Farrakhan

Washington. -- Most people probably don't know it but, long before Black Muslim Minister Louis Farrakhan began to make news for baiting Jews, he was a popular professional calypso performer known as ''the Charmer.''Before that, he was a child violinist who performed impressively on the ''Ted Mack Amateur Hour'' in 1946 when he was only about 13.Now the controversial Nation of Islam head says he hopes his music will have enough charm to smooth relations between blacks and Jews.Surrounded by his bodyguards, he surprised the audience after an April 17 orchestral concert in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, by walking onstage and playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.

The NAACP called a press conference the other day to formally announce a National Summit of African-American Leaders in Baltimore. The press conference was scheduled for 2 o'clock. It finally commenced at 5 minutes till 3. Then, at 5 minutes after 3, it was suddenly over.Everybody in charge explained they were running a little late. They said this after they had heard a few questions from reporters: Farrakhan this and Farrakhan that. There were six questions, five of them on Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam minister who preaches black separatism, and then a spokeswoman for the NAACP declared matters closed.

WASHINGTON -- The challenge came from Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, and it has been answered.The challenge came back in March at the end of a press conference in Washington, where Mr. Farrakhan was presented with an award by the black-oriented National Newspaper Publishers Association.He was on his way out the door after answering questions about his earlier Africa tour, which included visits to Libya, Sudan and other countries opposed to the U.S. when someone shouted a question to him about slavery in Sudan.

In a move to capitalize on Louis Farrakhan's appearance before a men-only audience tonight at the Baltimore Arena, the Nation of Islam plans to offer "manhood training" classes throughout the city beginning Saturday.Minister Jamil Muhammad, leader of Baltimore's Muhammad Mosque No. 6, said yesterday that the classes for black men would focus on "how to be a better father, husband and provider, to take financial responsibility, become socially activated and be spiritually reinvigorated."The black separatist group's manhood training classes include self-defense and survival skills, but Minister Muhammad said there is "no weapons training or any silliness of that kind."

MINNEAPOLIS -- In a flurry of legal motions filed late yesterday, attorneys in the murder-for-hire case against Qubilah Shabazz profiled an indecisive woman who talked bluntly about murder, then backed out of an alleged plot just weeks before she was indicted on charges of conspiring to kill Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.The release of transcripts from FBI wiretaps and a purported confession from Ms. Shabazz, 34, the second eldest daughter of Malcolm X, provided the first inner details of a case that has flared into renewed controversy over the government's reliance on criminal informants.

Some 33 years after he was dragged unwillingly into infamy, Norman 3X Butler is in the news again.Butler is now known as Muhammad Abdul-Aziz. On Feb. 25, 1965, police arrested him at his home and charged him with being one of the three men who had, four days earlier, shot and killed Malcolm X in Harlem's Audubon Ballroom. Abdul-Aziz was convicted, sentenced to life in prison and paroled in 1985.Abdul-Aziz is a member of the Nation of Islam. Minister Louis Farrakhan recently appointed Abdul-Aziz the Fruit of Islam captain of the Nation of Islam's Harlem mosque.

MINISTER Carlos Muhammad sat behind his desk on the second floor of Muhammad's Mosque No. 6 on Garrison Boulevard, just down the street from Liberty Heights Avenue. He paused for only a second when the question was put to him: What, exactly, is the media's motive for rehashing the issue of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's "involvement" in the assassination of Malcolm X? "I think Minister Farrakhan being the leader he is, is the main reason," Muhammad responded. "His influence has warranted those in high places to bring out things that are false.

Just when you think you have this Louis Farrakhan guy pegged, he goes and throws you another curve.We in the media -- a k a the Farrakhan-bashing business -- have pretty much defined the Nation of Islam leader on our terms. We have tagged him with the labels of anti-Semite and bigot. When Farrakhan said Hitler was "wickedly great," we were there with our pens, notebooks and cameras to record the words. When he implied that Jews practiced a "dirty" religion, we quickly changed the word to gutter, although a tape recording clearly indicated otherwise.

The appearance of Minister Louis Farrakhan at Baltimore's Bethel A.M.E. Church last weekend marked another step in a concerted campaign to bring the fiery leader of the Nation of Islam into the civil rights mainstream. By all accounts, the Bethel congregation did its part by welcoming him graciously.Efforts to mend fences with Mr. Farrakhan seem to have gotten under way in earnest in September at the Congressional Black Caucus Weekend in Washington. Key black leaders, including the NAACP's Executive Director, the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., Black Caucus Chairman Rep. Kweisi Mfume and the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, agreed to put aside their personal and political differences with the Nation of Islam leader in the interest of promoting black unity.

OFFICIALS AT Howard University Hospital are being irritatingly circumspect about the condition of probably the most famous patient their institution will ever have: Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan."