A Word About Louis Farrakhan and Tamika Mallory Women’s March Co-President Tamika Mallory’s public image has been taking a drumming all week since news broke of her attendance at the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviour’s Day, during which Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a speech with anti-Semitic commentary. The speech was delivered at the end of February, but Twitter went ablaze last weekend after CNN’s Jake Tapper posted footage on Twitter with time stamps indicating where Farrakhan made the incendiary remarks. An Instagram post Mallory shared from the event was amplified on social media, further drawing sharp reactions from progressives and others. Public statements from the Women’s March and from Mallory, released on NewsOne Wednesday …show more content…
In a country that warehouses black men in prisons at rates outlandishly disproportionate to their size within the U.S. population, the NOI is known to take broken men and build them up, its most famous convert being Malcolm X. Some would argue that the NOI was, at one point, the only recidivism program for black men during prison and post-release. Correctional officials and black community groups have long praised the group for filling the void of a broken and predatory criminal-justice system. The group, founded in the early 1930s, saw a sharp rise in membership during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s because of its alternative outlook of pursuing black liberation. At the time of Muhammad’s death, in 1975, membership was estimated to have reached 250,000; that number is around 50,000 today. Always immaculately dressed, be it in the scorching heat or the freezing cold, NOI men and women are often found in the bowels of the community, places some church folks supposedly wouldn’t dare go. But not every black man or woman can come to NOI as they are. LGBTQ people don’t fit within the group’s black-liberation