Farrakhan Aims Endorsed By Rally, Leaders Declare

The leaders of a planned rally of 1 million African-American men in Washington declared Thursday that the event was a direct endorsement of the aims of controversial National of Islam head Louis Farrakhan.

“Who else in America could have issued this call?” said the Rev. Benjamin Chavis, executive director of Monday’s Million Man March. “This attempt to separate the message and the messenger is not going to work.”

Farrakhan is no longer the leader of a mere splinter group, said Leonard Farrakhan Muhammad, Farrakhan’s son-in-law and chief of staff.

“Whatever number of people that will be here that day will be here because they support in part or in whole, Louis Farrakhan,” said Muhammad.

The remarks by the leaders at a Washington news conference directly contradicted statements by other black leaders, who have said they support the rally but not the views of Farrakhan.

Some major black organizations are not joining the march because it is being led by Farrakhan, who has made statements attacking Jews, Catholics, whites and feminists.

Asked about the division of opinion, Muhammad replied: “Count the people who leave when Minister Farrakhan begins to speak!”

The NAACP’s executive committee, which last year ousted Chavis as its executive director, refused to endorse the march. Two large black Baptist organizations, the National Baptist Convention USA and the Progressive National Baptist Convention, representing about 10 million people, have withheld support.

Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., the Black Caucus chairman, who is scheduled to speak at the rally Monday, is among black lawmakers who have tried to distance themselves from Farrakhan’s views.

“He’s probably the most insignificant part of the march as far as I’m concerned,” Payne said.

“It’s not Farrakhan’s march,” Rep. Earl Hilliard, D-Ala., added at a news conference with Payne a week ago. “It’s ours.”

Chavis insisted that the march’s message of atonement delivered by Farrakhan “transcends all divisions in the black community.”

“I think the call has come from God through Minister Farrakhan,” said Chavis, who is not a Muslim.

Chavis said that Farrakhan has asked President Clinton to convene a conference on race relations to address the black-white gulf “made apparent by the O.J. Simpson trial.”

Chavis also said that the Nation of Islam has asked for a meeting today or Saturday with Jewish leader Abraham Foxman, who has accused Farrakhan of being an “anti-Semitic hatemonger.” But Muhammad said that Farrakhan was “too busy” to attend such a meeting.