Minister Farrakhan says he is ill

By Frederick H. Lowe
Contributing Writer

(Special from NorthStar­News) — Minister Louis Far­rakhan, who spoke at a repa­ra­­tions conference recently at Chicago State Univ­ersity, told the audience that he is ill.

”My family did not want me to come here today,” said Minister Farrakhan, the National Repre­sentative of the Nation of Islam, which is based in Chicago. “I just came out of the hospital, and I am in a weakened condition.” Minister Farrakhan said no one knew he was in the hospital, and he did not name the hospital.

The 81 year-old minister did not disclose why he was hospitalized, but in the past he has been treated for prostate cancer.

In a 2003 article in The Final Call, the Nation of Islam’s newspaper, he disclosed that he survived prostate cancer, and he urged all men to get checked for the disease, which is the leading type of cancer that affects Black men and the second-leading cause of cancer deaths among Black men, according to the American Cancer Society.

In 1999, Minister Farrakhan underwent surgery at Howard University Hospital for prostate cancer.

During his speech on April 19, he made a reference to his mortality, but wasn’t clear whether he was dying from an undisclosed illness or that he was just getting older or both.

He said he was older and he did not have time to “pussyfoot around.” Despite his undisclosed illness, Minister Farrakhan delivered a rousing closing speech during the conference titled “Revitalizing The Reparations Movement,” which was held on Saturday at Chicago State University.

Members of the Fruit Islam stood at both ends of the stage, blocking the entrance to anyone who was not an official speaker as Minister Farrakhan sat in a comfortable chair and listened to the others who spoke before him.

The Fruit of Islam directed audience members to walk through a metal detector as they entered the Emil and Patricia Jones Con­vocation Center, where the conference was held. Guests also were patted down and purses and brief cases were checked. Women of the Nation of Islam seated audience members.

The one-day conference was held to re-ignite the reparations movement throughout the United States in the wake of 14 Carib­bean nations demanding that Europe pay reparations for the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Minister Farrakhan took issue with the conference title. “Our movement for reparations should never have to be revitalized.”

When the conference ended, Fruit of Islam members surrounded Minister Farrakhan and escorted him from the building.

This article originally published in the April 28, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.