What do you think?
Rate this book
The Farrakhan Factor: African-American Writers on Leadership, Nationhood, and Minister Louis Farrakhan
The Nation of Islam's Minister Louis Farrakhan is undeniably one of the most controversial and oft-maligned figures in American social and cultural politics. Now, for the first time, leading African-American voices speak out about Farrakhan, the myth and the reality, in the process reexamining and redefining notions of black nationalism, community, and African-American leadership. With contributions from such diverse and provocative writers as Gwendolyn Brooks, Stanley Crouch, Michael Eric Dyson, and Derrick Bell, The Farrakhan Factor gets past the headlines and sound bites to examine Farrakhan - and leadership - from within the black community. Combining sophisticated thought with active, personal engagement, The Farrakhan Factor is a superlative and eminently necessary document of American racial politics.
320 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1997
About the author
Amy Alexander
3 books6 followersAmy Lynn Alexander writes and produces news, analysis, and commentary. Her work has appeared in print and broadcast outlets nationwide, including The Washington Post, National Public Radio, TheRoot.com, and The Nation.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 15, 2024
AN EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF ESSAYS ANALYZING FARRAKHAN & HIS INFLUENCE
Editor Amy Alexander wrote in the Introduction to this 1998 collection, “In attempting to shape this collection, I was comforted by one belief: We all agree that Louis Farrakhan has arrive in the late 1990s larger than life, a burnished totem on which many Americans, black and white, hang the best and worst of their cultural myths of leadership dreams. For us, loving or hating him is not really the issue: The minister is forcing black Americans to reexamine our definition of leadership.” (Pg. 2) Later, she adds, “The voices in this collection represent a starting point in our quest to redefine black leadership. It is my hope that this book provides a framework by which we can begin to examine, in a measured dialogue free of rancor and hysteria, our expectations and our needs… Farrakhan, the unmistakable cynosure of our times, is an excellent touchstone for that conversation… Some prospective contributors … saw no percentage to be gained with their black constituents by publicly sharing their disdain for the minister… [But] after uncounted telephone conversations and meetings in cyberspace, our panel is assembled. What follows are the words of writers who, I am hopeful, best reflect the wide range of black American opinion on Louis Farrakhan and the leadership conundrum.” (Pg. 16)
Ernest Allen Jr. recounts, “With the passing of its supreme leader, Elijah Muhammad, in early 1975, the Nation of Islam reached a divide. Propelled by Mr. Muhammad’s son… the NOI quickly underwent fundamental changes in structure and belief, as well as in name. From a large sect preaching nominal Islam, the group rapidly evolved into a Sunni Islamic community with substantive ties to a larger international community of religious adherents… Today the work of [Elijah’s son] Warith Deen Mohammad---is primarily evangelical, his constituency composed basically of African American Muslims who regularly attend some two hundred plus masjids throughout the United States… Imam Mohammed’s secular views correspond with the most reserved elements of the black middle class… The political outlooks of his followers, however, appear to follow diverse paths… in 1978 the picture was further complicated by the splintering off of a new formation from the ranks of the transformed NOI… Distressed with the sweeping changes in doctrine … as well as the loss of economic empire amassed under the old group, Minister Louis Farrakhan led thousands of dissatisfied followers into a newly constituted Nation of Islam. Nor was Farrakhan the only defector… These include… the Lost-Found Nation of Islam… the United Nation of Islam… [and] the Five Percenters… None of these groups have significantly contested Farrakhan’s leadership.” (Pg. 53-54)
Julianne Malveaux points out, “It is difficult to assess, precisely, the nature and size of the holdings of the Nation of Islam. Calls and letters to the Nation’s Chicago headquarters went unanswered, and requests for information were flatly denied. News reports of the Nation’s economic accomplishments have been mixed, at least, and are likely to be discounted as biased by those closest to the NOI. At least on the basis of external appearances, though, no economic renaissance, no special self-sufficiency, has been the result of any NOI activity.” (Pg. 123)
She continues, “Whenever Louis Farrakhan fills up a stadium with ten thousand to sixty thousand African Americans, who pay a $10 to $30 admission charge and more when the hat is passed, he is looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars for an evening’s work. How is that asset potential translated into the betterment of the African-American community? The Million Man march could be considered a case in point… [Farrakhan] pledged to share a percentage of march proceeds with the financially strapped District of Columbia. March attendees were asked to pay a $10 registration fee, and there was a collection at the march to which each man present was asked to contribute at least a dollar… The potential to collect revenue was present at the march, and the willingness to give was also there. Six months after the march, though, Minister Farrakhan reported a deficit in excess of $66,000. The economic development fund, the contribution to the District of Columbia, and other promises were unrealized.” (Pg. 124-125)
