Louis Farrakhan, The Nation of Islam’s infamous leader, is known for issuing some bizarre commentary on a variety of social and political issues. Earlier this week, while speaking at Alabama A&M University, Farrakhan made the curious claim that Jesus was a black Muslim. On Thursday night, while giving an address at Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist church in Nashville, Tennessee, his questionable ideals continued to flow.
The faith leader, who is known for his fiery sermons, doesn’t need to look far to find a catalyst for his seemingly never-ending personal angst. Even the event’s location was a point of contention for the minister. After his plans to speak at Tennessee State University (TSU) fell through, Farrakhan accused the higher education facility of purposefully keeping him off of the campus.
“What was wrong with me coming up on the campus?,” he asked the audience. “Well, I want you to go back after this lecture and tell them Farrakhan wants to come and we‘ve invited him again and I’m coming back — no lies! No excuse!”
In a phone interview with The Blaze, TSU spokesperson Rick Delahaya denied Farrakhan’s claims about the location of the event.
“It never was supposed to be held out here. There was a big conflict with campus facilities,” Delahaya explained. “We were trying to work with them…the facilities that they were requesting — they just weren’t available.”
According to the spokesperson, it was Farrakhan’s camp who had approached TSU about renting space at the university — a request that school officials said didn’t fit with what was currently available.
“We don’t block anybody from coming based on their political views or beliefs,” Delahaya continued. “We just didn’t have the facilities available at the time they needed them.”
But Farrakhan had bigger targets to point at during his lecture.
To begin, he took on the regularly-waged accusation that he’s anti-Semitic. His comments on the matter, as controversial as they always are, poked at white Americans.
“I don’t know what anti-Semitism is from your perspective, because we’ve never stopped a Jewish person from going to the school of his or her choice. We’ve never stopped a Jewish person from owning property or setting up businesses. We’ve never done that,” he said. “We’ve never made laws to exclude Jewish persons. But we know somebody did that to us. So could it be that those who call me anti-Semitic are anti-black?”
Then, the minister seemed to continue from where he left off during his previous speech at Alabama A&M, as he, once again, made the claim that Jesus Christ was black.
“Jesus, whether you want to believe it or not, was a man of color. How many of you are ready to accept Jesus as one of you?,” the minister rhetorically asked. “Jesus — his mother Mary was an Egyptian. Egypt is Northeast Africa.”
Farrakhan continued, explaining Jesus’ background and lineage. In doing so, he referenced Revelation 22:16, which reads, in part, “I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
“Jesus said in Revelations ‘I am the seed of David. The root of Jesse. The bright and the morning star.’ Well Jesse was the father of David,” he explained. “David was the father of Solomon and Solomon said ‘I am black but come ye all you daughters of Jerusalem!” So if Solomon was black, David couldn’t have been white.”
Farrakhan then attempted to bring his rationale all together, saying “White folks don’t produce black children — except [if] it‘s a white woman with a black man or a black man with a white woman and that’s the end of your race. So you’re dying a natural death these days. And without an AK47 ’cause the brother ain’t shooting no blanks.”
After delving into his perceived analysis of Jesus’ ethnic background, the faith leader then tackled what he believes to be an intentional portrayal of Jesus Christ as a white man.
“So if Jesus was a black man and you’re looking for him to return, why did they give us the image of themselves when the Pope knows that Jesus was black?,” he pondered. “Even Billy Graham said it years ago and the Pope has a black Madonna — so why did you make him white when you know he was black?”
What Billy Graham actually said, as per quotations captured during the civil rights movement, was that, “Jesus was not a white man; He was not a black man. He came from that part of the world that touches Africa and Asia and Europe.”
Then, Farrakhan took aim at a popular gospel song and tied it to racial commentary.
“See, you’ve got a song you sing in the church — ‘Ride on Kind Jesus’ — ‘Ride on King White Folk.‘ That’s what you’re saying,” he continued. “You may not think you’re saying that but your actions prove that you worship white people and hate yourself at the same time.”
Farrakhan’s “us versus them” mentality and preaching style, as noted, was as divisive on Thursday evening as it’s ever been.
“Some of you wouldn‘t want a black person on New Year’s Day to be the first one to enter your house,” he proclaimed. “I’m talking about a real black person. So the darker we were, the more we suffered from the blackness of our skin.”
The controversial minister also told his audience that “they have made us worshippers of themselves.” But he wasn’t done there.
“You are at the mercy now of the former slave masters and their children, because we ran away from the land…because the sharecropping…did you know that when slavery ended, white folk did not know how to use a hammer and a saw?,” he asked, skimming from one topic to the next. “It was a literal thing where you see a white man with a hammer — he draw a crowd.”
As for Republicans, Farrakhan had a solid — and offensive message.
“Now you conservative Republicans, you know you tired of black people. I understand because the scriptures say I’m going to vex you with the foolish people and you about vexed now,” he said. “But let me tell you something about these Republicans. They‘ve given you enough they feel and they don’t want to give you no more.”
He went on to claim that conservative Republicans are tired of being taken to the Supreme Court by African Americans and that, although the high court voted in blacks’ favor, the states are still out to discriminate.
“The states are saying, ‘The Hell with the Supreme Court. We gonna do with these negros what we want to do,’” Farrakhan continued. “So they keep you running back and forth like a dog between his tail.”
He told the audience members that their children, unlike them, don’t see “white folk as giants.“ Farrakhan said that the black kids of today ”see them (whites) as they are.” While this was left somewhat vague, judging from the rest of the content, it certainly wasn’t a favorable mention.
Farrakhan spent another portion of his speech deriding “white Christians” for not, in his view, helping African Americans who were suffering in America. He used Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) in the Bible to illustrate his point.
“You saw us suffering. You knew we were wounded but you didn’t have the good oil or even the will to make a better people,” he said. “But you saw us in our destroyed state and you used us to your advantage without ever healing us.”
He also brought up old historical wounds and reminded the audience that it was African Americans “who built the mansions in Tennessee that white folk lived in.”
“So before you can really reach your full potential, you’ve got to know what that potential is,” he proclaimed. “Who built the mansions in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, LA, North and South Carolina? Your fathers did that. In fact, we were on loan from the plantation to go to Washington to build the Capitol and the White House.”
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