No More Slaves!Weekly Newsletter • Volume 3, Number 17

By Ashahed M. Muhammad -Asst. Editor-Final CallLessons in leadership delivered at LeMoyne-Owen

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (FinalCall.com) - The first two stops on the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s tour of his-torically Black colleges and universities in the South were marked by externally generated controversy.

Some members of the Jewish community placed tre-mendous pressure on the administrators and students at Alabama A&M aimed at preventing the Minister from addressing them April 10. They were unsuccessful, and he spoke to thousands at AAMU as well as nearby campuses tuning in via internet webcast.

Student organizers at Tennessee State University said the administration’s bureaucratic hurdles prevented him from speaking on the Nashville campus. Undeterred, the event was held in a his-toric church April 12 and the Minister addressed not only students from TSU, but students from nearby Fisk Univer-sity who attended as well.

When Minister Farrakhan’s caravan arrived at LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis April 14, its president, Johnny B. Watson, was waiting there to officially welcomed him at the site of the Original LeMoyne Bell, a landmark constructed on the campus in 1870.

Remarkably, it was the first time he had been publicly welcomed by the president of an HBCU. When Minister Farrakhan stepped into the Bruce Hall Gymnasium, the students, campus administrators, and dignitaries from the greater Memphis area warmly received him with a stand-ing ovation and cheers.

Earlier that morning, the Minister sat for an enlighten-

ing 45-minute interview with student journalist Twana Coleman of the LeMoyne-Owen campus newspaper The Magician.

His evening keynote address wrapped up the Diversity Leadership Conference sponsored by the LeMoyne-Owen Student Government Association, led by its president SimmieRay L. Dinkins, who said “without reservation or hesitation” he was proud to have the Minister appear on the campus.

The 23-year-old Mr. Din-kins said he had been focused on making this event a real-ity since November 9, 2011. That was the night he heard Minister Farrakhan speak to the students at Prairie View A&M University. The Nation of Islam’s study group in South-aven, Mississippi sponsored Mr. Dinkins’ trip to the campus in Texas. The energy Mr. Dinkins felt that evening remains with him, and he wanted his peers at LeMoyne-Owen to experience the very same thing.

“I can honestly tell you, the power in the words resonated with me, and I still have the chills up my arm today from the words that he spoke there,” said Mr. Dinkins. “I don’t have a script to introduce the man, but I have a heart to love him through the words that I’ve heard,” said Mr. Dinkins.

The Minister began by thanking him for his efforts, commending the school’s President Dr. Watson for his strength, and acknowledging the beloved former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, who years earlier, presented Minister Farrakhan

kins said he had been focused on making this event a reality since November 9, 2011. That was the night he heard Minister Farrakhan speak to the students at Prairie View A&M University. The Nation of Islam’s study group in Southaven, Mississippi sponsored Mr. Dinkins’ trip to the campus in Texas. The energy Mr. Dinkins felt that evening remains with him, and he wanted his peers at LeMoyne-Owen to experience the very same thing.

Farrakhan delivers messages on true education, leadership and liberation to college students

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with the key to the city, much to the chagrin of the city’s Jewish leadership. They tried to force Mr. Heren-ton to take the key back; however, he stood his ground and would not back down.

The Minister, said Mr. Herenton, was “a strong Black man,” whom he “would go to bat for in the jungles of East Asia or the ghettoes anywhere in America.” A thunderous applause rang throughout the rafters of the gym when Mr. Herenton’s presence was announced.

Leadership lessonsPrior to his message, Minister Farrakhan received a

resolution from Memphis city council member Wanda Halbert, as well as a proclamation from Shelby County commissioner Justin Ford. He used those awards, as well as the conference’s overall theme, as the foundation for lessons he would deliver to the students regarding character, integrity, and qualifications for leadership.

“My teacher, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, told me that honor is not given until the work is done. The work of freedom, justice and equal-ity for our people continues, so I will take note of these proclamations and wonderful words—not because I’ve done the job—but as encouragement to keep going until God calls me in. And the job still won’t be done, and that’s why I am so happy and hon-ored to be talking to the future leaders of our people,” said the Minister.