Michael Eric Dyson comments, “There is much to be said for black women standing side by side with black men to address the problems of black males… Still, there are some things that black men have got to do by and for themselves. There exists among black men a great hunger for responsibility… [But] In some ways, the [March’s] demand for atonement exaggerated black male responsibility by overestimating black male control… we’ve got to come up with a more complex version of responsibility… Without an acknowledgement of moral agency, the black male becomes the sum of social forces that shape him… It is true that a narrow conception of personal responsibility is harmful. But it is equally true that a failure to appreciate the moral dimensions of social transformation is destructive… other dimensions of the call to responsibility at the march were offensive. For instance, Farrakhan and many of the men at the march failed to overcome their homophobia. The conservative view of the family held by the Nation… devalues the role of gay men (and lesbian women) in the history of black struggle.” (Pg. 142-143)
Fahizah Alim recalls, “Eventually, I started to pull away from the [Nation]… I became more and more disillusioned. Then… Elijah Muhammad died. We, the rank-and-file members, were not prepared for that… We were not aware of anyone being groomed to take his place… Elijah’s son, Wallace D. Mohammed, assumed the helm … hoisted on the shoulders of other ministers and his brothers. It was a peaceful, albeit confusing transition, as Wallace … had for years been publicly critical of his father’s theology and was ousted from the Nation on several occasions… [He] refuted some of Elijah Muhammad’s mystical theology, replacing it with mainstream Islamic doctrine…. Wallace stopped using the label ‘devil’ to apply to whites… For a time, Minister Farrakhan tried to get with Wallace’s program, too. But he eventually said that he found Wallace’s methods wanting.” (Pg. 165-166)
Ron Nixon observes, “No black leaders has had more of an impact on the Hip-Hop Generation than Louis Farrakhan. This is increasingly evident in the outward trappings of some young African-Americans… who came of age after the pitched struggle for integration and who have taken up rap music and black neo-nationalism as their preferred form of cultural expression … black students are the largest consumers of NOI publications, and Farrakhan is undoubtedly the most sought-after speaker on black college campuses…. In Farrakhan, many black youths see a symbol of defiance and an alternative to established black leadership… the appeal must also be attributed to declining economic and social conditions of black youth… Farrakhan has a rather unique ability to reach deeply into the souls of black youth, whether they are middle-class or low-income.” (Pg. 184-186)
He notes, “The NOI missed its chance to expand upon the work undertaken to mount the march. But perhaps the largest blow to Farrakhan’s credibility is the remarkable direction he took following the march. In the spring of 1996, he took a high-profile, whirlwind tour of some African and Middle Eastern nations, and his bow-tied, smiling image was shown worldwide as he visited and defended the Nigerian dictator General Abacha, among other dictators. How, young black Americans might wonder, could the minister justify turning a blind eye to the enslavement and selling of African people that has been documented in the Sudan?” (Pg. 192-193)
Itabari Njeri states, “Farrakhan is the worst thing that could happen to Black people at the dawn of the twenty-first century. He is taking us back at least a quarter century to a narrow nationalism some of us experienced then and outgrew… we have too few institutions that can document the limitation, as well as what was valuable, about the nationalist experience and disseminate that information broadly… We should be building on lessons learned from the past and moving beyond it. Instead, too much of Black America is enamoured with one of the most vulgar variants of nationalism we have ever seen: Afrocentrism, which views everything through the prism of race and eschews all class analysis.” (Pg. 240)
Leonard Pitts Jr. asserts, “Malcolm grew from rage. Into what, we will never know because the rage, spurned, reached out and killed him. Louis Farrakhan, it must be said, is no Malcolm X. He shows no sign of growing from rage, few signs of growing at all, which is why his claim as a great man falls short… OUR challenge is to move on like Malcolm. Perhaps to become that thing he never got the chance to be, resolve the dichotomy he was struggling to fix: African and American.” (Pg. 249)
Irene Monroe notes, “The belief that African-American males are the only endangered members of our community predominates in the African-American psyche… In the 1990s this phenomenon has been apparent in the African-American community. When Rodney King was flogged by the Los Angeles police, there was a national outrage expressed in African-American communities. In contrast, when King battered his wife, there was barely a whimper in the African-American community. In the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, Hill was perceived by many to be the culprit in Thomas’s ‘high-tech lynching.’ Rumors of her being a lesbian floated about because only a man hater, and ‘race traitor,’ would try to bring a ‘good black brother’ down.” (Pg. 277)
This book will be of great interest to those studying Minister Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, and similar issues.
