“We want our young people to return to us,” Minister Louis Farrakhan said Sunday night at the Bishop Willie Ellis Banquet Hall and Community Center. “We have lost them. We didn’t lose them because they wanted to be lost. We lost them because we didn’t prepare a future for them.”
The main auditorium and overflow area was filled to capacity –there was even a makeshift seating area outside where an audience sat listening intently despite the drizzling rain.
“As parents it is our duty to prepare a future for that which we bring into the world,” Farrakhan said. “We have dropped the ball.”
Muhammad Mosque 28 and Universal African Peoples Organization presented the controversial Nation of Islam leader to speak on “Surviving The Times: Reclaiming Our Youth.” But the talk was more of a session to suggest that survival is hinged on accepting responsibility and not repeating the generational mistakes that have become all too common in the African American community.
“We are still singing we shall overcome…someday – When?” Farrakhan asked. “How many generations are we going to be singing the same old song? We have to stop that song today and pass on to a new generation the legacy that we are ‘free at last, free at last…thank God we are free at last’ – and we did what was necessary to become free at last.”
He let the audience have it with a two-hour tough love session that forced them to look at themselves as the source of what’s wrong with the current state of Black America.
“All you have to do is have faith and go to work,” Farrakhan said. “His universe cannot hold back from you what He created the universe to give you. But you keep running around the white man’s foot and he keeps kicking you. Talking about ‘give me a job.’ You look silly. Have you ever seen a black bird hanging around white birds asking them for worms? The bird has more sense than you.”
True to form, he didn’t mince words. And says is dedication to doing so is the root of the persecution he says he often receives from the media – who he says has labeled him everything from an anti-Semite to a murderer.
“Why do you think they say this of me – because in my mouth is the truth that God revealed to the honorable Elijah Muhammad,” Farrakhan said. “It takes courage and strength to speak. There is a price that I have to pay for telling the truth. They don’t want you to hear me.
Most of the people in this audience are Christians. You love Jesus – and you should,” Farrakhan said. “But if this were 2000 years ago, when Jesus the prophet walked the earth, the Bible said he was hated without a cause.
You would have had to have courage just to be near Jesus. You think the people flocked to hear Jesus back then? No they didn’t. What the enemy did with Jesus is he knew that if the people knew the real truth that came from Jesus they would be free overnight.”
The self-proclaimed racist
“They say Farrakhan is a racist, Farrakhan is an anti-Semite have you heard that,” he said. “They say Farrakhan killed Malcolm. They have control of the media so they have the power to make you see me the way they see me.”
Heavily woven into his presentation were personal narratives about his experience as an outspoken spiritual leader. But one of the many negative labels he’s received over his more than 30 years in the international spotlight he didn’t deny.
“I’ll start with racist – the suffix shows the dedication and commitment to the main word,” Farrakhan said. “Like pianist, chemist and physicist…artist. Well I’m committed. I’m dedicated. My life and my death is for the rise of black people – so if you want to call me a racist I’ll accept that.
There’s nothing wrong with that. You can love white people if you are white – there is nothing wrong with that. But when you love your people to a point where you deprive another people of what God has ordained for all people – which is freedom, justice and equality – you’re not a racist…you’re a damn devil.”
Calling preachers to the plate
He relied on the bible as the primary reference for his presentation – and used the words as evidence that plenty of men and women of faith don’t practice what they preach and study in the Word.
“Pastors, we don’t go after our young people,” Farrakhan said. “Because if they don’t have a job, they can’t tithe.”
An interesting mix of gasps, gawks and standing ovations ensued.
“Look at your people in St. Louis. Look at their condition. When Jesus met Peter he told him ‘I’ll make you a fisher of men,” Farrakhan said. “What kind of follower are you of Christ if you’re not fishing nobody out of that sea of sin and bringing them into the house of god to transform their lives so that they can become Christ-like in their behavior.
It was a powerful argument – and as expected – he made his point linger in the hearts of minds of the audience with a sobering truth.
“If you’re not fishing, you don’t belong to Christ,” Farrakhan said. “You go to church and you walk right past the prostitutes. You’ll see somebody else and say ‘he’s a junky he’s out there man.’ Did Jesus walk by and say ‘look at that terrible condition that fool is in – well let him stay out there?’”
Wouldn’t the church be better if you picked them up from the corner and said, ‘I have a great pastor right in here and I want you to come and hear my pastor. He transformed my life and I know he’ll help you get your life together.’
According to him, hands-on “fishing” from every aspect is essential In order to survive and thrive – and not lose yet another generation.
“It starts with you and me – and us,” Farrakhan said. “Young people are trying to die – only to go to hell – but don’t know that they are already dead and in hell.”
