But the more intriguing portion of the speech focused upon gangs and efforts to seek leaders and members of these groups out for the sole purposes of protecting the Nation of Islam.
Minister Louis Farrakhan speaks during the Saviours’ Day annual convention at the U.I.C. Pavilion in Chicago, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013.
The Minister Louis Farrakhan, 79, delivered his annual Saviors’ Day sermon on Sunday. As is usually the case, the three-hour address covered a variety of topics ranging from current events to the faith leader’s contentious views on race relations. Of particular note was an economic plan he posited — one in which African Americans would come together to invest in land — and a pledge to reach out to gang leaders to ask them for assistance in protecting the Nation of Islam’s interests.
The Saviors’ Day address is generally a mixture of sermon and lecture. The event commemorates the founding of the Nation of Islam, which has espoused black nationalism and self-reliance since the 1930s. When President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the resounding tone of the convention was jubilant, but Obama’s re-election took a back seat Sunday as Farrakhan said blacks still had to rely on themselves, and not leaders, to improve their situation.
“Even though one of our own has reached the highest pinnacle of the American political system, his presence has not, cannot and will not solve our problems,” Farrakhan told the crowd of men wearing navy uniforms and women dressed in white shirt suits and matching hijabs.
With 10,000 people in attendance and with a video stream of the event airing online, the reach was relatively large.
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