Editor Amy Alexander wrote in the Introduction to this 1998 collection, “In attempting to shape this collection, I was comforted by one belief: We all agree that Louis Farrakhan has arrive in the late 1990s larger than life, a burnished totem on which many Americans, black and white, hang the best and worst of their cultural myths of leadership dreams. For us, loving or hating him is not really the issue: The minister is forcing black Americans to reexamine our definition of leadership.” (Pg. 2) Later, she adds, “The voices in this collection represent a starting point in our quest to redefine black leadership. It is my hope that this book provides a framework by which we can begin to examine, in a measured dialogue free of rancor and hysteria, our expectations and our needs… Farrakhan, the unmistakable cynosure of our times, is an excellent touchstone for that conversation… Some prospective contributors … saw no percentage to be gained with their black constituents by publicly sharing their disdain for the minister… [But] after uncounted telephone conversations and meetings in cyberspace, our panel is assembled. What follows are the words of writers who, I am hopeful, best reflect the wide range of black American opinion on Louis Farrakhan and the leadership conundrum.” (Pg. 16)
Ernest Allen Jr. recounts, “With the passing of its supreme leader, Elijah Muhammad, in early 1975, the Nation of Islam reached a divide. Propelled by Mr. Muhammad’s son… the NOI quickly underwent fundamental changes in structure and belief, as well as in name. From a large sect preaching nominal Islam, the group rapidly evolved into a Sunni Islamic community with substantive ties to a larger international community of religious adherents… Today the work of [Elijah’s son] Warith Deen Mohammad---is primarily evangelical, his constituency composed basically of African American Muslims who regularly attend some two hundred plus masjids throughout the United States… Imam Mohammed’s secular views correspond with the most reserved elements of the black middle class… The political outlooks of his followers, however, appear to follow diverse paths… in 1978 the picture was further complicated by the splintering off of a new formation from the ranks of the transformed NOI… Distressed with the sweeping changes in doctrine … as well as the loss of economic empire amassed under the old group, Minister Louis Farrakhan led thousands of dissatisfied followers into a newly constituted Nation of Islam. Nor was Farrakhan the only defector… These include… the Lost-Found Nation of Islam… the United Nation of Islam… [and] the Five Percenters… None of these groups have significantly contested Farrakhan’s leadership.” (Pg. 53-54)
Julianne Malveaux points out, “It is difficult to assess, precisely, the nature and size of the holdings of the Nation of Islam. Calls and letters to the Nation’s Chicago headquarters went unanswered, and requests for information were flatly denied. News reports of the Nation’s economic accomplishments have been mixed, at least, and are likely to be discounted as biased by those closest to the NOI. At least on the basis of external appearances, though, no economic renaissance, no special self-sufficiency, has been the result of any NOI activity.” (Pg. 123)
She continues, “Whenever Louis Farrakhan fills up a stadium with ten thousand to sixty thousand African Americans, who pay a $10 to $30 admission charge and more when the hat is passed, he is looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars for an evening’s work. How is that asset potential translated into the betterment of the African-American community? The Million Man march could be considered a case in point… [Farrakhan] pledged to share a percentage of march proceeds with the financially strapped District of Columbia. March attendees were asked to pay a $10 registration fee, and there was a collection at the march to which each man present was asked to contribute at least a dollar… The potential to collect revenue was present at the march, and the willingness to give was also there. Six months after the march, though, Minister Farrakhan reported a deficit in excess of $66,000. The economic development fund, the contribution to the District of Columbia, and other promises were unrealized.” (Pg. 124-125)
Michael Eric Dyson comments, “There is much to be said for black women standing side by side with black men to address the problems of black males… Still, there are some things that black men have got to do by and for themselves. There exists among black men a great hunger for responsibility… [But] In some ways, the [March’s] demand for atonement exaggerated black male responsibility by overestimating black male control… we’ve got to come up with a more complex version of responsibility… Without an acknowledgement of moral agency, the black male becomes the sum of social forces that shape him… It is true that a narrow conception of personal responsibility is harmful. But it is equally true that a failure to appreciate the moral dimensions of social transformation is destructive… other dimensions of the call to responsibility at the march were offensive. For instance, Farrakhan and many of the men at the march failed to overcome their homophobia. The conservative view of the family held by the Nation… devalues the role of gay men (and lesbian women) in the history of black struggle.” (Pg. 142-143)
