Reluctance of Black Ministers and Jesse Jackson to Denounce Nation of Islam and Their Willingness to Cooperate with the Group


      Jackson concurred with a Washington D.C. City Council resolution that praised Farrakhan and Nation of Islam "for their good works fighting drugs in the city." (The New Republic, 12-18-89, page 9).

      Jackson allowed Nation of Islam security teams to provide security during his 1983-84 presidential race until the Secret Service took over. Also he was reluctant to denounce Farrakhan's support. (Jesse: the Life and Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson, by Marshall Frady, 1996, Random House, pages 18, 22, 349, 349-356.)

      Marshall Frady's book tells more. On page 352, Frady quotes a former campaign advisor to Jesse Jackson who said that "Jesse saw Farrakhan as sort of this generation's Malcolm, someone who had the courage to speak out and who had tremendous attraction for the black community." The former advisor continued saying that Farrakhan is the only black leader who can go anywhere in the US and have thousands of blacks show up to see him.

      Also on page 352, Frady continues on the subject of Jackson's 1984 presidential race: "Jackson's unwillingness to anathematize Farrakhan was actually shared by many black ministers. 'I cannot disown him, because he is a black brother,' announced Reverend T.J. Jemison, president of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.; and the head of the Congress of National Black Churches, African Methodist Episcopal bishop John Hurst Adams, declared, 'Farrakhan is tapping deep feelings based on four hundred years of racism, and speaks for many more blacks than just his followers.'" Frady quotes a white Jackson advisor who admitted that he "found out there was a totally different reality in the black community about Farrakhan from that in the liberal white community." Frady quotes a man who was NBC's principal political correspondent in 1984 and who covered The National Association of Black Mayors convention taking place at that time in Kansas City. The former principal correspondent said that Farrakhan was invited to speak at a "prayer breakfast" held by the mayors and that after the speech the more than 400 black mayors, of whom over 300 were Baptist ministers, stood on their feet "roaring for Farrakhan." The former principal correspondent relayed the incident to NBC but "NBC killed the piece" on the grounds that their sources said Farrakhan was not a major factor among blacks; yet, as the former correspondent relates, their source was one black intern at NBC.


Posted at http://home.att.net/~phosphor on May 6, 1998.

Last editing was posted February 21, 1999.

Go back to the article The Violent Racism of Ice Cube

Go back to the homepage.