Farrakhan

LOUIS Farrakhan disappointed me twice on Monday. Known for saying what's on his mind -- no holds barred -- the Nation of Islam leader bit his tongue before hundreds of thousands of black men who gathered for the Million Man March.Aspiring to statesmanship, Minister Farrakhan issued a call to sit down with Jewish leaders with whom he has been sparring for more than a decade in one of the most public, most rancorous, most bitter and persistent feuds in public life."I don't like this squabble with the members of the Jewish community," he told the sea of marchers who gathered on The Mall in Washington.

MAYOR KURT L. SCHMOKE, Rep. Kweisi Mfume and other politicians, local and national, are taking a big risk by endorsing Monday's Million Man March that is the brainchild of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan."

WASHINGTON -- Minister Louis T. Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, said yesterday that his religious sect was in U.S. elective politics to stay but that he had no intention of being a candidate for office himself.Mr. Farrakhan announced his organization's intentions at a news conference held here as Washingtonians were preparing to go to the polls in critical local elections.The Muslim leader, whose religious and racial views have made him a controversial political figure, said of his personal intentions, "I like the spiritual arena" -- and besides, he added, prophets do not need to become kings.

Black separatist Louis Farrakhan, civil rights leader Jesse L. Jackson and Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Kweisi Mfume are expected to attend an NAACP-sponsored black leadership summit that begins Sunday in Baltimore.The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which is based in Baltimore, has yet to release a list of the 70 to 100 participants in the 2 1/2 -day conference, which is designed to promote black unity.But aides to Mr. Jackson, head of the National Rainbow Coalition, and Representative Mfume, a West Baltimore Democrat, confirmed that the leaders would attend some of the sessions.

Early in the evening, the participants split up -- parents went upstairs in the Randallstown split-level, teens and young adults stayed down.Then the serious game began. The subject was hate.Each group was asked to study a list of eight narratives, all examples of anti-Semitism. Would they select the same three as the most offensive or the most dangerous? If so, would everyone agree on which was the most abhorrent example?What happened was a surprise to Ofra Fisher, director of the B'nai B'rith Department of Jewish Family Life.

Despite his demotion as national spokesman for the Nation of Islam, Khalid Abdul Muhammad is expected to speak tonight at Baltimore City Community College.Michael Graham, a spokesman for Newton-Thoth Inc., the sponsor of the lecture, said the Nation of Islam told the company yesterday that Mr. Muhammad would speak as scheduled."We have not spoken with Dr. Muhammad at all," Mr. Graham said. "The only thing we can tell you from our understanding is that he is still a member of the Nation of Islam and will be speaking as their representative on the issue of Malcolm X."

Those big brains in the State and Treasury departments had Louis Farrakhan right where they wanted him. True to form, they let him off the hook.These geniuses should have let Libyan leader Col. Muammar el Kadafi give that $1 billion to Farrakhan. It would have been fascinating to see what the Nation of Islam leader would have done with it. The bottom line is he would have had to produce. The job of redeeming America's inner cities -- improving the schools, upgrading the housing, starting businesses to employ the jobless -- would have been Farrakhan's.

The Rev. J. Charles Carrington's sweet singing voice was more than loud enough to fill the old movie house that is now the Zion Temple Fellowship Church. But few people heard that sound yesterday.Mr. Carrington, who leads the 500-member congregation in the 5400 block of Reisterstown Road, had organized a lunchtime prayer service as "an alternative" to the Million Man March, which he did not support. He sent invitations to 75 churches and expected a crowd of 500.Twenty people showed up, most of them members of his own nondenominational, Christian church.

WASHINGTON -- The NAACP, whose unwillingness to break relations with black Muslim leader Louis T. Farrakhan has upset some Jewish groups, moved yesterday to rebuild bridges by calling for a meeting next week with Jewish leaders."

Demoted but not silenced, black separatist Khalid Abdul Muhammad told an overflow crowd at Baltimore City Community College last night that there is no division in the Nation of Islam.Despite his demotion Thursday as the Nation of Islam's national spokesman, Mr. Muhammad spoke as an official representative of the group headed by Louis T. Farrakhan.At the outset of his talk, Mr. Muhammad immediately declared his allegiance to Mr. Farrakhan, "a man I love with all my heart . . . the champion of the liberation and salvation of the black nation."