•. Y.
. Jolin F. DtwU: Do you regard yourself
IU an II1In-Semite?
Louis Fmakhan: Of course not.
How do you respond to those peop
lao tlttempt to ptlint you an an anti­
Semite?
o of th ho try to paint me
anti-Semite kno thing of Louis
amLklUm, and unfortUnately they are
victimized by the same media that
b c people are victimized by. I think
Jewi people are exceedingly sensiti ,
having been through hat they' been
ough. e are exceedingly n ·tive,
Ying been through and ill going
through hat e ha been d are still
oing through. So ofttimes, in our sen .­
tivity, e tend to e mote into thi
than might be the ca . Ho ever, I think
fair-minded Jewi perso h ould
e my tement d analyze them d
finitely could not y that I anti-
Semitic.
Why do you ppo there U 10 much
opposition to Reverend JacklOn amollg
Jews?
I don't think it' f to y that all
Je re the vie ofth Je ho
are publicly peaking and publicly written
bout. I ould think that if mo t Je
pport 1sT el, and most Jewish person
believe that Israel' divinely given to
them in fulfillment of prophecy, and that
th Pale tinians (particularly members of
the PLO and Arafat their le der) have
involved themselv in terrorist acts
gain t the Jewish te and do not ccept
the tate of Isr el a fact, then they
might feel because of Mr. Jackson's visit
to Lebanon, his conver tion with r.
Ar fat, his embrace of Mr. Arafat, that
this sugge s that h i anti-Semitic. I
think that t . . stretching a fact into fic­
tion.
" ••• I don't think we
h ve time for hatred. we
have time only to go to
work. The white man is
not problem for us. 0 ur
problem Is Ignorance and
disunity and lack of love
for self nd kind .... "
Why is the nation of Islam involving
it If in this political cam�, and will
that involvement extend to November?
e are involv d specifi ally becau of
the Reverend J ckson. It is no cret that
. u ims we are 1> ionatley concerned
with th lib r tion of bl ck people. 0
p 'dent up to and includin the on
ho is no in office Democrat or
Republican h incerely don for Blac
pe pi h t need to be done in our judg­
ment. ith the emergence of Reverend
Je Jac n, e a uslims felt and feel
th t we have tru champion for th
u of ju tic for Bl c people and for
all other p ople in th merican ciety
ho feel locked out of the benefit of
hat this society offer .
gain, piritu lly, e b lieve tha the
mi . on of the Honorable Elijah uham­
med i the re urrection of the dead. By ,
th re urrection of the dead I don't m an
tho who phy ically pa d from this
earthly life but tho ho re m ntally
de d in the grave of ignorance, fear,
per tition nd nonproductivity. e b -
. ve that Blac people in thi country are
th deade t of the dead nd therefore
m t in n ed of re urrection. I per onally
I,
, JUNE 13 - 19, 198
Reverend Jack n a trumpet like
th t of Gabriel that ould Call the dead
and dry bone out of their grave like exis­
tence and their 400-year eep in igno­
rance. So from a spiritual viewpoint, I see
everend Jackson one of the greate t
elpers of the rise of our people that has
come to the American ene, and I could
not, eing him in thi light, stand b c
and atch Je run. I felt it was my duty
to run ith Je ,to help him w e up
and enliven masses of our people who
e no had a reason to out' nee the
death of in Luther King Jr.
In t!uzt regtud, in your addnSl to the
PUSH meeting two weeks ago, you men­
tioned th« ignijiamce of the alJiIIn« be­
tween a follo of Dr. King and a fol­
lower - or IOmeone who sprang from the
spiritulll loim, ·1 think w� your t!XIICt
woi'rls - of the Honorable Elijllh MUIIhm­
med. TJuzt muck me IU beingofJOtne in­
tere . Do you sqJpo� tIuIt white
Anurictms btuiclllly fear the coming to­
gether 0/ BIIlc1c people?
Yes. I don't suppo it, I don't bcli ve
it, I know it. This is why they have
or ed so hard for so many years to keep
u divided against self that we may never
attain the unity which would give us the
rength to overcome the barriers that
they and other have placed in the path­
ay of our liberation.
What would your respon be to the
charge that you are "teaching" hate?
ell, if it were not so rious a charge
I would laugh. I spend my time teaching
blac people who have been taught to
hate themselv ho to 10 themselves
and to love each other. I do not regard
the C ucasian, in my maturity an ob­
ject of hate. I regard him an an object
that needs to be under 000 for the role
that h has played in shaping u for our
destiny. I am not a hate-filled person,
nor would I waste valuable time teaching
Blac people to hate white peopl . I
think that they ( hites) are the best
te chers of that themselve .
My role, as I perceive it, is to take our
attention off of hite people or hating
them, which i in my judgment counter­
productive, and into productive effort to
lift ou _elv from the pitiable and
wretched condition that our sojourn in
America finds u in. I don't think we have
tim for hatred. We have time only to go
to ork. Th white man i not a problem
for us. Our problem i ignorance and dis­
unity and 1 c of love for self and kind. If
e would addres ourselves to the prob­
lem of gaining If-knowledge, of obliter­
ating ignorance and fear of white people,
of the fear to rna e mov that are for the
benefit of our lve and our own ind, I
thin we could m v toward liberation at
much f ter p ceo
That is the most extraordinary thing
that I have ever heard in my life. It must
be wonderful to be white in America.
