egeland, secretary general for the Norwegian Refugee Council, called it “utterly shameful” that little has improved for Palestinians in Gaza one full year after the ceasefire was signed.

Dr. Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, stated: “Accountability cannot be swept under the rubble.”

“The recovery and future of Gaza cannot be separated from a framework grounded in international law, justice, and the rights of victims,” she added. “The persistent failure to hold Israel accountable and press Israel to comply with the International Court of Justice’s binding orders continues to fuel the atrocity crimes on a mass scale against Palestinians.”

Kenneth Roth is an American attorney, human rights activist and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Israel seems to have largely ignored the supposed ceasefires in Gaza and southern Lebanon by continuing offensive operations.

Netanyahu seems to calculate that so long as the level of fighting is not too intense, Trump won’t notice, so Israel won’t be any price. So far, Netanyahu has been right. That said, the gratuitous destruction of civilian property is a war crime.

As the new film NAZA demonstrates, Israel flattened much of Gaza not to attack legitimate military targets but to render large portions of the territory uninhabitable as part of its plan to force large numbers of Palestinians to flee.

That same war-crime strategy is now also being pursued in southern Lebanon,” said Mr. Roth via an email response to a series of questions from The Final Call. 

The continued Israeli military operations and destruction in Gaza and Lebanon come more than two years after the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, warned of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision of a “Greater Israel.”

In his 2024 Saviours’ Day message, “What Does Allah, The Great Mahdi and The Great Messiah Have To Say About The War In The Middle East,” Minister Farrakhan warned that Prime Minister Netanyahu would not succeed in realizing that vision.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has a vision of ‘Greater Israel.’ Several states over there, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, they intend to annex that to what is called ‘Greater Israel,’” the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said.

He warned Prime Minister Netanyahu: “You’re not going to stay in the Middle East. … Mr. Netanyahu, I warn you, in The Name of Allah. We warn you …: ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin’ (your kingdom has been weighed in the balance; it has been numbered).  And it’s getting to the end of ‘Israel.’”

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan further warned: “Mr. Netanyahu: There is a revolt against him now in Israel, and he may not be elected as prime minister in the future. I am saying this to him now.

Because you are not going to live to see the vision that you have for Israel, to ‘conquer the whole Middle East,’ and you will be ‘the great [leader].’ No, no, no. You can pack that desire away, because you will never see what you envision.”

—Anisah Muhammad, Staff Writer

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ATLANTA—Thousands gathered at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta on Oct. 11 for the 31st Anniversary of the Million Man March and Holy Day of Atonement, ready to hear a message from the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, delivered by his National Assistant, Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad. The message was also available and viewed live via internet webcast.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, called one million Black men to gather on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., under the theme.

“Atonement, Reconciliation and Responsibility,” and on Oct. 16, 1995, nearly two million men answered the call. The Million Man March demonstrated a unity never previously seen among Black men.

Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad shared with the listening audience that the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan wanted the Million Man March to be held on October 7th, the birth anniversary of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, but the National Mall was unavailable that day.

“The next available date was the 16th, and the Minister said, ‘Well 1 and 6 is 7,’” Student Minister Ishmael said. “The Million Man March was in honor of this great Black man born from Georgia.”

Two Georgia sons

Student Minister Ishmael listed notable figures born in Atlanta and in Georgia, two of the most esteemed, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, and the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, born just 127 miles away in 1897 in Sandersville, Georgia.

“Dr. King and Elijah Muhammad—two Georgia-born brothers—met, and there you see in the picture Dr. King and Elijah Muhammad sitting together in a peaceful, loving, pleasant and engaged dialogue,”

Student Minister Ishmael, a son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said. The two men met on February 24, 1966, at the home of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and just two years later, Dr. King was assassinated.

“Elijah Muhammad on one side and Dr. King on the other shook Black America in the ’60s,” Student Minister Ishmael explained. “And what you and I don’t know is that the enemy never wants us to come together as brothers.

And the denial objective of the United States of America is that Black folks should never be allowed to unite. And that’s why whenever we come together, something happens that breaks us apart.”

He referenced Dr. King’s fear of integrating Black people into a burning house.

Work of a Saviour

Allah (God) in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, The Great Mahdi and Founder of the Nation of Islam, taught the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and made him into a Saviour who opened the eyes of the blind, made the deaf to hear and made the dumb to speak.

With wisdom, knowledge and understanding from Master Fard Muhammad, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught Black people what foods to eat, what foods to store in their houses, the dietary law of one meal a day, the origin of the Caucasian people.

The origin of Black people and that there is life on Mars. Now, NASA has confirmed the presence of water on Mars and is getting closer to confirming the presence of life. “But who taught it first?” Student Minister Ishmael questioned.

Master Fard Muhammad pointed out to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad a “dreadful-looking plane in the sky,” called “The Wheel” or “Mother Plane” that carries 1,500 smaller wheels, or “baby planes.”

The U.S. government has now admitted the existence of the wheels, and the Pentagon has referred to The Wheel as a “mothership” with “smaller probes,” getting closer to the language the Honorable Elijah Muhammad used in the early 1930s.

Student Minister Ishmael described the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as a man who stands on truth and who will give his life if he is found false. “That’s a genuine, authentic man of God,” he said.

“And he has his chief helper and Minister standing on that same truth,” he continued, referring to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. “The Minister hasn’t compromised one word from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,” he added.

“You don’t have any leader that comes before you and asks for our support, and tells you, back me, follow me, and I will get you what you want. And if I don’t, you can take my life. Only two stood like that: Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan.”

The defamation campaign against a good man

The work of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan have made them targets of an enemy wishing to extinguish every avenue of light for Black people. Light is knowledge, Student Minister Ishmael explained, adding that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan are the “light of the world.”

So, the labels came, along with negative media portrayals. “No Black or White leader’s image has been more marred than Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan,” Student Minister Ishmael said. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has been called a racist, an “anti-Semite,” and a hater of Jewish people.

He not only suffered a defamation campaign designed to destroy his image and popularity among Black people, but he was poisoned with more than 200 radiated seeds that burned his insides from treatment for prostate cancer.

Student Minister Ishmael said to those who have attempted to kill the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: “You have failed, and you are enraged because every time you see Farrakhan, it looks like he’s reversing in age and looking more younger and more beautiful, because God wants to prove ‘He is my man!’”

