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A. Farrakhan: I don't feel that we can go down the road to liberation without a John Jacob, without a Jesse Jackson, without a Dorothy Height, without a Coretta Scott King or a Congressional Black Caucus or an N.A.A.C.P.
I mean, I have grown to the point, by God's grace, that I see the value of each and every one of these persons to the overall struggle of our people.
I feel that not only do they have something to offer me, but I have something to offer them. I'm not trying to be mainstream. I don't even know what that is. I don't know whether any black has ever achieved mainstream. But I do know this. I want the unity of black organizations and black leaders that we might form a united front and seriously discuss what we can do to better the condition of our people.
Q. TIME: Has there been any discussion about just that?
A. Farrakhan: We have never got to the point where we would sit down to open up these kinds of discussions. Unfortunately, there are those who saw in me a poison that would infect that group. And so they used their influence to push that group away from me. Even if they liked me, they could not associate with me for fear of what it would do to them professionally and economically.
So now we have to get to this talk of anti-Semitism. Am I really anti- Semitic? Do I really want extermination of Jewish people? Of course, the answer is no. Now here's where the problem is. When I am accused of being a Hitler, a black Hitler, because of my oratorical ability and my ability to move people, there is fear that I'm not under control. By the grace of God, I shall never be under the control of those who do not want the liberation of our people. I cannot do that.
The idea is to isolate me, and hopefully, through the media and everybody calling me a hater, a racist, an anti-Semite, that I would just dry up and go away.
Now they have done this for 10 years, and I have not gone away. Now fortunately or unfortunately, they have forced other black leaders into silence on the basic issues of race and color and economics, and Farrakhan now has emerged as the voice that speaks to the hurt of our people.
Now I'm going to come to something that may get me in a lot of trouble. But I've got to speak the truth. What is a bloodsucker? When they land on your skin, they suck the life from you to sustain their life.
In the '20s and '30s and '40s, up into the '50s, the Jews were the primary merchants in the black community. Wherever we were, they were. What was their role? We bought food from them; we bought clothing from them; we bought furniture from them; we rented from them. So if they made profit from us, then from our life they drew life and came to strength. They turned it over to the Arabs, the Koreans and others, who are there now doing what? Sucking the lifeblood of our own community.
Every black artist, or most of them who came to prominence, who are their managers, who are their agents? Does the agent have the talent or the artist? But who reaps the benefits? Come on. We die penniless and broke, but somebody else is sucking from us. Who surrounds Michael Jackson? Is it us?
+ See, Brother, we've got to look at what truth is. You throw it out there as if to say this is some of the same old garbage that was said in Europe. I don't know about no garbage said in Europe.