And believe me, it wa the ame thing
that happened with ilton Coleman's
meeting; I mean similar. I contacted
Coleman on Thursday, pril 4, and we
finally go to him at Th ashington Post.
I'd to ilton - and the words are re­
corded becau e he said that, becau of
the controversy, he wanted to record our
conver tion and I said it' all right ith
me becau everything I ay is on the re-
cord bee use I recording hi .
I . d to ilton that I would be in
W shington, and I wanted to have a
chance to sit down and talk ith him •
man to man. He said to me, nothing bet-
WUIS F ARRAKHA
ter than to talk to me but that you'll have
to remove the threat of death from my
wife and my children and myself before
e talk. I aid, brother, there never was a
death threat to you or your children or
your wife. And later on in the conversa­
tion he said, I will be glad to talk with
you, but I'm not going to sit down and
negotiate with you for my life. I said,
brother, you keep going bac to the
same tune. I aid there never was a threat
on your life. He said that I understand
you are going to speak tonight in e
Orleans to the Blac Church Organiza­
tion. I id yes. He'd, will you and up
tonight and y that there was no threat
to my life, to this church organization, to
the public? I said that I h d not planned
to make that a part of my speech to the
church. However, I will b on ightline
tonight and I will be glad to tate that
publicly on ightline. He said that if you
do that brother, I will call you bac to­
morrow and we will set the meeting.
Well, I did that on Thursday night.
Friday around noon, he called, and the
meeting wa t at The Washington Post.
I told him the term would be that he
ould bring a' recorder and I would bring
a recorder and that everything we said
would be on the record. I said to him that
I wanted to question him about why he
did what h did, and he could be free to
que ion me on anything that I said on
the tape in question and how far e were
willing to go, etc. He said to me that he
had to keep the meeting between himself
and myself in a reporter-interviewee p s­
ture. And I id Brother when t 0 peo­
ple have difference don't you ever sit
down over coffee or at dinner and talk
and reach som ind of an a reement or
an accord? He id, of cours but in thi
situation I would have to maintain that I
talked to you as a reporter, meaning, I am
not going to give you any chance 0 que­
tion me about what I aid and what I did.
He id that hat I aid i going to come
out in the Post on Sunday. Y u wil1 have
a chance to read my reasons. But I will
give you ample leeway in my que tioning.
You know, you'll hear through the ques­
tions what my thinking is.
That did not satisfy me. Becau ,I
told him, that a man in public life ho
ha influence over people, I've made a
judgment about hi character. And if he
has orne reason why he did this that I am
not privy to, if he could remove an im­
pediment from my mind that would help
me see him in a different light and there-
THE CITIZE
�AGETHREE
by cau m to help others e him' a
different light. I felt h under an 0 li­
gation to m to remo th t Impedfment.
Just like I feel a moral obli tion to him
a Blac man, as my brother, that if I
feel you are wrong, I m morally ob .­
gated to rebu e you to help in your refor-
mation for the good of us peo
That did not move him. - J
maintained that he- needed to be the
reporter and I the intervi ee. And I
felt, personally, why ould I r d
him with an indepth insight into my
mind and my thinking for hi De
paper as a rew rd for betraying a brother?
And a consequence of all of this co
troversy, my thinking w : I have
that I would come to here he co
from. I ould come to The ashingto
Po . He could have hoever present.
All I wanted the privilege of quest­
ioning him as he questioned me. E ry­
thing on the record. He refused.
He then r ised one qu tion. He
. d, you kno , thi thing that y
propo of shunning me, this could
some rious con equences. I t could
produce some jostling and hat not.
Ho do you propo to handle that?
I said, ell this is all the more f1
why e should talk. So if you cannot
answer my questions for me and I m t
read your answers in The . gton
Post, then I gue you'll ha e to read
my answers after the pre conference.
I postponed the pre conference fro
that Monday bee use of the primary of
Re erend Jack n. I did not
y anything that might be
onday to affect his bid in P
vania on Tuesd y, 0 I po poned mine
until ednesday.
My j11Ull question. What an your
vi co t rdIItionsJrip of
African p merictl with Afric
and a and the Iddl
East?
This i one of the r I feel that
Black people m t develop politi
leverage in this country. e tudy J
people to learn principle. If J
peopl are only 5.3 million p r
thi country, ith tremend u eco
an political maturity, d th Y
such clout in this country t t th
partment and the go ernm nt
rna e no policy toward I 1 that ill
alienate and idsaffect 5.3 milli n pe n
then ho much clout could e - num­
bering over 30 milli n peopl - de lop
if we were politically and econ mically
phisticated with respect to Ameri �
policy to ard Africa the Caribbean,
Central and uth America and th
third rid,
e are the natural ally of all fferin
oppre d p pie in the world, and we ar
the nly p pie in merica that an I -
vera e our trength to make America a
different America thereby makin the
orld a safer pia e to live in.
e must trengthen our ties with Afri­
ca, e feel that in the future Bl c s in
this country who have th privilege of
getting th fine t education that i of­
fered anyone in the orId should begin to
offer our gift and talents and experti
to develop Africa. And Africa in turn
must give BI ck in America orne per­
centage of what we helped to develop
that we recipr cally become trong: fri­
cans away from home become rong;
Africans at home b come trong nd then
we leverage that strength for the freedom
and development of the whole orld.