“Still here at 93 years, and he will escape your death plot, like Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, escaped the death plot; like Jesus escaped the death plot; like Elijah Muhammad escaped your wicked scheme and death plot. You’re dealing with God, here!”

Student Minister Ishmael added. He warned: “You can’t play with this God. And what you plan for Farrakhan, plan for the Nation of Islam, plan for Black people and your genocidal plan to extinguish us chemically, biologically, now what you have planned for others, God is bringing it now on yourself.”

The condition of Black people

During his message, Student Minister Ishmael went in-depth on the condition of Black people in America, from the fighting and killing to the weed and vape pens laced with high traces of THC and other chemicals destroying the minds of Black youth.

THC is short for tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary psychoactive chemical compound found in the cannabis plant that causes a “high” or feeling of intoxication.

Student Minister Ishmael spoke to the psychological conditions of aggressiveness, violence, and unlawful behavior caused by the drugs on today’s market, the lack of self-esteem and self-worth, and the lack of real education for Black children.

He also explained how the present-day conditions arose from White people codifying their belief of White superiority and Black inferiority into laws and systems. Now, Student Minister Ishmael explained, Black people have adopted the same mindset and attitude, seeing one another as the White man sees them.

“If we saw each other as God would have us to see each other, then why in the hell are we disrespecting our women? Why in the hell are we abusing our women, raping our women, violating our women? Isn’t that what the slavemaster did to us?” he questioned.

“Look at how we quarrel and argue with one another. Look at the bloodshed. Look at the domestic violence. Look at what’s going on in the streets. There’s another mind operating in us. It’s a Satanic mind. A virus has come into our system,” he continued.

“Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan come to de-virus us and close all these windows and running apps that have slowed down your operating system and reboot us to our original default system the way we were operating before we were infected and contaminated.”

He added, “There can be no change in the condition of Black America or in America as a whole until the destruction of inferiority in one and superiority in the other.”

Atonement, Reconciliation and Responsibility The Million Man March represented such change.

“Thirty-one years ago, our brother, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, was chosen and anointed by God to call for a million men to present themselves in the nation’s capital.

The first time we went there to make a demand of ourselves. He presented this principle of atonement,” Student Minister Ishmael said. “Look at the words. At-one. We have to be ‘at one’ with each other and with God.”

Student Minister Ishmael expressed that when Master Fard Muhammad came, He did not just come with a list of instructions. He gave us a rule to live by. “He just said six words: ‘Accept your own and be yourself.’ Well, what is my own self? My own self is a righteous human being in submission to the Creator,” Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad said.

Student Minister Ishmael represented the eight steps of atonement established by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan at the Million Man March: 1. Point out the wrong. 2. Acknowledge the wrong. 3. Confess the fault. 4. Repentance. 5. Atonement. 6. Forgiveness. 7. Reconciliation and restoration. 8. Perfect union with God.

“Atonement is to make amends, repair the damage, but we have to correct the wrong. That’s what atonement is,” Student Minister Ishmael said. “Atonement and reconciliation [are] actually the 5th and 7th step[s] of an 8-step process that brings us into perfect unity with God. Be at one. And every step that the Minister introduced 31 years ago cannot be skipped.”

Allah’s (God’s) Judgment

Before the Million Man March, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan had a More-Than-A-Vision-Like Experience on The Wheel on Sept. 17, 1985, when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told him the U.S. president had met with his joint chiefs of staff to plan a war.

Minister Farrakhan later came to the realization that the war the Honorable Elijah Muhammad warned him of was a war on two fronts: one, a war on Islamic nations in the East; and two, a war on Black people in America, particularly Black youth, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.

Student Minister Ishmael echoed the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s warning to the U.S. government and to Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, concerning their actions in the Middle East.

Minister Farrakhan warned in his Saviours’ Day 2024 message, “What Does Allah, the Great Mahdi and the Great Messiah Have to Say About the War in the Middle East?”: “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” (your kingdom has been weighed in the balance; it has been numbered).

“That’s the handwriting on the wall. See, Jesus said you can discern what the weather is going to be like in the morning by looking in the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times,” Student Minister Ishmael said.

“Armageddon is on the horizon. The nations are angry, and God’s Wrath is come. And it is time for the day to be judged and time for those who have practiced wickedness and destruction on the planet to be destroyed.”

Student Minister Ishmael ended the message on the Judgment of Allah (God). God has come to punish the inhabitants of the Earth for their iniquities. “We’re out of balance.

We’re not in harmony with nature, and the balance of the universe has been disturbed, so nature is correcting itself,” Student Minister Ishmael said. “When you and I are in harmony with nature, God’s Law, His Will, then the forces of nature, everything in God’s creation works for you.”

He concluded the message by encouraging the listening audience to live a righteous life.

“Let’s come together. Let’s make our community a decent and safe place to live. Let us unite. Let us atone to God. Let us do right by each other. Let us love one another,” Student Minister Ishmael concluded. “We can do it. We have to do it.”

To view this message in its entirety, visit watch.noi.org. To order this message, see the back page of The Final Call.

The post The call for atonement in a time of trouble appeared first on Final Call News.

Nolan Wells’ parents, Christine and Elmore Wonsley, and their legal team held a press conference on Oct. 5 in Inglewood, California, on the renewed push for the investigation. The push follows a Mississippi grand jury decision not to indict anyone in connection with the death of the Black teen.

Nolan, 18, traveled from his hometown of Ocean Springs, Miss., to Horn Island with a group of people on July 4. In a widely circulated photograph, he was pictured aboard a boat with three young White men, who returned to the mainland without him. His body was discovered two days later off the shore of the island.

The state autopsy reported that no fluid or debris was found in Nolan’s airways, and his stomach was empty. The Mississippi State Medical Examiner and the family’s independent medical examiner, Dr. Roger Mitchell, documented contusions to the back of Nolan’s head. The cause and manner of Nolan’s death are undetermined.

“There is so much that screams out that we should not close this investigation, that we should keep asking questions. We should keep dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’ because Nolan was Christine and Elmore’s son. But in many ways, he was all of our son,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, part of the family’s legal team, said at the press conference.

Congresswomen Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) are supporting the family’s call.

