The Final Call

The Bigger Picture and a Historic Photograph

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If a picture is worth a thousand words, the publication of a 13-year-old photo of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan with then-Senator Barack Obama and the Jewish onslaught that has followed yields more telling truths about the dubious “Black-Jewish” relationship.

Pictured from left to right are Leonard Farrakhan Muhammad, Mustapha Farrakhan, U.S. Senator Barack Obama, Minister Farrakhan's son Joshua Farrakhan, Minister Louis Farrakhan, and the Rev. Willie F. Wilson, pastor of D.C.'s Union Temple Baptist Church. The photo was taken in 2005 and not made public until this year. Photo: Askia Muhammad

It also says something incredibly important about Min. Farrakhan and his deep regard for those he believes can contribute to our progress.

The photo of the Minister and Sen. Obama was taken in 2005 during a Congressional Black Caucus legislative conference in Washington, D.C., which draws thousands of people to discuss public policy, engage in dialogue and plot strategies to overcome challenges facing our people. Mr. Obama had electrified the 2004 Democratic National Convention with a speech calling on a troubled nation to rise above ugly partisanship and aspire to higher principles.

Askia Muhammad, Final Call senior editor, photographer and veteran journalist, said a Congressional Black Caucus staffer asked for his photo, obviously worried about any potential negative impact on the Democratic Party’s rising star. The photo was turned over to the CBC and a copy was given to Leonard Farrakhan Muhammad, who was the Minister’s chief of staff, according to Askia Muhammad.

With the publication of Askia Muhammad’s  new book, “The Autobiography of Charles 67X,” the historic photo was published to the joy of many and to the outrage of others, especially Zionists and those who have consistently fought against Black unity and Black interests.

Minister Farrakhan has truthfully and respectfully dealt with Mr. Obama, even when critical of the two-term American president. During the first and second Obama campaigns for president and his eight years in office, the Minister shared his view of the value of Mr. Obama’s appeal across racial lines and has criticized the president for actions that were wrong, in particular, the destruction of Libya and the killing of Col. Muammar Gadhafi. He also warned President Obama about the awful position that America is in as a modern Egypt under the divine judgment and chastisement of God. He has been a faithful warner to the president, the government and the people of the United States of America.

What Min. Farrakhan has never done is act to derail Mr. Obama from moving along whatever path that God may have for the son of a Kenyan father and Caucasian mother.

“The enemy is working right now. He wants to find a way to get at Farrakhan. What is wrong with Farrakhan that you have to make Farrakhan a ‘litmus test’ for any Black person who strives for betterment; for elevation in the society?” he asked during the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviours’ Day Convention on February 24, 2008 at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, Illinois. The Minister was speaking months before voters would elect the first Black president.

“The enemy says, ‘Let’s give them ‘The Farrakhan Test.’ … If you’re going to give somebody a litmus test, give the test to all of them. Don’t single out one man, Sen. Barack Obama, and say, ‘Well, let’s give him The Farrakhan Test.’ Why not give it to Senator Clinton?

“What are you trying to do to our brother? Why do you hate him so, that you want to make me a stumbling block for him? That is why you have never heard me make any comment. I love that brother, and I want to see that brother successful! I don’t want to say anything that would hurt that brother, and I don’t want them to use me or the Nation of Islam. I didn’t tell anybody who to vote for; do what you want to do.  I have taught you enough sense that I know you will vote your self-interest, if you know what your self-interest is,” said Min. Farrakhan.

Eight years later, the Minister again spoke to an important presidential election, Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump: “ ‘The bigger picture’ is that I have a picture of myself and Barack together. You never saw it, because I would never put it out to give his enemies what they were looking for to hurt him. But he told me straight up:  ‘Farrakhan, the Black vote in Chicago made me win Chicago, but it was the down state vote that made me a U.S. senator. And I will never do anything that will cause me to lose the down state vote.’ And I said to him, ‘My brother, your reality is not mine. And we need you where you are, so I will never ask you to do anything that will cause you to lose the downstate vote’—and I never have.  He was ‘the bigger picture.’ … I know who I am ... and I know that that was his time. It’s mine now. So the ‘bigger picture’ is not Hillary Clinton; the ‘bigger picture’ is not Donald Trump. The ‘bigger picture’ is the Black masses of America and the American people whose lives are at stake,” said the Minister, speaking Oct. 30 at Mosque Maryam in Chicago prior to the November, 2016 national election.

But while the Minister has been able to recognize bigger principles, the myopic and virulently anti-Black Anti-Defamation League and others of their ilk unceasingly attack him. With their shrill voices and lies, these demonic individuals and Zionists, like onetime law professor Alan Dershowitz, defame a good man and repeat old lies. The Minister is not and never has been an anti-Semite. You cannot find an instance of Muslims under his leadership depriving any Jewish person of any right nor defacing any synagogue. You can’t find Muslims in the Nation of Islam attacking or threatening Jewish people.

But the same cannot be said of the other side, which knows no bounds to its hatred and determination to stop the Minister and those who love him. It didn’t matter in the late 1990s and early 2000s that privately owned Muslim security companies were saving lives in public housing. Jewish groups pressured the federal government to force local public housing authorities to drop the contracts and put Black lives at risk. It didn’t matter that the 1995 Million Man March as one of the most important events in the history of Black America and unleashed an energy, hope and commitment that led to greater organizational strength, reconciliation between family members and a drop in crime and violence. Jewish groups and leaders tried to derail the march and “separate the message from the messenger.”   

These evil ones have opposed every good deed and word offered by Min. Farrakhan due to their arrogance, Jewish paternalism and refusal to allow anyone to critique Jewish behavior, no matter how out of line that behavior may be.

So years after candidate Obama was forced to denounce Min. Farrakhan, the head of the ADL today calls for the now ex-president to renounce the Minister. So once again Black relationships and Black interests are to be determined by Jewish outsiders? Those who derailed the 1960s Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, who helped apartheid South Africa acquire nuclear weapons, who deprive African migrants and Ethiopian Jews of their rights in Israel, who didn’t want Blacks moving into their neighborhoods at the height of desegregation and these same people who enslaved and sold our ancestors are to direct our path?

Empathically not.

The bigger picture demands that we stand and challenge these liars and evil ones. We can no longer cower in fear when a man has stood courageously for us. This isn’t just the day to condemn the enemy’s evil; it is the day when we must stand as stalwarts against it. Hands off Farrakhan!

—Richard B. Muhammad, editor, The Final Call Newspaper