* Around the time of Khalid Muhammad's speech at Howard in February 1994, flyers were being distributed in Atlanta announcing a speech on February 27 at Spelman College, an elite Black women's college, by Silas Muhammad, Chief Executive Officer of the Nation of Islam Lost and Found (a separate organization from Farrakhan's, but which shares most of his worldview). The flyer began:
YES!!! The Jews ARE the BLOODSUCKERS of the Black Nation!! They're masquerading as the chosen people of God in an attempt to steal our birthright!
After announcing the place, date, and time of the speech, the flyer ended with this tag line:
THE HEAT OF A GERMAN OVEN IS NOTHING COMPARED TO THE FIRE THAT ALLAH HAS KINDLED FOR THEM!!
Silas Muhammad was to give the keynote address at his organization's celebration of Saviour's Day (an important holiday for the group) in Atlanta. The Nation of Islam Lost and Found denied circulating the notice, but Spelman decided not to allow the group to hold its celebration at the school after the Atlanta ADL Office brought the flyer to the attention of Spelman president Johnetta Cole. Soon thereafter, Moorehouse College canceled a similar Silas Muhammad appearance.
* On May 19, 1994, students at San Francisco State University unveiled a 10-foot mural honoring Malcolm X. Its left border featured a U.S. flag, dollar signs, Stars of David, a skull and crossbones, and the words, "African blood." It had been commissioned by the Pan-African Student Union and African Student Alliance. A student government committee that approved the mural claimed not to know it would contain such symbols. Jewish students, a Black faculty member, and others protested the anti-Semitism and asked that the offending section be painted over. The artist refused, saying he had not meant to offend Jews but to depict Malcolm X's anti-Israel feelings. A day after it appeared, the mural was splattered with red paint.
In the days following, while the student government debated the fate of the mural, supporters of the painting broadcast tapes of Malcolm's speeches on the campus plaza and chanted "Zionism is racism." On May 24, school president Robert Corrigan issued a forceful statement condemning the mural, blasting the student government for its inability to resolve the problem, and authorizZing the painting's removal:
This is not a free speech issue. It is the case of a commissioned artwork, placed without final approval and with widely offensive elements, as a permanent part of a state building. . . Particularly offensive is the prominent use within the mural itself of a yellow Star of David. With all its historical associations with Nazi Germany, such a symbol is shocking and utterly abhorrent. If we were to allow the mural to remain as is, we would be contributing to a hostile campus environment, one which says to students: 'We tolerate intolerance; we are silent in the face of bigotry.'
Corrigan's blunt response resulted in the mural being painted over the next day (the artist, given the option of painting over just the offensive symbols, refused). However, some students washed off the gray paint, so the mural had to be sandblasted away. Corrigan's sharply worded, candid statement is all the more remarkable when contrasted with the weak and delayed responses of other college and university presidents to anti-Semitic incidents on their campuses.
* Despite his efforts, Corrigan did not succeed in banishing Black anti-Semitism from San Francisco State. In November 1994, the Pan African Student Union and The All African Peoples Revolutionary Party (which was founded by Black nationalist and anti-Zionist propagandist Kwame Ture, the former Stokely Carmichael) invited longtime anti-Israel activist Ralph Schoenman to speak on campus. A flyer announcing the lecture was headlined, "Zionism is Racism!" It billed Schoenman as a "Jewish scholar, writer, human rights activist" who would speak about "Isreali (sic) brutality and Zionist imperialism throughout Africa, Latin Amer., and Palestine." Underneath, in smaller letters, the flyer read, "Come and learn why students resisted SFSU administration, CSU police, along with the Zionist powers who defaced the mural of Malcolm X at the end of last semester. Come and find out why the Zionists hide behind the term, 'anti-Semitic' when they are condemned by the masses for their evil actions against helpless people."
About 25 of the audience of 60 seemed to identify with or were members of the sponsoring organizations. The nearly two-hour speech was filled with half-truths and blatant lies presented in a seemingly reasonable manner.
