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Louis Abdul Farrakhan

American religious leader, head of the Nation of Islam, a black religious
organization in the United States that combines some of the practices and beliefs of Islam
with a philosophy of black separatism.
Farrakhan preaches the virtues of personal responsibility, especially for black men,
and advocates black self-sufficiency. Farrakhan's message has appealed primarily to urban
blacks and draws on a long history of black nationalists who have called for black
self-reliance in the face of economic injustice and white racism. His more inflammatory
remarks have caused critics to claim that he has appealed to black racism and
anti-Semitism to promote his views. Born Louis Eugene Wolcott in New York City,
Farrakhan grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended Winston-Salem Teacher's
College in North Carolina, and worked as a nightclub singer in the early 1950s. In 1955
Malcolm X, a minister for the Nation of Islam, convinced Wolcott to join the organization.
Wolcott dropped his last name and became known as Minister Louis X. The
practice of dropping surnames is common among black Muslims, who often view them as
names that were imposed on slaves and handed down over the years by white society. He
later adopted the name Abdul Haleem Farrakhan and came to be known as Louis
Farrakhan.
Farrakhan's speaking and singing abilities helped him to rise to prominence within
the Nation of Islam, and he led the group's mosque in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1963 a
split developed between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of
Islam, and Malcolm X was suspended as a minister. Malcolm X had become increasingly
dissatisfied with the group's failure to participate in the growing Civil Rights Movement,
and Muhammad seemed threatened by the growing popularity of Malcolm X. Farrakhan
sided with Muhammad in this dispute. In 1964...

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