At the press conference, Atty. Crump read a letter from Rep. Wilson addressed to Jessica Bowron, the acting director of the National Park Service, requesting a “prompt and exhaustive investigation” into Nolan’s death.

Horn Island is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore and is administered by the National Park Service. Rep. Wilson urged Ms. Bowron to direct the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch to “examine every circumstance surrounding Nolan’s death and pursue every available lead.”

“Nolan Xavier Wells was a son whose life was precious and whose life mattered and whose future was full of promise. The loss of his life has left his family with a question they should not have to fight to have answered: ‘What happened to our son?’” her letter read. “Nolan cannot speak for himself.

Therefore, we have a duty, all of us, to ensure his death is met with the seriousness it deserves. Not only are we asking that you hear the pleas of Nolan’s mother and father and his family, but we’re asking that you hear the pleas of the Congressional Black Caucus as well as all of us all across America saying, ‘What really happened to Nolan Xavier Wells?’”

Cynthia Choi, executive director of Stop AAPI Hate, further demanded that the Justice Department conduct a full and thorough federal investigation.

“We stand with the Wells-Wonsley family for as long as it takes,” she said.

Nolan Wells’ parents have been fighting for answers about their son’s death for more than three months. Ms. Wonsley was recognized at the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum’s 30th Anniversary Gala, where she received the organization’s “Voice of Courage Award.” Nolan was Black and, through his mother, was also of Filipino heritage.

“It has been 93 days. I want that to sink in. 93 days,” Ms. Wonsley said at the press conference.

“Our child went out with young men who he thought were his friends. Everyone made it home but Nolan. Two days later— two days later—he’s found dead. He’s found dead. No longer here to give us a hug, tell us he loves us, tell us corny jokes, put his cellphone in our face first thing in the morning.

We do not have that anymore. What we were left with were many, many inconsistent stories, as well as our local authorities early on telling us this is likely an accidental drowning,” she added. “Body has not even been processed and ME (medical examiner) has not done her job.

It’s just already the narrative is likely a possible drowning. That’s it. That’s all. Nothing to see here. Then the grand jury comes back and they say, ‘You know what? Consistent. It’s consistent with drowning, accidental drowning.’”

But she posed several questions: Why were there no photos taken of the back of Nolan’s head, why wasn’t a thorough investigation done and where is the physical evidence from the autopsies?

“Elmore and I, our family, our friends, the community, all of you, we cannot accept that. We cannot. So, it is our plea that his case is reopened, re-examined but also that the authorities do their job,” she said.

Nolan’s father, Elmore Wonsley, echoed the call.

“Our son was found on federal land, and we are asking the F.B.I. to step in and do a full investigation. We’re not asking for special treatment. We’re asking for what any father would do for his child, and that’s to find the truth of what happened to his child,” he said.

“My message to the F.B.I., please open this investigation and give our son the seriousness he deserves. To every parent listening, call your children today. Tell them you love them. Don’t wait.”

The post Nolan Wells’ family, CBC and Stop AAPI Hate renew calls for federal investigation appeared first on Final Call News.

On Oct. 16, 1995, nearly two million Black men gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., at the call of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan under the theme, “Atonement, Reconciliation and Responsibility.” Atlanta’s Local Organizing Committee (LOC) and other LOCs across Georgia helped bus thousands to the March.

Before the weekend of events, Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad, National Assistant to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and member of the Nation of Islam’s Shura Executive Council, went on a two-day media and engagement blitz.

He spoke to the Concerned Black Clergy of Metropolitan Atlanta, Inc., on several podcasts and radio shows and to the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus. Throughout, his messages was the same point: The time demands Black people to repent and atone to Allah (God) or suffer the consequences of His Judgment now coming down upon America and the world.

Held at the Vicars Community Center on Oct. 8, the Concerned Black Clergy welcomed the Nation of Islam to Atlanta and invited Student Minister Ishmael for a conversation on unity, faith and community.

“This is not a meet and greet. This is a family get together,” Rev. Shanan Jones, president of the Concerned Black Clergy, said. “The Concerned Black Clergy and the Nation of Islam are joined at the hip, and for the 43 years the Concerned Black Clergy has been in existence, the Nation of Islam has been here.”

He called the Million Man March 31 years ago a “majestic day” that lives in his heart.

“During that call, the Minister (Farrakhan) beckoned us to atone —to atone to God and to atone to one another for the disunity, the killing, the mean-spiritedness that spread throughout our community and began to tear us apart,” he said.

Community leader and activist Rev. Timothy Mc Donald shared how Atlanta’s LOC for the Million Man March was one of the strongest in the country. The committee, comprised of several faith leaders, continued meeting years after the march.

“I have never had a spiritual experience, personally, more powerful than the Million Man March,” he said Le Von “Veto” Mc Kee remembers attending the March as a little boy with his father, Lester Mc Kee.

As Student Minister Ishmael spoke of that historic day and the principles it espoused to Black men on the “Vibin with Veto Podcast,” Veto’s father sat in the back of the studio, dabbing his face as he shed a few tears.

Reec Swiney watched the gathering on television at 12 years old. “I was in New Jersey with my father, and I was watching it, and he was like, ‘You’re about to witness something incredible,’” he shared with Student Minister Ishmael on his show, WAMJ Majic 107.5/97.5.

Derrick Boazman of WAOK radio recalled being at a conference learning how to better serve his community during the time of the March. Though he was not physically present, he still recognized the importance of the day and the principles that must continue to be taught in the Black community.

Below is a compilation of sentiments Student Minister Ishmael shared throughout the media and engagement blitz on Oct. 8.

The signs of the time

Student Minister Ishmael emphasized the importance of Black people knowing the signs of the time, sharing that “we’re at the 66th book of the Bible: apocalypse, revelation.”

“The nations are angry, and God’s wrath is come,” he said, quoting the book of Revelation 11:18. “Ukraine is angry. Russia is angry. The United States is angry. The UAE (United Arab Emirates) is angry. Iran is angry. China is angry. Japan is angry.

Dissatisfaction and anger all over our planet, but at the same time, God’s Wrath is come.” He pointed to the rain, the wind, the storms, the tornadoes and the earthquakes as examples of God’s Wrath, along with pestilence, famine, war and rumors of war.

