Prophet Of Rage: A Life Of Louis Farrakhan And His Nation - Hardcover

Magida, Arthur J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465064361 ISBN 13: 9780465064366

Publisher: Basic Books, 1996

Synopsis

He preaches a dynamic message of African-American empowerment and self-reliance, offering discipline and hope to those most in need. At the same time, he outrages mainstream America with his fiery rhetoric and unrestrained criticism of whites, Jews, and Catholics, whom he blames for the ongoing oppression of blacks. He is the Reverend Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, and his voice shakes the nation.Prophet of Rage penetrates the rhetoric that surrounds this enigmatic figure to reveal his personal story, tracing his life from his birth as Eugene Walcott in the Bronx through his childhood in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, his training as a classical violinist, and his career as a calypso singer. It then follows his remarkable political career, recounting his indoctrination into the Nation of Islam, during which time he took the name “Louis X”; explaining his involvement with the assassination of Malcolm X; and chronicling his rise to power as a powerful orator, political leader, and self-proclaimed prophet.

About this title

About the Author

Arthur J. Magida is Editorial Director of Jewish Lights Publishing.

Reviews

Magida was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his reporting on the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, but this biography adds little to our knowledge or understanding of this fiery, notorious man. Editorial director of Jewish Lights and a former editor at the Baltimore Jewish Times, Magida might not seem like the ideal biographer for a man who calls Jews ``bloodsuckers.'' But a lack of objectivity and fairness are not the flaws of this rather thin work. The problem is that, despite having obtained several personal interviews with Farrakhan--no mean accomplishment--Magida mostly rehashes the public record of the minister's activities, especially his growing conflicts with Jews during the 1980s and '90s. There are occasional insights, such as a clarification of Farrakhan's reference to Judaism as a ``dirty religion.'' Noting that ``Farrakhan's religious vocabulary was so peculiar, so idiosyncratic'' that it was virtually incomprehensible, Magida shows by other examples that the phrase refers to hypocrisy in religion, rather than the content of any particular faith. Farrakhan, n‚ Louis Eugene Walcott, was the son of a West Indian immigrant woman in Roxbury, Mass., who supported her children by working as a maid. We learn that the star pupil and gifted young violinist always had an innate sense of his ``chosenness'' as well as a gift for performance and a love of fame and adulation. But we don't learn what motivated the popular young calypso performer known as ``the Charmer'' to join NOI, nor do we get beyond his public statements on such heated topics as his relationship with Malcolm X, his split with NOI leader Elijah Muhammad's son and successor, and his dealings with other black leaders. In the end, though hardly exonerating Farrakhan's anti-Semitic rhetoric, Magida is perhaps too fair to this false prophet. He is certainly too far removed from the workings of NOI to give a full picture of a divisive and difficult figure. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Magida, editorial director of Jewish Lights, has interviewed Louis Farrakhan often enough to have grounds to argue that the controversial Nation of Islam leader treats individual Jews with respect. But as he shows in this fair-minded study?more about the NOI than about Farrakhan himself?it is Farrakhan's public statements that matter. Magida first sketches Louis Gene Walcott's youth in Boston's Roxbury and his drifting into black nationalism and the Nation of Islam. He then delves into what he sees as the NOI's self-fabricated religion, arguing that its much-praised discipline was enforced by the paramilitary Fruit of Islam's strong-arm tactics. Magida contends that Farrakhan has glossed over, rather than repudiated, the incendiary language that pointed to Malcolm X's death. When the NOI in 1976 was folded into orthodox Islam, Farrakhan resurrected its nationalist role. While Magida describes the mythologies behind Farrakhan's religion, he stints on analyzing its business efforts and its prominence on American college campuses, and he does not capture the drama of Farrakhan's public appearances. Still, he solidly deconstructs Farrakhan's headline-grabbing rhetoric about Jews and even hints that the initial Jewish "defensive reflex" hindered rapprochement. It is black America's grievances that Farrakhan draws on, and his organizing of the Million Man March gave him new, if still tenuous, stature, the author shows. Magida concludes that Farrakhan's subsequent trip to embrace Middle Eastern dictators squandered much of his momentum. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Magida, the editorial director of Jewish Times and former senior editor of the Baltimore Jewish Light, has written the first biography of controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The book languished at several publishing houses until Farrakhan rose to political prominence with October 1995's Million Man March. Magida obtained highly sought-after interviews with his subject in 1993 and 1994; the subsequent articles, drawn on here, made him a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Magida has no stated agenda but purports to offer an in-depth analysis of the fiery African American leader. While Magida details Farrakhan's public record, heated conflicts with the Jewish community, and political positions that were often contrary to those of such Civil Rights leaders as Martin Luther King Jr., little is revealed of the man behind the image and what drives him. Nevertheless, Magida's biography offers invaluable coverage of a prominent African American. For all biography and African-American studies collections.?Michael A. Lutes, Univ. of Notre Dame Lib., Ind
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Magida's subtitle for his book centered on the controversial head of the Nation of Islam misleads a bit. Although Magida does trace Louis Farrakhan's life, his greater subject is the peculiar religious movement that Farrakhan leads and its persistent anti-Semitism and violent rhetoric. In other words, the book is an example of investigative reporting more than of conventional biography. Magida doesn't give us any intimacies about or psychological analyses of Farrakhan; his main themes are the Nation's history of internecine violence and Farrakhan's fixed fondness for inflammatory speech. The violence, which abated after the death of Farrakhan's predecessor Elijah Muhammad, seems attributable to the Nation's originally recruiting its base of male adherents in prison and from the ranks of former convicts (Farrakhan, though, has never been jailed; indeed, he has struck only one person in his entire life). The anti-Semitism Magida traces far back into American history, with blacks in slavery absorbing their Christian owners' attitudes toward Jews. Hardly the last word on either Farrakhan, who finally seems a figure motivated primarily by love of notoriety, or the Nation of Islam, Magida's effort is still good enough as a first take on both. Ray Olson

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465064361
• ISBN 13: 9780465064366
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288