Despite his tremendous schedule, which included traveling to New York to speak at funeral services for pioneering Black journalist Gil Noble the previ-ous day, the Minister sounded strong throughout his entire message lasting nearly two hours.

“As college students, you are supposed to be critical thinkers, so I did not come here today to stir up your emotions, I came to cause you to think,” said Min. Far-rakhan.

The Minister said deep love of the people and the desire to serve are qualities that any prospective leader must have. Leaders must also rid themselves of vanity and ego. These are impediments to leadership, he said.

“If you don’t love, you can’t lead,” said Min. Farra-

khan. “We are a people that wear out our leaders,” he added.

If one is thin-skinned, unable to be evil spoken of, selfish, or afraid of being rejected by the same people that one is trying to serve, you won’t last very long try-ing to lead, said the Minister.

The Minister also thanked LeMoyne Owen’s admin-istrators and faculty for keeping God in the classrooms as a critical part of the educational process.

“Education begins with God and without God you don’t have a true education because everything that you study is based on what God created. If you are not allowed to pray, and God is taken out of the classroom, no wonder the schools are going to hell and taking the children with them,” he added.

He challenged both the male and female students to determine what kind of leaders they would be. Would they be the type of leaders that want to be written of well in the press with the goal of having good public relations, or do they want to be effective in making a change?

“How does the press treat Farrakhan?” he asked. “It’s a wonder that you gave me all those proclamations,” he said.

“If I wanted the press to be kind to me, I would speak nice words, soft words, tickle your ears with words,” he

added.“And what kind of woman are you going to be?”

he asked. “With your skirt so short you can’t sit down comfortably.” He reminded the audience that the wom-en around Jesus, even in the movies, were covered. None of them wore miniskirts, or clothing so tight that every curve was seen. This is one of the reasons men lack respect for women. Instead of being forced to act like men, the men are acting like dogs, attracted to women showing their bodies and giving up their vir-tue easily. “Dogs don’t get married,” said the Minister.

The Minister added that a leader has to have strong character, able to resist temptation. He used himself as an example, describing how he was offered millions by those in the Arab world to stop preaching the Teach-ings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. He rejected them and continued to rebuild the work of his teacher on the foundation he left behind.

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“Education begins with God and without God you don’t have a true

education because ev-erything that you study is based on what God

created.” —Min. Louis Farrakhan

“If you’re going to be a leader, you have to know how to respect yourself and how to demand respect from others,” said Min. Farrakhan. “If you want to be a leader, you can’t love money more than you love your people. You’ve got to love your people more than you love anything else in this world.”

A person who leads must also struggle for selfless-ness because any degree of self in a leader can be used by Satan to corrupt them and bring them down.

“You want to be leaders right? You sure?” he asked rhetorically. “You better check yourself because leadership is nothing to play with. People tomorrow—maybe in a few days—are going to kill their leaders who have been selling them out. That’s why we’re in the shape that we’re in right now because we’ve had cor-rupt people (as leaders) or people who started off good and got corrupted.”

“When you are devoid of self, you make a vacuum for God to come in,” said the Minister. “There’s too much vanity in leaders,” he added.

As he delivered im-portant knowledge to the students about their origins, their great past, and how Blacks have fallen into such a wretched condition, he pulled out the book The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Volume 2, and encouraged them to get it.

Jewish critics have called the book “a pack of lies”; however, none have challenged the research—taken primarily from Jewish historical sources—contained in the book.

“Why don’t you sue us then?” he asked. “You are the master of the courts, your brothers are the judges. Got three of you on the Supreme Court—then sue us if we would put out a pack of lies on you, like you have put out a pack of lies on Black people!”

He continued, “You’re never going to come out and confront us, because we’ve got your history. We know you from the beginning! We’ve called you out! If we

3are liars, then all you Black people stand on the side and you bring out their scholars and we’ll sit down and argue, and they don’t have an argument big enough to defeat what we have written for you to read of your own history,” said Minister Farrakhan.

The students respondTwenty-one-year-old Shenika Holmes, a biology

major, chemistry minor, a member of Zeta Phi Beta sorority and “Ms. LeMoyne Owen” for the year 2011-2012, heard the Minister for the very first time April 14.