He questioned the pastors, “What is our mission? What is our job now, pastors? What is it? It is to be—not talk, but be Jesus’ disciples.”

The 1995 call

Student Minister Ishmael shared how the Million Man March was the first time in history that Black people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., not to demand the government for jobs and justice but to answer a call from God.

Minister Farrakhan’s call 31 years ago was a call from God. “It was a call for atonement, reconciliation and responsibility. It was a call that resonated in our souls. Why did it reach the soul? It went past the ear, past the mind.

But right to the soul…. So only God can call the soul to itself, and God made that call through (the Honorable Minister) Louis Farrakhan,” he said. “We didn’t hear a man’s faith.

We heard his calling us. Calling us to do what? Repent. What was Jesus’ ministry? What was his call to the people? Repent. What was Jesus’ ministry rooted in?

Love. Unity.”

Student Minister Ishmael shared how labels went out the door. “We saw each other that day as God would have us see each other, as brothers,” he said.

“We share a common root, a common struggle, a common heritage and tradition. That’s why we have to find our way to each other again,” he added.

He further shared that if Jesus and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) were alive today, they would be walking side by side and that all of the prophets of God would be working together to do the Will of God.

A message to Black youth

Student Minister Ishmael was 10 years old when his father, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, departed in 1975. He shared intimate parts of his life growing up: dealing with expectations and judgments as the son of a great man but also, as a teenager, experimenting with things like drugs and alcohol.

“But at a certain point, I recommitted myself,” he said. Around 15, he made a prayer to Allah (God) that he was going to “go away for a minute” and that he might fall and lose his way, but if he does, he pleaded with Allah, “Please don’t forget me. Reach out and pull me out.”

Once he accepted the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad for himself, he called the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and dedicated himself to helping Minister Farrakhan rebuild the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s work.

Now, as Minister Farrakhan’s National Assistant, he is questioning why the story of the Million Man March hasn’t reached the younger generations of Black people.

“That important, most significant day in our history is not even presented to our young people. Why? Because they don’t want your generation and the generation that’s coming up to really learn and see what it will take for us to dwell together as brothers in unity,” he said on the “Vibin with Veto Podcast.”

He sent a direct message to Black youth on WAOK radio with Derrick Boazman. “To our beautiful young people: The answer has always been God, and what you have to do is establish a relationship with God. And wherever we have failed in our struggle is because we deviated from God,” he said.

“You have to make up your minds that you’re going to follow God, follow His solutions to the many problems, follow the agenda that He’s given to us, and as long as you commit yourself to God, you’re going to gain the victory. You’re going to be successful.”

The continued call to repent, atone and accept responsibility

Student Minister Ishmael talked about the importance of repentance, submission to Allah (God) and atonement. “When Jonah preached the message of repentance and atonement, the king of Nineveh heard. The king all the way down to the little man in the street put on sackcloth and ashes and stayed the hand of God. Nineveh had 40 days to repent, and the king heard,” he said.

He also renewed the call for Black people to take responsibility for themselves and their communities. “It’s our responsibility to teach our children. It’s our responsibility to make our communities a decent and safe place to live. It’s on our shoulders to rebuild the Black community, make it what it should be,” he said.

He urged Black people to harmonize with Allah (God) and with the universe.

“There is no higher vibe, no higher frequency than truth. And the Holy Qur’an tells us that Allah created the heavens and the earth and all in between with truth,” he said.

“God wants to harmonize us. He wants us to be in accord— in accord with nature, in accord with creation, in accord with the creatures and the insects and everything that’s in creation, for He made it for us to master. He put the sun, the moon and the stars and everything under the foot of the human being. But we’re out of alignment.

“Everything is a vibe. Everything is a beat. Everything is rhythm. We’re out of rhythm as a people. We ain’t vibing,” he added. “So, you have to strike the right chord, the right note, and in the right note, we start vibing, and that’s what (the Honorable Minister) Louis Farrakhan did 31 years ago.”

The post Atlanta faith leaders and media personalities reflect on the 1995 Million Man March appeared first on Final Call News.

Affectionately known as a “Black Mecca,” Atlanta is located 130 miles northwest of Sandersville, Georgia, where the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, was born. 

Believers, friends, and family are invited to attend the commemorative national gathering, which will be held Oct. 9-11.

At the call of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, nearly two million Black men gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on October 16, 1995, under the theme, “Atonement, Reconciliation and Responsibility.” That day became known as a “Holy Day of Atonement.” 

Minister Farrakhan described the Million Man March as “a glimpse of heaven.” He has also explained the importance of keeping the memory, work and spirit of the Million Man March alive.

In “The Teachings 2.0: Twitter Sayings of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, Volume 1,” the Minister was asked the following question: “What’s the point of still celebrating the anniversary of the Million Man March?”

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan responded: “The same point that everyone does in celebrating holidays of great events in the history of a nation. The Million Man March was something that was never done before and may never be done again.

It was a great moment in our history and it should be studied because the unity and peace that nearly two million men found in one day is what we hope we can produce every day of our lives.”

Atlanta hosted the commemorative anniversary event in 2016, where the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan spoke to thousands at the Fox Theater, under the theme, “Come Out of Her My People: A Declaration of Independence.” 

Ten years later, the Shura Executive Council of the Nation of Islam, Atlanta’s Muhammad Mosque No. 15, and the Southern Region are excited to host this momentous event once again for the Black community and the human family.

The Laboring staff of Mosque No. 15 and believers are working diligently to prepare to welcome people traveling from all parts of the country for the special weekend. Student Regional Minister Abdul Sharrieff Muhammad, Student Regional F.O.I. Captain Oliver Muhammad.

Student Regional M.G.T. and G.C.C. Captain Dr. Nusaybah Muhammad, Student Regional Secretary Sean Muhammad and Student Regional Protocol Director Saabirah Muhammad are preparing day and night as the date approaches.

Student M.G.T. Captain Dr. Nusaybah was at the Mall in Washington, D.C., 31 years ago and looks forward to welcoming people to Atlanta once again. She described that moment in 1995 as one of the most poignant, magnificent moments of her life. “The impression, the indelible mark that moment left in my heart, my mind, and my soul, it was a glimpse into seeing our people free,” she said to The Final Call.

