April 15, 2012--Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan addressed a broad range of subjects -- everything from race, faith and education in America to the nation's wars -- in an appearance at LeMoyne-Owen College Saturday night as part of the school's first Diversity Leadership Conference.
About 1,400 people from the Mid-South and across the state attended the evening lecture, including local elected officials State Rep. G.A. Hardaway and County Commissioner Justin Ford and former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, who presented Farrakhan with a key to the city in 1992.
During a 2009 visit to Memphis Farrakhan proclaimed to an audience his belief the H1N1 vaccine was created as a means of global population control.
Saturday, LeMoyne-Owen student government president SimmieRay Dinkins said Farrakhan's sometimes-provocative remarks were no deterrent in the school's pursuit of him as the conference's keynote speaker.
"I think as part of any kind of educational environment, you have to analyze for yourself controversial figures in order to truly educate yourself," Dinkins said. "If you have someone who believes the same thing you believe and says the same things you say, then you're not really challenging your mind. So this really is not about necessarily endorsing what he says or not endorsing what he says. It's simply about educating ourselves."
Farrakhan prefaced his address by saying, "I didn't come here today to stir up your emotions, I came to cause you to think."
Most subjects raised by Farrakhan were tied to religion, including education, which he said is worse for excluding religious teachings from the classroom.
"Education begins with God, and without God you don't have a true education, for everything that you've studied is based on what God created," Farrakhan said. "But (students) 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 was also critical of the treatment of African-Americans, saying little has actually changed socially in the decades since the civil rights movement.
"What makes you a man is that you're able to do it for yourself, but what makes you a boy is that in 2012, we are still asking the same 'man' that our fathers and our great-grandfathers asked for things," he said. "You today, with a college education, are begging the white man for the crumbs that fall from his table."
LeMoyne-Owen president Johnnie B. Watson said he was pleased to host Farrakhan, whom he called "an iconic figure."
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Sunday, April 15th 2012 at 2:46PM
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