“It was a powerful mes-sage, and I believe as a student it was important for me to hear this because it not only motivates me to prog-ress in my education but to progress in helping my com-munity as a whole,” said Ms. Holmes. “I have a responsi-bility to my people and my community,” she added.

“Mr. LeMoyne Owen” for the year 2011-2012, Ernest Maclin, an education major agreed, describing the Minis-ter’s message as “life-chang-ing and breathtaking.”

“I believe he spoke on everything that was on everybody’s hearts in the

audience. It was a blessing having him here and be-ing able to grace this campus,” said Jeremy Fountain a 22-year-old art major, member of Alpha Phi Alpha and member of the delegation welcoming the Minister to the campus.

Justin Tate, 21, a chemistry major, mathematics minor, said, “I was on the edge of my chair with every word that he spoke. To see him here speaking was phenomenal.”

Nation of Islam member Terrika Reliford, a 19-year-old student at Christian Brothers University was overcome by emotion, shedding tears during her brief comments prior to Min. Farrakhan’s message.

“Just seeing him here and having him standing right behind me at that time, was very emotional,” she told The Final Call.

major, chemistry minor, a member of Zeta Phi Beta sorority and “Ms. LeMoyne Owen” for the year 2011-2012, heard the Minister for the very first time April 14.

sage, and I believe as a student it was important for me to hear this because it not only motivates me to progress in my education but to progress in helping my community as a whole,” said Ms. Holmes. “I have a responsibility to my people and my community,” she added.

the year 2011-2012, Ernest Maclin, an education major agreed, describing the Minister’s message as “life-changing and breathtaking.”

everything that was on everybody’s hearts in the

4purchasing land to build.

Mr. Dinkins, a double major in humanities and political science and a member of Kappa Alpha Psi, said he said was very happy with the way the Student Government Association worked together with cam-pus officials to pull off a successful event.

“I am extremely joyful—overjoyed!” said Mr. Dinkins. “I look forward to using a lot of the things said tonight to help build the Black community and the Black man and holding on to those principles that make us men and leaders of our households and com-munities.”

Ashahed Muhammad is the Assistant Editor of the Final Call Newspaper

Readers are Leaders!

Naa’irah Muhammad, a junior biology major with a minor in chemistry worked tirelessly to inform her peers of Min. Farrakhan’s desire to speak to them. Once the ball started rolling, nothing would stand in the way of organizers.

“We stood together and stayed strong to bring him here,” said Ms. Muhammad. “People were giving us trouble but we knew that some just did not under-stand or were afraid,” she added.

Although Ms. Muhammad is originally from the city of Philadelphia, the Nation of Islam member said she is going to follow Min. Farrakhan’s instructions by Student reader after Min. Farrakhan

Students respond to Minister Farra-khan’s BLACK COLLEGE TOURTwenty-three-year-old Teri Span, of the school’s

Poetry Club, had the honor of introducing Minister Farrakhan. She told The Final Call that hearing him for herself was a life-changing experience and described it as “breathtaking.”

“Everything he said I felt like we all needed to hear,” said Ms. Span, a junior sociology major. “Honestly, this man is a force to be reckoned with. It was such an inspi-ration to me and I feel so honored that I actually got the chance to introduce him as well as to be in his presence. It was so moving and encouraging and I am glad A&M was able to be blessed with his presence.”

“Minister Farrakhan had the right to come here just like any other speaker would and nobody has the right to try to stop us from listening to him; the message that he gave wasn’t anything like what they were trying to present to us,” said Kenneth Gunn, a 21-year-old politi-cal science major.

“The critics were wrong,” said Laura Bates, a 22-year-old graduating senior majoring in political science with a philosophy minor, also a member of the A&M Demo-crats.

The program’s emcee, Kevin Ferguson, president of the Delta Gamma chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., is a 22-year-old electrical engineering major.

“I definitely agreed with his message,” said Mr. Fergu-son. “I will definitely take some of the things he said and try to mold and cultivate those younger men and wom-en to let them know that education is the way to go.”