She added that it is even more special to commemorate that moment in the city where she was born. As a little girl growing up in Georgia, she remembers seeing racism and feeling like it was wrong and unfair.

To commemorate the Million Man March “in the city of my birth, that has been one of the most racist states in the United States of America, and for us to be a reminder to all who see here in Georgia that the fight continues; that the March continues; that the themes and principles of the Million Man March is still alive and well,” she said.

Student M.G.T. Captain Dr. Nusaybah tied the upcoming commemoration to the blessing Atlanta received when Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan purchased a building to serve as the new regional headquarters for the Southern Region.

“Because of the work that we are striving to do, we believe that Allah is blessing our city, our mosque and our region to be able to not only host such a special and significant event in our nation’s history, but in the world’s history,” she said.

She described the excitement of some of the pastors who were part of Atlanta’s 1995 Local Organizing Committee for the Million Man March. “It’s been a family reunion and so everyone is in the spirit and the excitement of commemorating and remembering that special day,” she said.

Student Regional Protocol Director Saabirah Muhammad said that leading up to the 31st anniversary in Atlanta, “The spirit has been very high.”

“The believers in the region, oh, we’re ready!” she added. 

This year’s event will start on Friday, Oct. 9, with a Jumu’ah (congregational) prayer service at The American Hotel in the Goldstein Ballroom, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

On Saturday, October 10, the day will start with a family day at Rodney Cook, Sr. Park, Vine Street, NW, from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. For the children, there will be face painting, storytelling, inflatables and more.

There will also be games for adults. Food trucks will be available for attendees to purchase delicious cuisine. A mobile health unit will be on the ground conducting prostate cancer screenings.

“To start off with congregational prayer, I think this is one of the most powerful ways that you start any event, going to Allah God,” Student M.G.T. Captain Dr. Nusaybah said. The Million Man March inspired people to go back to their cities  and join organizations,  adopt Black children and other positive and uplifting actions.

For the culminating event on Sunday, Oct. 11, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has a message with the theme, “Atonement, Reconciliation and Responsibility” that will be delivered by his Student National Assistant, Minister Ishmael Muhammad, at the Georgia World Congress Center, located at 285 Andrew Young International Blvd.

The Sunday program will begin at 2:00 p.m. Doors open at 12:00 noon. The program will also be streamed live on noi.org.

The Southern Regional laborers expect a sold-out venue. While $25 donation tickets and $100 donation tickets are no longer available, $50 donation tickets are still available.

The Nation of Islam looks forward to a beautiful commemoration of the 1995 Million Man March and Holy Day of Atonement. “All I can say, all eyes and all roads lead to Atlanta, Georgia,” said Sister Saabirah.  For more information and for tickets, visit ​​https://noi.org/hdoa2026/.

The post All roads lead to Atlanta for the 31st anniversary of the Million Man March and Holy Day of Atonement! appeared first on Final Call News.

The grand jury concluded that the position, condition and location of Nolan’s body were consistent with drowning. It also reported finding no credible evidence of criminal conduct by anyone who traveled to or from Horn Island on July 4.

The grand jury was impaneled on April 20 (for its term), and reconvened on Sept. 14 and adjourned on Sept. 18. The Jackson County, Miss., District Attorney’s office released a redacted version of the grand jury report on the evening of Sept. 21.

“Elmore and I have read through the report page by page more than once. What we have learned is that we still have no answers, and the report reinforced the fact that Nolan was not given a thorough, transparent and honest investigation,” Christine Wonsley said at a Sept. 22 press conference in response to the grand jury decision.

The panel consisted of 23 jurors. Twelve of the jurors were White, five were Black, two were Hispanic, two were Native American, one was Asian and one identified their race as “other.” The jury issued 132 subpoenas and heard from 43 witnesses. 

The jury considered evidence collected during the investigation by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, including physical and digital evidence, interviews, recorded statements, images, videos, recordings, maps, GPS data and location data, according to the report. It also considered reports on Nolan’s cellphone by his family’s forensic examiner.

Nolan traveled from his hometown of Ocean Springs, Miss., to Horn Island. He was pictured on a boat with three young White men, who returned to the mainland without him. His phone was returned to the mainland with the group.

The grand jury report cited findings from both the Mississippi State Medical Examiner and forensic pathologist, Dr. Roger A. Mitchell Jr., who conducted an independent autopsy in July. Both classified the cause and manner of Nolan’s death as undetermined. Drowning is considered a diagnosis of exclusion in forensic pathology.

“That means all other causes must be ruled out prior to certifying a death as drowning. What is another potential cause that the district attorney failed to rule out? Blunt force trauma,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is part of the family’s legal team, said at the press conference.

In the independent autopsy, Dr. Mitchell found red discoloration in the soft tissue at the back of Nolan’s head, which he later determined to be blood, according to the full autopsy report. The state medical examiner’s autopsy report also documented two contusions on the back of Nolan’s head. Neither autopsy established how the injuries occurred.

A witness told the grand jury he saw Nolan slip off the side of a boat around 3:30 p.m. on July 4 but could not say whether Nolan struck his head, according to the report. He said Nolan didn’t appear to be injured. The grand jury did not establish how Nolan sustained the bruising.

“Nolan was a college football player on scholarship in tip-top shape, supreme physical condition, but apparently, they say he drowned in shallow waters. How do you explain that? They say we’ll never know,” Atty. Crump said.

“How do you explain that he stayed on the island after his friends left? Why did he stay? We’ll never know, they say. Two medical examiners found contusions on the back of Nolan’s head and bruises.  Dr. Roger Mitchell found bruises on his back. What caused them, and did they contribute to his death? We’ll never know, they say.”

The final pages of the grand jury report addressed social media narratives surrounding Nolan’s death.  Jackson County District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath posted a video statement alongside the report, accusing Nolan’s legal team of “fanning the flames” of allegations that his death was connected to racial hatred or violence.

Atty. Crump challenged the district attorney’s words. “Don’t attack these parents. Don’t attack us supporting these parents for doing the same exact thing that you would do if it was your child,” he said, adding that her accusations against the legal team are only a distraction.

“Ben Crump and our legal team, we aren’t the issue.  And DA McIlrath and her office, they aren’t the issue. The issue is what really happened to Nolan Xavier Wells,” he said.