Fahizah Alim recalls, “Eventually, I started to pull away from the [Nation]… I became more and more disillusioned. Then… Elijah Muhammad died. We, the rank-and-file members, were not prepared for that… We were not aware of anyone being groomed to take his place… Elijah’s son, Wallace D. Mohammed, assumed the helm … hoisted on the shoulders of other ministers and his brothers. It was a peaceful, albeit confusing transition, as Wallace … had for years been publicly critical of his father’s theology and was ousted from the Nation on several occasions… [He] refuted some of Elijah Muhammad’s mystical theology, replacing it with mainstream Islamic doctrine…. Wallace stopped using the label ‘devil’ to apply to whites… For a time, Minister Farrakhan tried to get with Wallace’s program, too. But he eventually said that he found Wallace’s methods wanting.” (Pg. 165-166)
Ron Nixon observes, “No black leaders has had more of an impact on the Hip-Hop Generation than Louis Farrakhan. This is increasingly evident in the outward trappings of some young African-Americans… who came of age after the pitched struggle for integration and who have taken up rap music and black neo-nationalism as their preferred form of cultural expression … black students are the largest consumers of NOI publications, and Farrakhan is undoubtedly the most sought-after speaker on black college campuses…. In Farrakhan, many black youths see a symbol of defiance and an alternative to established black leadership… the appeal must also be attributed to declining economic and social conditions of black youth… Farrakhan has a rather unique ability to reach deeply into the souls of black youth, whether they are middle-class or low-income.” (Pg. 184-186)
He notes, “The NOI missed its chance to expand upon the work undertaken to mount the march. But perhaps the largest blow to Farrakhan’s credibility is the remarkable direction he took following the march. In the spring of 1996, he took a high-profile, whirlwind tour of some African and Middle Eastern nations, and his bow-tied, smiling image was shown worldwide as he visited and defended the Nigerian dictator General Abacha, among other dictators. How, young black Americans might wonder, could the minister justify turning a blind eye to the enslavement and selling of African people that has been documented in the Sudan?” (Pg. 192-193)
Itabari Njeri states, “Farrakhan is the worst thing that could happen to Black people at the dawn of the twenty-first century. He is taking us back at least a quarter century to a narrow nationalism some of us experienced then and outgrew… we have too few institutions that can document the limitation, as well as what was valuable, about the nationalist experience and disseminate that information broadly… We should be building on lessons learned from the past and moving beyond it. Instead, too much of Black America is enamoured with one of the most vulgar variants of nationalism we have ever seen: Afrocentrism, which views everything through the prism of race and eschews all class analysis.” (Pg. 240)
Leonard Pitts Jr. asserts, “Malcolm grew from rage. Into what, we will never know because the rage, spurned, reached out and killed him. Louis Farrakhan, it must be said, is no Malcolm X. He shows no sign of growing from rage, few signs of growing at all, which is why his claim as a great man falls short… OUR challenge is to move on like Malcolm. Perhaps to become that thing he never got the chance to be, resolve the dichotomy he was struggling to fix: African and American.” (Pg. 249)
Irene Monroe notes, “The belief that African-American males are the only endangered members of our community predominates in the African-American psyche… In the 1990s this phenomenon has been apparent in the African-American community. When Rodney King was flogged by the Los Angeles police, there was a national outrage expressed in African-American communities. In contrast, when King battered his wife, there was barely a whimper in the African-American community. In the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, Hill was perceived by many to be the culprit in Thomas’s ‘high-tech lynching.’ Rumors of her being a lesbian floated about because only a man hater, and ‘race traitor,’ would try to bring a ‘good black brother’ down.” (Pg. 277)
This book will be of great interest to those studying Minister Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam, and similar issues.
Displaying 1 of 1 review