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Fugitive Slave MentalityBy ROBERT GOODING-WILLIAMS

Before he temporarily stepped down from his posi-tion last week as chief of the Sanford, Fla., police department, Bill Lee, Jr., gave an explanation of his decision not to arrest George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin. Lee said he had no reason to doubt Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense. Though Lee is no longer in the spotlight, his words linger for at least one compelling reason: his explanation bears an eerie resemblance to cases brought under the Fugitive Slave Law during the Antebellum period. Today, a legal standard that allowed the police chief to take Zimmer-man at his word recalls the dark past of slave-owners claiming their property. The writings of Martin Dela-ny, the African American political philosopher and activist, shed light on the uncanny resemblance.

The message from a Michigan judge: If a white man is pursuing a black man, don’t interfere.

During his trip through the free states west of New York to solicit subscriptions for the North Star, the newspaper that he and Frederick Douglass published, Martin Delany regularly corresponded with Dou-glass. One of his letters to Douglass, dated July 14, 1848 (Bastille Day), details the events of the so-called “Crosswhite affair,” which involved a court case brought under the Fugi-tive Slave Law of 1793. The presiding judge for the case was John McLean, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Delany’s philosophical analysis of McLean’s charge to the jury is en-lightening. A little background may be helpful.

In 1843 Adam Crosswhite, his wife Sarah, and their four children, after learning that their master Frank Giltner intended to break up the family, fled Carroll County, Ky., where they lived as slaves. After traveling through Indiana and southwest Michigan, the family settled in Marshall, Mich., where a fifth child was born, and where close to 50 blacks, many of them escaped slaves from Kentucky, already resided. Only a few years had passed when in 1847 Frank Giltner’s son, David Giltner, and his nephew, Francis

Troutman, came to Marshall with two other Kentuck-ians to arrest the Crosswhites and reclaim them as Frank Giltner’s property under the Fugitive Slave Law. That law authorized slave owners residing in one state

to enter another state to recapture their property.

Soon a crowd of more than 200 people gathered at the Crosswhite home, some of whom strongly sup-ported Michigan’s status as a free state. One man, Charles Gorham, a local banker, protested Troutman’s attempt to seize the Crosswhites, after which Troutman was arrested, tried, and fined $100 for trespassing. In the meantime, the Crosswhites were spirited out of Marshall and escaped to Canada.

Delany’s discussion of the Cross-white affair came more than a year later when he arrived in Detroit during a trial (Giltner v. Gorham) in which suit

was brought against Gorham and other members of the Marshall crowd concerning their role in hindering the arrest and abetting the rescue of the Crosswhites. Ultimately the jury was hung and the case discharged,

to enter another state to recapture their property.

people gathered at the Crosswhite home, some of whom strongly supported Michigan’s status as a free state. One man, Charles Gorham, a local banker, protested Troutman’s attempt to seize the Crosswhites, after which Troutman was arrested, tried, and fined $100 for trespassing. In the meantime, the Crosswhites were spirited out of Marshall and escaped to Canada.

white affair came more than a year later when he arrived in Detroit during a trial (Giltner v. Gorham) in which suit

Martin Delany

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7yet Delany dwells on it due to what he considers to be the implications of McLean’s charge to the jury. In particular, Delany responds to the judge’s elaboration of his charge in his reply “to an interrogatory by one of the counsel for defense”:

It is not necessary that the per-sons interfering should know that the persons claimed are slaves. If the claimant has made the declara-tion that they are such, though he should only assert it to the fugitives themselves — indeed, it could not be expected that the claimant would be required the trouble of repeat-ing this to persons who might be disposed to interfere — should any one interfere at all, after the declaration of the claimant, he is liable and responsible to the provisions of the law in such cases.

Delany’s main point against McLean is that the fact that the judge holds interfering persons to be crimi-nally accountable shows that he takes the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law to carry the presumption that any individual, having declared that one or another “colored” person is an escaped slave (whom he is entitled to arrest), is sim-ply to be taken at his word, and so cannot legally be in-terfered with in his effort to arrest that colored person. In conclusion, then, Delany reasons that the Fugitive Slave Law reduces “each and all of us [that is, each and all colored persons] to the mercy and discretion of any white man in the country,” and that under its jurisdic-tion, “every colored man in the nominally free states…is reduced to abject slavery; because all slavery is but the arbitrary will of one person over another.”