The legal team held a separate press conference on Sept. 24 to reveal findings from an independent forensic examination of Nolan’s cellphone. The examination was conducted by Garrett Discovery, a digital forensics firm retained by the family, and led by the firm’s chief executive officer, Andrew Garrett.

Mr. Garrett said the examination established that Nolan’s cellphone remained aboard the boat and that Nolan last accessed the device at approximately 2:18 p.m. on July 4. The examination recovered Snapchat messages, GPS information and other digital records, including messages that continued syncing to the phone after Nolan’s death due to active group conversations. 

Mr. Garrett played a video depicting where the phone was traveling while on the boat. He reported that data had been deleted from the phone between the time Nolan last possessed it and the time his family recovered it. He did not establish who deleted the data or why it was deleted.

In both press conferences, Nolan’s family and their legal team questioned whether the investigation into Nolan’s death was thorough and whether witnesses provided meaningful testimony before the grand jury. Grand jury proceedings are generally conducted in secret, and the family’s legal team did not participate in the proceedings. 

“This lawyer that I know who worked for the prosecutor’s office for years, his position has always been that the grand jury does what the prosecutor tells them,” Houston-based attorney Pamela Muhammad said to The Final Call. “The prosecutor, all they have to do is find that there’s probable cause that a crime occurred, looking at the evidence. They don’t have to prove the case.”

For Atty. Muhammad, Nolan’s case is another example of “Black youth dying under suspicious and questionable circumstances.”

“The questions that are being asked by the family and the concerns being raised by the way the case was investigated and ultimately the grand jury process, which ended with this no bill, raises the question as to whether or not there was a deliberative body process that was done with justice,” she said.

The legal team has released Dr. Mitchell’s independent autopsy report and the state medical examiner’s autopsy report. The family and their attorneys are calling for the investigation to remain open and active and for the district attorney’s office to release the investigative file.

In its report, the grand jury acknowledged that if additional credible evidence emerges suggesting Nolan’s death was non-accidental, the matter could be presented to a grand jury again.

The family is also requesting that the U.S. Department of Justice conduct an independent federal review.  Atty. Crump announced a tentative press conference for Oct. 1 in Atlanta, where Dr. Mitchell will explain both autopsy reports.

Elmore Wonsley, Nolan’s father, urged supporters to continue asking the question of what happened to Nolan Wells. “Please continue to ask that question,” he said. “Continue to speak his name, because he’s not a hashtag.  He’s our son.”

The post Nolan Wells’ family still asking  ‘what happened’ after grand jury report appeared first on Final Call News.

The lawsuit filed Sept. 10, Guzmán v. DHS, filed with attorneys from the National Immigration Project, Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, challenges what plaintiffs describe as ICE’s “arrest first, ask questions later” policy. Plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to halt the alleged practice while the case proceeds.

“Every day, as Maryland residents go about their daily lives, traveling to and from work, school, church, and other essential activities, federal immigration agents roam the state’s roadways and parking lots hunting for people to arrest to fill their unattainable quotas. The federal agents—most of whom are from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (‘ICE’)—adhere to a consistent policy: aggressively stop people who they perceive to be Brown or Black immigrants and immediately arrest them without a warrant and without making the individual assessments required for such warrantless arrests,” the complaint says.

Yulie Landan, a staff attorney with the National Immigration Project, shared with The Final Call there are two conditions that must be met before an immigration officer can arrest someone without a warrant. “Before an immigration officer can arrest an individual in their car, in the street, out and about without a warrant, they have to pre-arrest—have individualized probable cause as to that specific person that they are both present in violation of the immigration law and likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained,” she said.

Atty. Landan painted the picture of how so many warrantless arrests are happening in Maryland. “A lot of them are happening while people are in cars driving. Officers are looking at the driver, are seeing that they look Black or Brown, and that’s when they pull them over. ICE does not have independent authority to conduct traffic stops for traffic violations,” she said. “They are pulling people over, often very violently, forcing them out of their cars and arresting them often without asking them a single question.”

Final Call staff who were part of a delegation sent to Springfield, Ohio, by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, heard similar accounts from Haitian activists assisting residents affected by immigration enforcement. Activists told The Final Call that ICE agents drive through the area in large black vehicles actively looking for people to “kidnap.” (See The Final Call, Vol. 45, No. 50)

Haitians in Maryland are also facing ICE impacts. “One of the things we saw start to change early August is that more and more Haitian individuals are being arrested, and that is related to TPS [Temporary Protected Status] being expired now for Haitian individuals,” Atty. Landan said, adding she has seen an uptick in warrantless arrests in the Haitian community. She shared that there have been nearly 7,000 street arrests between January 2025 and August 5, 2026, and of those arrested, nearly 93% are from Latin American and Caribbean countries. “The number here really speaks for itself, and they are stalking the streets looking for drivers and passengers who they think look Brown and Black, and specifically then with the Haitian TPS expiring, that has only worsened the situation,” she said. U.S. citizens have also been arrested, according to the complaint. Some of those arrested are shackled and forced to spend days in a crowded cell before being whisked away to remote detention facilities across the country, the complaint says. “Some are released weeks or months later after a federal habeas court determines their detention was unlawful,” it adds.

“When they took me—without a warrant, without cause—they didn’t just take my freedom. They took a father away from the school pickup line. They removed a husband from his home. They took an essential worker from a family that depends on him,” We Are CASA quoted an anonymous individual in a statement. 

“To my kids—I know you didn’t ask for this. You didn’t ask to be the ones explaining to your friends why Papá wasn’t home. You didn’t ask to be scared every time you heard a car outside, or to grow up faster than you should have,” the individual, identified by the pseudonym Guillermo, said. “But you didn’t just carry that fear silently—you turned it into something else. You stood up for me. You believed in getting your father back when it would have been easier to just be sad and stay quiet. I am standing here today, in part, because my own children refused to give up on me.”

The immigrant rights groups represented plaintiffs in a similar class-action lawsuit in Washington, D.C. In December 2025, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting federal immigration authorities in D.C., from making warrantless civil immigration arrests without probable cause to believe that the person is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.

