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CHICAGO (Mosque Maryam)—Days after the country and world paid tribute to Muhammad Ali for his great accomplishments in and outside the boxing ring, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan recounted personal experiences coming up inside the Muslim movement with the man known as “The Greatest” and the extreme value and importance of his teacher.
“We can’t talk about Cassius Clay or Muhammad Ali or Malcolm X without talking about Elijah Muhammad because there wasn’t nobody in America giving out X’s and giving people names but Elijah, Elijah Muhammad,” Min. Farrakhan told the crowd that packed Mosque Maryam. Several news cameras in the balcony recorded his words from the upper level of the mosque, which is also the National Center for the Nation of Islam.
While perhaps 2,000 were squeezed into the mosque, Min. Farrakhan’s message was trending June 12 on the Twitter social media platform. Listeners in the mosque and Believers and supporters watching via internet webcast were sending his words and pictures literally around the globe.
“But White folk have never liked Black people who stood up to them for themselves and for our people,” the Minister said. So there is an intentional effort to whitewash Mr. Ali’s history by not mentioning the Nation of Islam patriarch who taught and bestowed an Islamic name on a young Black Muslim sports hero.
Those who want to go along to get along, who crave White acknowledgement and acceptance today and yesterday have a difficult time speaking of Elijah Muhammad, he said.
“The Negro leaders didn’t like Elijah,” said Min. Farrakhan.
In the 1960s, the heyday of a cry for racial integration, Messenger Muhammad taught separation, the Nation still advocates separation, the Minister said. [READ FULL STORY]