* The impact of NOI and similar thinkers may be seen at its most pernicious through the activities of students who not only cheer anti-Semitic diatribes, but deliver them. One of the more recent -- as well as particularly flagrant -- examples of this impact was a letter in the October 12, 1995, Columbia University newspaper, The Spectator, written by the head of the school's Black Student Organization, Sharod Baker. Entitled, "Struggling Blacks don't need dirty tricks," it was a noxious anti-Semitic diatribe filled with classic NOI statements about Jews and whites. Among other statements, Baker wrote:
I single Jews out because their oppression of blacks cannot go unnoticed while they disguise their evilness under the skirts and costumes of the Rabbi. Lift up the yarmulke and what you will find is the blood of millions of Africans weighing on their heads. It is their consciences that make them write articles that attack me. . . I speak of Jews because of those from their race who are always on our backs like leeches sucking the blood from the black community then pretending to be our friends.
Baker, a senior who has a twice-monthly column in the newspaper called "Blackdafide," is known on campus for bringing NOI speakers, including Khalid Abdul Muhammad, to Columbia. The column, which resonates with NOI-type phrases, appeared to be a reaction to Jewish criticism of and opposition to the Million Man March in Washington. It brought an outcry from the campus Jewish community, alumni, parents and prospective students.
Although The Spectator had every right to publish the article, the editors would have been well within their rights and responsibilities to reject it, or at the very least edit it. Like professionals, student journalists are obliged to make critical decisions on the veracity and logic of published material. The student editors maintained that they published the column to give the issue a good airing and alert the Columbia community to the beliefs that existed on campus; however, the impact on race relations and intergroup understanding at the university were severely harmed.
The university issued a terse statement that claimed to deplore Baker's letter but maintained its right to be published. On November 7, University president George Rupp wrote a letter to the Columbia community condemning Baker's piece in far stronger terms. He claimed his fund-raising travels in Asia in October had prevented him from issuing a statement sooner. Unlike his peers at Kean College and Howard University, Rupp did not invoke freedom of speech as a justification for printing the letter. He also condemned Baker in much more unequivocal terms than did the other presidents confronted with similar problems:
The October 12 article was full of anti-Semitic rhetoric. It used hateful language about the Jewish people that is redolent with the worst elements of modern history, perhaps of all history. No person of goodwill can read or hear such language without calling it what it is: shameful and unacceptable. This issue is not about free speech alone. Of course we support free speech. . . But we are not obliged to honor every utterance. I see no evidence that this article is seeking truth. It contains egregious factual errors. It relies on the crudest and most inflammatory images and stereotypes. . . In short, it is unworthy of the discourse we expect in this community.
On November 15, Baker spoke at a Columbia forum entitled, "A Call to Unity," where he apologized for his letter. "I apologize for the colloquial language and the flippant way that I wrote concerning the Jewish people and their culture. I was wrong in that I treated our serious case and lofty quest for fair treatment in a way that lowered the dignity of our case. . . I will stand and be man enough to apologize," Baker said.
* On October 16 -- a few days after Baker's letter appeared -- the Nation of Islam held its Million Man March in Washington, DC. This gathering served as a true "Day of Atonement" for many of the participants, as it had been billed, but it also gave some bigots, including those on campuses, a fresh opportunity to launch more tirades holding Jews responsible for American slavery. In the month following the march, anti-Semitic Op-Ed pieces appeared in newspapers at the University of Akron, California State University at Fresno, Southwest Texas University and the City University of New York's Hunter College. The writers decried Jews for calling Louis Farrakhan anti-Semitic and parroted the NOI leader's standard arguments "proving" that Jews controlled the slave trade.
* Howard University once more stimulated the concern of the Jewish community with an editorial in the March 8 issue of the student newspaper, The Hilltop. It accused ADL of spying on Black leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and of attempting to strong-arm corporations into halting their support for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People because of the support its former director, Benjamin Chavis, had given Farrakhan. The writer, editorial page editor David Gaither, called the League's Washington, DC Regional Director a "pariah," and stated that the school's chairman of African American Studies "should be held accountable" for working with ADL. Accompanying the editorial was a cartoon depicting ADL as a horned devil, a timeworn anti-Semitic image.
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