Farrakhan

CHICAGO -- Mosque Maryam is nearly full this day as hundreds of the curious and the faithful have come together to hear Nation of Islam leader Louis T. Farrakhan.Women sit on the right, with members of the Nation resplendent in their white garb and headdresses. Men of all ages sit on the left, the true believers standing out in their trademark bow ties, suits and close haircuts.Before joining the Nation, they saw themselves as the spiritually dead people of North America -- the lost sheep that Mr. Farrakhan wants to lead to nationhood.

His speech in Detroit last weekend was billed as his last major public address, but associates of Minister Louis Farrakhan won't say the ailing Nation of Islam leader is retiring. I understand their disbelief. Mr. Farrakhan has been written off before, yet managed to stage enough encores to rival the late James Brown. Nevertheless, this time I take him at his word. "My time is up," he declared. "The Final Call can't last forever." I thought Mr. Farrakhan's time was up in 1975 after the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam's co-founding leader, died.

New York -- When Louis Farrakhan participates in the ''National Leadership Conference'' of the NAACP in Baltimore Sunday afternoon, many Jews and others sensitive to anti-Semitism will be demonstrating outside.Mr. Farrakhan's anti-Semitism and homophobia are well documented. They are not matters of the distant past when he was talking about Judaism as a ''gutter religion.'' Although he flirted briefly with lowering his anti-Semitic profile, and tried to dissociate from the worst excesses of his lieutenant Khallid Abdul Muhammad, in a recent TV call-in show in California he reverted his old hateful ways, suggesting that the Jews had set up the Federal Reserve and retained control over its money.

Black leaders vowed yesterday to rise above their philosophical differences to help their people, as a national summit opened under heavy security at NAACP headquarters in Northwest Baltimore."

HAVRE DE GRACE -- A week ago, in the midst of the din that arose upon O. J. Simpson's acquittal, I wrote that while the verdict was certainly a blow to race relations in the United States, it wasn't the apocalyptic moment it seemed to some. Good sense on both sides would eventually prevail, I said.The piece seemed to astound some readers. One whose judgment I usually consider reliable politely called me an ostrich. If I couldn't see that the racial divide in our country was now just about unbridgeable, he suggested, I must have my head wedged.

I WONDER if Nation of Islam spokesman Khalid Abdul Muhammad has seen the movie "Schindler's List" or visited the National Holocaust Museum in Washington.My guess would be that even if he had, it would not change his racist beliefs. Recently, during a speech at New Jersey's Kean College, Mr. Muhammad blamed European Jews for the Holocaust because "they went in there to Germany, the way they do everywhere they go, and they supplanted, they usurped. . ." His speech reportedly elicited applause and cheers from the audience of faculty and students.

THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN varieties of Islam play a role in the black community that's not unlike that which the nationality parishes played for Catholic immigrants early in this century.They provide a sheltered environment with strong community support in which members can acculturate into the ways of middle-class American life while protected from the negative effects of racism and the unstable elements in their own community.In one of the first studies of the so-called ''Black Muslims,'' T. Eric Lincoln emphasized this role of creating sober, responsible, respectable middle-class norms in a protected environment for blacks who wanted to break out of the street culture.

WASHINGTON -- During a provocative news conference dominated by vitriolic attacks on a Jewish organization, Nation of Islam leader Louis T. Farrakhan condemned an aide yesterday for comments against Jews, Catholics and whites that were "vile in manner." But he said he stood by the "truths" his minister espoused.To a standing-room-only audience of several hundred reporters and Nation of Islam members packing a hotel ballroom here, Mr. Farrakhan said he was dismissing the aide, Khalid Abdul Muhammad, as a minister and official of the militant black Muslim group until his language conformed to its standards.

Havre de Grace -- Unscrambling the torrent of confused messages emanating from the movement led by Louis Farrakhan isn't easy, but in the wake of his visit to Baltimore the effort needs to be made, and some hard distinctions need to be drawn.Like most charismatic leaders of mass movements, Mr. Farrakhan is a deliberate and intelligent polarizer. He draws his strength from division, not from unity. The fervor of his followers, those within the tent, is reinforced by the hostility displayed toward him by those without.

WASHINGTON -- At some point you have to wonder what Louis Farrakhan has to do to be politically ostracized beyond redemption. Until it happens, the Democratic Party is exposing a fault line too wide and glaring to be overlooked.The tension between blacks and Jews within the liberal Democratic coalition has been an increasingly apparent fact of political life. It is as if some of the younger black leaders -- in contrast to those heroes of the civil rights movement such as Rep. John Lewis of Georgia -- have forgotten the role Jews played in bringing to fruition the legislation of the 1960s that has made it possible for blacks to become an important force in American politics today.