MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN Sets The Record Straight About His Relationship With MALCOLM X

Jet, June 5, 2000 by Clarence Waldron

The comment that Farrakhan made that has received the most attention was written by Farrakhan in the Nation of Islam newspaper a year before Malcolm's assassination.

He told JET: "I wrote something like: "The die is set and Malcolm will not escape for the foolish talk he spoke against his benefactor, such a man, is worthy of death, and it would have been so, were it not for Muhammad's confidence that God would give him the victory over the enemies."

Farrakhan points out, "That's the whole sentence. Everyone stops where there is a comma, they put a period--`Malcolm's `worthy of death.' But I said it would have been so were it not for Muhammad's confidence. So there was no threat against Minister Malcolm in those words. However, those who have used those words use half the sentence to fit their purpose, which, of course, I believe is to discredit me and the new Nation of Islam that has come up around me."

Farrakhan said, "I regret anything that I may have written or said that could have triggered or helped to create an atmosphere that caused the life--the loss of life--of any human being, Malcolm in particular."

He believes it was a government conspiracy that ultimately led to Malcolm's assassination. "I, as a defender of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and other ministers as defenders of his, spoke to and then criticized Brother Malcolm for what he did. He became disillusioned; he was hurt; he was angry, and what he knew of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's personal life, unfortunately, he felt a need to bring it out in the public. And in bringing it out in the public, the forces were already at work inside the Nation of Islam, the forces that already were at work in the government of the United States, the FBI and the CIA. There's the atmosphere, the FBI sitting back, the police department sitting back. They had agents on both sides, fostering the division--Malcolm X is assassinated. So, Malcolm initiated the process that created the atmosphere into which I spoke, feeding the atmosphere that ultimately led to Brother Malcolm's death and that's the absolute truth."

He maintains that the White press in general likes to pit one Black against the other to stir controversy and division. The media often builds a Black person up to tear him down, he believes. "I was never named in the early years as having anything to do with the assassination of Malcolm. I was a non-player. I was just Louis X back then."

He notes, however, "But when I reintroduced the Nation of Islam, and began to host meetings in cities and thousands and thousands of people come out. And now I call for a million Black men and nearly 2 million show up, then this is a dangerous fellow here. But we don't have any Black man living that we can put up against him who will garner the support of the public. So what do you do? You raise my brother (Malcolm) from the grave. My brother can't talk now for himself. Then you say, `Farrakhan did it.' So the young Blacks in the 'hood will say, `Ah, man I was digging Farrakhan. Now I come to find out that he's the man who took away our hero.'