On Delany’s account, the effect of the Fugitive Slave Law, at least as Judge McLean interprets it, is to sub-ject all unowned black persons to the domination of all white persons. For by requiring that the self-proclaimed slave catcher be taken at his word, the law leaves unconstrained the ability of any white person to arrest and seize any black person. In effect, it renders all titularly free blacks vulnerable to the power available to all whites in exactly the way that, according to Fred-erick Douglass, a black slave is vulnerable to the power exercised by his or her white master.

The affinity to the Trayvon Martin incident is perhaps obvious. Chief Lee’s statement that Zimmerman was not arrested for lack of evidence sufficient to chal-lenge his claim that he had not acted in self-defense

(“We don’t have anything to dispute his claim of self-defense”) appears to imply that, absent such evidence, a white or otherwise non-black man (there is some controversy as to whether Zimmerman should be iden-

tified as white, or Hispanic, or both, although no one seems to be claiming he is black) claim-ing self-defense after killing a black man is simply to be taken at his word. It is hard to resist the thought that race matters here, for who believes that, had an adult African American male killed a white teenager under similar circumstances, the po-lice would have taken him at his

word and so declined to arrest him?In contrast to Judge McLean, Lee does not propose

that, if a certain sort of declaration has been issued, interference with a white man’s attempt to seize a black man would be illegal. Rather he argues that, if a certain sort of declaration has been issued — “I acted from self-defense”— a white or other non-black per-son who has admitted to killing a black person cannot legally be arrested if the police have no reason to dis-pute the truth of his declaration; or more technically, if in keeping with sections 776.032 and 776.013 of the Florida Statutes the police have no “probable cause” to

tified as white, or Hispanic, or both, although no one seems to be claiming he is black) claiming self-defense after killing a black man is simply to be taken at his word. It is hard to resist the thought that race matters here, for who believes that, had an adult African American male killed a white teenager under similar circumstances, the police would have taken him at his

George Zimmerman

 

8believe that Zimmerman did not “reasonably believe” that killing Martin was necessary “to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself.” Though the two cases are different, we should notice that Lee, like McLean, intends to highlight considerations that legally con-strain action (interference in one case, arrest in the other ) in the face of an assault on an African Ameri-can. This should give us pause to worry that Florida’s Stand Your Ground legislation, in its application to cases where whites (or other non-blacks) kill blacks and then claim self-defense, could prove to be the functional equivalent of a fugitive slave law.

In short, it appears that whites (or other non-blacks) may hunt down blacks with immunity from arrest so long as they leave behind no clue that they were not acting to defend themselves; or, to echo Martin Delany, that Florida’s Stand Your Ground law threatens to render some citizens subject to the arbitrary wills of others.

If it seems a stretch, finally, to paint Zimmerman in the image of the slave catchers of yesteryear, recall that he himself invited the comparison when, while stalk-ing the African-American teenager against the advice of a 911 dispatcher, he complained, using an expletive to refer to Trayvon, that they “always get away.”

Robert Gooding-Williams is the Ralph and Mary Otis Isham Professor of Political Science at the University

of Chicago. He is the author of Look, A Negro!: Philo-sophical Essays on Race, Culture, and Politics (Rout-

ledge, 2005) and In The Shadow of Du Bois: Afro-Modern Political Thought in America (Harvard 2009).

Gil Noble, the longtime host and producer of his groundbreaking and famous weekly news show, Like It Is, has died at 80. Noble’s show was truly Pan-African focusing on the Black experience on a local, national and international level. We salute Gil Noble and con-tinue to be inspired and influenced by him.

Minister Louis Farrakhan attended his friend’s fu-neral in New York and offered this tribute:

“Truth is more important than any life there is. That’s

why this man will not die be-cause he lived for the truth.”

Gil Noble, the longtime host and producer of his

Gil Noble: 1932 - 2012