Louis Farrakhan

Louis Farrakhan can't please folks these days, it seems. On Monday, he was hammered on WOLB - a local talk-radio station targeted to a black audience - for proposing that black Americans observe tomorrow as a day of atonement.In the current issue of Vibe magazine, two letter-writers chastised him for being too moderate.Now comes "The Phantom," who sent a four-page fax to The Sun about Farrakhan's proposed day of atonement. "The Phantom" isn't any more enamored of the idea than the callers to WOLB or the letter-writers to Vibe.

A Baltimore businessman who built a financial empire after earning parole from a 1956 murder conviction has been charged with bankruptcy fraud and money laundering, federal authorities said.Edward R. "Slim" Butler, once described as a rags-to-riches story of a poor boy from West Baltimore who overcame his past and found religion and success, is alleged to have concealed $350,000 from creditors after filing for bankruptcy. Prosecutors say he attempted to hide some of the money by laundering it through a church bishop.

BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- Love Fellowship Tabernacle Church is rocking. Nearly 400 people -- most of them under the age of 30 -- are being whipped into a singing, stomping, praying revival by the church's pastor, Hezekiah Walker, and his Grammy award-winning gospel choir. No one is holding back. They clap hands, hug the people next to them, reassure each other again and again that "Everything is going to be all right."Outside, the wail of police sirens shatters the stillness of a battered urban neighborhood.

NEW YORK -- Ben Chavis, the fallen civil-rights leader, has made it official: He's not just a sycophant of Louis Farrakhan; he's now a convert to Mr. Farrakhan's brand of Islam.Or, as Mr. Chavis puts it: ''I am not turning from Christ. I am turning to Allah.''This former Episcopalian and now former member of the United Church of Christ is now a Muslim whose new name is Benjamin Chavis Muhammad.It's not surprising, really. Last summer, when Mr. Farrakhan berated black journalists who had invited him to speak at their TC annual convention, Mr. Chavis stood dutifully to the right and slightly behind, looking like an unofficial member of the minister's security detail, the Fruit of Islam.

Benjamin F. Chavis Muhammad, the former NAACP leader who joined the Nation of Islam last weekend, said yesterday he would work to make the black separatist group "inclusive of all God's people, not just black people."Chavis Muhammad, 49, told a sympathetic audience at Coppin State College that "God called me into the Nation of Islam for a purpose" -- to help Louis Farrakhan. He said it was "preposterous" to speculate that he was being groomed to succeed the 63-year-old Farrakhan, who has battled prostate cancer in recent years.

TO MY knowledge there's been no law passed making it a crime to say anything good about Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. But you wouldn't know that from the brouhaha that ensued when Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp praised Farrakhan's self-help philosophy.What, exactly, did Kemp say? According to a story from the New York Times News Service that ran Sept. 10:"In the Boston Globe interview, Kemp 'praised Louis Farrakhan ... for emphasizing black self-reliance and family values.

NEW YORK -- Trying to squelch a growing protest over his admiring comments about Louis Farrakhan, Jack Kemp called last night on the Nation of Islam leader to "renounce anti-Semitism.""Racism, bigotry, scapegoating and anti-Semitism are evil and must be eradicated at every turn if we are to move forward as a society," the Republican vice- presidential nominee told an influential Jewish audience at a dinner here."Tonight it is in that spirit that I call on Louis Farrakhan and his followers to renounce anti-Semitism for once and for all."

CHICAGO -- What do you call someone you invite to your house as a guest only to see him dump trash all over the carpet and wet all over your walls?There are words for such a guest, words that aptly describe Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan's recent appearance in a Nashville church at the invitation of the nation's largest annual gathering of black journalists.Speaking at the National Association of Black JournalistsConvention in Nashville, Mr. Farrakhan thrashed journalists of African descent who work in mainstream newspapers and other media, calling us ''slaves'' to white media owners.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- This will be the column in which I do not bash, criticize or diss Louis Farrakhan, who gave the opening address at the National Association of Black Journalists convention here three days ago.Mind you, my good buddy Farrakhan said much that I could bash, criticize and diss him for. His minions subjected NABJ members to a body search before they entered the exhibit hall where the Nation of Islam leader gave his speech."

Dear Minister Farrakhan:At long last, you have responded to " The Sun" series on slavery in Sudan. You didn't respond directly to a request by me and my colleague Gil Lewthwaite for an interview, but some response is better than none at all.In the July 23 edition of the Nation of Islam newspaper, " The Final Call, " writer Askia Muhammad chided us for using your name in the series."