Louis Farrakhan Biography

(born May 11, 1933, Bronx, New York, N.Y., U.S.) African American leader (1978–2007) of the Nation of Islam, an African American movement that combined elements of Islam with black nationalism.

Walcott, as he was then known, was raised in Boston by his mother, Sarah Mae Manning, an immigrant from St. Kitts and Nevis. Deeply religious as a boy, he became active in the St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church in his Roxbury neighbourhood. He graduated with honours from the prestigious Boston English High School, where he also played the violin and was a member of the track team. He attended the Winston-Salem Teachers College from 1951 to 1953 but dropped out to pursue a career in music. Known as “The Charmer,” he performed professionally on the Boston nightclub circuit as a singer of calypso and country songs. In 1953 he married Khadijah, with whom he would have nine children.

In 1955 Walcott joined the Nation of Islam. Following the custom of the Nation, he replaced his surname with an “X,” a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders. Louis X first proved himself at Temple No. 7 in Harlem, where he emerged as the protégé of Malcolm X, the minister of the temple and one of the most prominent members of the Nation of Islam. Louis X was given his Muslim name, Abdul Haleem Farrakhan, by Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan was appointed head minister of Boston Temple No. 11, which Malcolm had established earlier.

After Malcolm X's break with the Nation in 1964 over political and personal differences with Elijah Muhammad, Farrakhan replaced Malcolm as head minister of Harlem's Temple No. 7 and as the National Representative of the Nation, the second in command of the organization. Like his predecessor, Farrakhan was a dynamic, charismatic leader and a powerful speaker with the ability to appeal to the African American masses.

When Elijah Muhammad died in February 1975, the Nation of Islam fragmented. Surprisingly, the Nation's leadership chose Wallace Muhammad (now known as Warith Deen Mohammed), the fifth of Elijah's six sons, as the new Supreme Minister. Disappointed that he was not named Elijah's successor, Farrakhan led a breakaway group in 1978, which he also called the Nation of Islam and which preserved the original teachings of Elijah Muhammad. Farrakhan disagreed with Wallace Muhammad's attempts to move the Nation to orthodox Sunni Islam and to rid it of Elijah Muhammad's radical black nationalism and separatist teachings, which stressed the inherent wickedness of whites.