“As ICE roams Maryland’s streets looking for people to arrest to fill their quotas, our Brown and Black immigrant neighbors live in constant fear of being arbitrarily arrested, beaten, and shot by masked and armed agents,” Austin Rose, managing attorney at the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights, said in a Sept. 10 statement. “Federal courts in other states have already found that ICE’s ‘arrest first, ask questions later’ policy is blatantly unlawful, and now it’s time to put an end to it here in Maryland.”

When the Department of Homeland Security announced deportation operations in Maryland a few weeks ago, Governor Wes Moore issued a statement criticizing the move. While he pointed out that public safety and working with “federal partners” to maintain this safety, is important, he disagreed with the recent moves by ICE.

“These actions also undermine our economy.  I’ve heard firsthand from business leaders across the State that these immigration policies are taking legal workers out of our nursing homes, scaring farmworkers from showing up to work, and making the cost of everything from groceries to delivery services higher,” Gov. Moore said in an Aug. 25 statement.
“Deploying untrained, unqualified, and unaccountable agents to sweep through our communities and spread fear is not a public safety strategy. It undermines trust between law enforcement and the people they serve, and it does not make us safer.”

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This year also marks 40 years since U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 into law, which established federal mandatory minimum prison sentences for specified drug-trafficking offenses and created the notorious 100-to-1 crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity that disproportionately harmed Black people.

How does Minister Farrakhan’s experience relate to moves and policies of the U.S. government toward Black people?

Before the crack epidemic of the mid-1980s, powder cocaine was frequently associated in popular culture with wealth, celebrities and nightlife. But with the emergence of crack cocaine, a shift happened, as television drug coverage increasingly linked crack cocaine to poor urban communities.

A 1994 study examined 270 television news reports broadcast between 1981 and 1988 and described the resulting coverage as a broader “cocaine narrative” shaped by race, class, gender and age. 

The association between crack cocaine and Black people developed alongside the U.S. government’s escalating so-called “War on Drugs” and tough-on-crime policies, whose enforcement, sentencing and incarceration consequences decimated Black communities. 

Forty years later, mass incarceration continues to disproportionately affect Black people; Black youth remain disproportionately exposed to exclusionary school discipline policies, and law enforcement continues to be militarized. 

These 40 years of government programs, policies and actions harming Black people did not arise in a vacuum. In fact, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

Received forewarning of the government’s plans for Black people and in particular, Black youth, on Sept. 17, 1985, in his More-Than-A-Vision Experience, where he heard directly from his teacher. What Minister Farrakhan received from his teacher on September 17, 1985, is unfolding today.

The Announcement

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a press conference at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 24, 1989, detailing his experience on The Wheel (so-called UFO) and the plans of the U.S. government toward himself, the Nation of Islam, Black people and Black youth.

“As The Wheel lifted off from the side of the mountain, moving at a terrific speed, I knew I was being transported to the Mother Wheel, which is a human-built planet, a half-mile by a half-mile that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad had taught us of for nearly 60 years,” Minister Farrakhan shared.

After the pilot docked into a tunnel on the Mother Wheel, Minister Farrakhan was escorted to a door and admitted into a room. While in the room, Minister Farrakhan heard the voice of his teacher, the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, from a speaker on the ceiling.

“He said, ‘President Reagan has met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan a war. I want you to hold a press conference in Washington, D. C., and announce their plan and say to the world that you got the information from me, Elijah Muhammad, on The Wheel,’” Minister Farrakhan recounted.

As events began to unfold across 1985 and 1986, it began to dawn on Minister Farrakhan that the “war” his teacher told him of was against Muammar Gadhafi and the people of Libya.

He shared his Vision-Like Experience for the first time during a trip to Tripoli, Libya, on March 16, 1986, where he spoke to representatives of approximately 80 nations. One year later, in 1987, major publications verified what the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad told him.

The Atlanta-Journal Constitution ran an article where “the exact words that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad spoke to me on The Wheel were found; that the President had met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and planned a war against Libya in the early part of September 1985,” Minister Farrakhan said.

But all the while, as the U.S. planned to wage war against Libya, the U.S. government simultaneously planned a war against Black people in America. 

“The reason that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad did not tell me who the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff had planned the war against was because Muammar Gadhafi, the Muslim Revolutionary leader, and the small nation of Libya, was only to serve as a sign of an even more significant and consequential war, which would come several years later,” Minister Farrakhan said.

He then announced that “President Bush has met with his Joint Chiefs of Staff, under the direction of General Colin Powell, to plan a war against the Black people of America, the Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan, with particular emphasis on our Black youth, under the guise of a war against drug sellers, drug users, gangs and violence, all under the heading of extremely urgent national security.”

Minister Farrakhan laid out the F.B.I.’s campaign to destroy Black leadership, the “dirty tactics” used against those who fight for justice, the illegal surveillance and wiretapping of Black leaders and the agents planted in Black organizations, including the Nation of Islam. He also shared how the American press had been “feeding the public the image of Black youth on a rampage.” 

“The image the American public gets is that when it comes to gangs, violence and drugs, that the gang leaders are Black; the violence is Black; the drug sellers are Black and the majority of drug users are Black. Our youth are being portrayed as the perpetrators of violence,” Minister Farrakhan said.

He brought up desires by police to carryheavier weapons and to have backup from the National Guard and other federal troops. He also warned that certain areas of the country had been targeted to test those “new weapons” and “certain kinds of gases.”

“This is being planned to be executed against Black youth in several major cities in the country, one of which is Washington, D.C.,” he warned. He accused “outside forces from within the White community,” including White police officers, of fomenting and manipulating gang activity to justify the government’s plans against the Black community.

“All of this has been planned and is now being carried out under the pretext of national security and to maintain, preserve and protect an increasingly corrupt and unjust social and political order,” Minister Farrakhan said.

Actions, programs and policies of the U.S. government, 1986-1989

In the years between Minister’s Farrakhan’s More-Than-A-Vision Experience in 1985 and his announcement detailing the plans of the U.S. government in 1989, President Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986;

The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which imposed a five-year mandatory minimum for a first offender’s possession of more than five grams of crack cocaine; and, as part of the 1988 law, the Public Housing Drug Elimination Act of 1988, which authorized federal grants to eliminate drug-related crime in public housing.

