MEMPHIS, TN – Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan visited Memphis on Sunday to commemorate the 14th anniversary of the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. He spoke to a packed house inside the Cook Convention Center, telling the crowd that the message of responsibility that he preached then is just as necessary now. “We must accept responsibility to build our own communities,” said Farrakhan, whose speech was the keynote address for the Nation of Islam's "Holy Day of Atonement" to honor the Million Man March. "How do you expect others to care more for you than you are willing to care for yourself?”
He said 14 years after the Million Man March, America faces the same crossroads, even with Barack Obama in the White House.
"We have to be careful the masses of the people are not being pacified by the fact that the first black president sits in the White House,” he said. "This can pacify you, and lull you to sleep in a dangerous time, making you think we live in a post-racial America when the opposite is true."
Farrakhan told the crowd that Obama “is the American president, not the black president.”
“So don’t expect for him to do for us what we’ve got to marshal our energy and our talents to do for ourselves,” he said, adding that he sympathized with Obama.
“If he decides to stay in Iraq, I don’t think it will come out right for him or our children that will be sent to be slaughtered in that land,” Farrakhan said. “And that land is Afghanistan.
“What our brother is attempting to do is to bring America back from the brink of destruction, but the reality is it may be too little too late,” he added.
Farrakhan's message of self-reliance resonated with the crowd.
“Now he's trying to re-spark that same enthusiasm and perpetuate the same movement and the same truth and energy that spawned the million man march,” said Charles Dallas, who called Farrakhan’s visit to Memphis an inspiration. “For the minister to even consider stopping by Memphis is prestigious because he could have said ‘Memphis is not a big enough crowd for my celebrity.’ But he didn’t. So it’s a big honor.”
His friend James Pampley agreed.
“He was saying us as a people, we have to pick up the responsibility and rebuild our community,” Pampley said. “And that really hit me.”
Farrakhan said that message is universal.
"It's not about the color of your skin, it's about the way you think, and the way you act, and the ruling idea that's in your heart and your mind,” he said.
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