In September 1989, in his first major televised address, President George H.W. Bush called drugs “the gravest domestic threat facing our nation today.” His administration then designated five initial “High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas,” and concentrated additional federal drug-enforcement resources in those areas.

Mainstream media reinforced the U.S. government’s so-called “War on Drugs” by painting Black people and Black youth in a negative light. In a December 1986 Time magazine story, young Black men were referred to as a “lost generation” that America feared. The story opened with graphic descriptions linking young Black men to guns, gang membership, robbery and cocaine dealing.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, terms and narratives such as “the underclass,” the “crack mother,” the “welfare queen” and the “crack baby” began to proliferate in news accounts.

White middle-class cocaine-using pregnant women were described as psychologically addicted, guilt-ridden and motivated to seek treatment, while poor Black women were accused of being mindlessly addicted.

Knowingly exposing their fetuses to crack and unwilling to enter treatment, according to a 1998 study by Drew Humphries, a former professor of criminal justice at Rutgers University.

The 1988 presidential campaign further nationalized the image of the “dangerous Black criminal” through the Willie Horton controversy. Mr. Horton was a Black convicted felon who committed kidnapping, armed robbery and rape.

An independent political action committee supporting George H.W. Bush aired the infamous advertisement featuring his mugshot, while Bush’s campaign separately made the incident a major campaign issue.

And in 1989, media outlets described the Central Park Five, four Black teenagers and one Latino teenager who were wrongfully convicted in connection with the assault and rape of a White jogger, as a “wolf pack,” participating in “wilding.” 

These events provided a context for Minister Farrakhan’s words in 1989. But the program of the U.S. government against Black youth continued long after.

The continued war on Black youth

After Minister Farrakhan’s announcement, beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, federal law expanded the National Guard’s role in drug interdiction and counterdrug operations and broadened authorizations related to transferring military equipment and vehicles to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. 

The George H.W. Bush administration created Operation Weed and Seed in 1991, which targeted illegal drug use and trafficking among “high-risk youth in drug and crime-ridden neighborhoods,” with the promise of also funding prevention, treatment and neighborhood revitalization.

The year 1994 was shaped by the 1994 Crime Bill that expanded policing and introduced the federal “three strikes and you’re out” provision that critics and researchers have linked to aiding in mass incarceration and the destruction of the Black family;

And the Gun-Free Schools Act that required states receiving federal education funds to implement a minimum one-year expulsion for students bringing a firearm to school, contributing to the broader zero-tolerance disciplinary environment later associated with the school-to-prison pipeline.

Also in the early 1990s, states enacted laws making it easier to try juveniles as adults. By 1997, some states allowed transfer to adult court at young ages. 

All the while, the American press continued to feed the narrative of Black youth as “menaces to society.” Following the 1994 Crime Bill, Princeton political scientist John DiIulio introduced the term: “superpredator” in a 1995 Weekly Standard article.

One year later, former First Lady Hillary Clinton picked up the word while discussing youth crime. The Marshall Project later examined nearly 300 uses of “superpredator” in 40 leading newspapers and magazines from 1995–2000.

The late 1990s were marked by the continued “War on Drugs,” continued militarization efforts related to the National Guard and military equipment and vehicles, the expansion of law enforcement officers in schools and major police-corruption scandals.

These themes—the “War on Drugs,” the school-to-prison pipeline, and militarization—have continued throughout the 2000s, 2010s, and up to the present day. 

In 2017, reminiscent of the Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) era, the F.B.I. Counterterrorism Division produced an intelligence assessment titled: “Black Identity Extremists Likely Motivated to Target Law Enforcement Officers,” which raised concerns about the government’s targeting of Black activists.

With expanded policing and the militarization of America’s cities, what the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan warned about in his 1989 announcement, based on his More-Than-A-Vision-Like Experience in 1985, has continued to unfold and come to pass. 

Most recently, between January 2025 and August 2026, President Donald Trump rescinded former President Joseph Biden administration-era restrictions on the federal military-equipment program for police, directed the Departments of Justice and Defense to increase the provision of military equipment to state and local law enforcement.

Federalized at least 2,000 California National Guard personnel in Los Angeles following protests over federal immigration enforcement. The Trump administration also mobilized the National Guard in Washington, D.C., and directed the National Guard in Memphis, Tennessee, a majority-Black city, to support local law enforcement operations. 

As of August 2026, roughly 4,500 National Guard troops remained deployed in Washington, D.C., according to Reuters, alongside hundreds of federal agents functioning in roles resembling ordinary local policing. The deployment has now been extended through January 2029.

As the U.S. government’s war against Black people and Black youth expands and continues, the reality of what Minister Farrakhan received on The Wheel from the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad continues to be manifest, showing and proving that he is Allah’s (God’s) Anointed Servant and a Divine Warner to Black people and the world.

Minister Farrakhan offered final words of warning at his 1989 press conference, saying if he is “in your mind” a hater, an anti-Semite or a wild-eyed radical, then “you have nothing to fear from my presence.” But if he is, in reality, “an extension of the Divine Warnings given to you from the Honorable Elijah Muhamma.

Then be instructed that you would do well to leave me alone; to leave the Nation of Islam alone; and to cease and desist from your evil planning against the future of the Black people of America and the world. For the Black people of America, though despised and rejected, have now become the people of God, and He has declared that He will fight you for their liberation.”

He warned America’s president and government that he is “backed by the Power of Allah (God) and His Christ and the Power of that Wheel in which I received this Announcement. The moment you attempt or lay your hands on me the fullness of Allah’s (God’s) Wrath will descend upon you and upon America.”

Minister Farrakhan concluded the Announcement stating: “Before you will be able to establish your mockery of me (if that is what you wish to do) for what was revealed to me in The Wheel, you will see these wheels, or what you call UFOs, in abundance over the major cities of America.

And the calamities that America is presently experiencing will increase in number and in intensity that you might humble yourselves to the Warning contained in this Announcement. This is a final warning to you.

The ball is now in your court. You may do with it, with me, and with us as you see fit. Thank you for your attention, and may Allah bless each of you with the light of understanding, as I greet you in peace: As-Salaam Alaikum.”

The Final Call encourages its readers and supporters to revisit, review and study The Announcement by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the reality of The Wheel. For more information, visit store.finalcall.com

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