The Nation of Islam and the House

Democratic leadership members have a history with Louis Farrakhan.

By Jeryl Bier, WSJ

• James Clyburn of South Carolina. Mr. Clyburn, first elected in 1992, will hold the No. 3 post, majority whip, as he did in 2007-11. Mr. Clyburn is also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which in September 1993 entered what then-CBC Chairman Kweisi Mfumecalled a “sacred covenant” with the Nation of Islam. The pact was ostensibly dissolved in February 1994, after it emerged that Farrakhan aide Khalid Abdul Muhammad had given a speech in which he called Jews the “bloodsuckers of the black nation.” But in July 2000, Mr. Clyburn, then CBC chairman, formed a partnership with Mr. Farrakhan’s Million Family March.

In 2005 Mr. Clyburn became chairman of the Democratic Caucus. The same year, photojournalist Askia Muhammad reported that “practically all 43 CBC members” (including then-Sen. Barack Obama) met Mr. Farrakhan in preparation for the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March. In 2011 Mr. Clyburn again joined Mr. Farrakhan, for a town-hall gathering in Pittsburgh titled “The Disappearing Black Community.” Mr. Clyburn told the Final Call, the Nation of Islam’s newspaper, that he was “not bothered in the least bit” by criticism of the appearance.

• Barbara Lee of California. New York’s Rep. Hakeem Jeffries narrowly defeated Ms. Lee to become chairman of the Democratic Caucus, the No. 4 leadership position. Mrs. Pelosi then named Ms. Lee a co-chairman of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. Ms. Lee was at the 2005 CBC meeting with Farrakhan, where she posed for a group photo. In January 2006, she and other CBC members met privately with Mr. Farrakhan in New Orleans. A video shows Ms. Lee embracing Mr. Farrakhan, who calls her “my sister.” Not until March 2018 did Ms. Lee say: “I unequivocally condemn Minister Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic and hateful comments.”

• Maxine Waters of California. The new chairman of the Financial Services Committee was also a member of the CBC delegation that met Mr. Farrakhan in 1993 and announced the “sacred covenant.” Ms. Waters appeared at 1997’s Million Women March and attended Mr. Farrakhan’s February 2002 Savior’s Day address, in which he expressed sympathy for Palestinian suicide bombers.

In July 2002, Ms. Waters attended a Farrakhan briefing to the CBC on his “peace mission,” which included a stop in Iraq. Ms. Waters appeared in the 2005 group photo with Mr. Farrakhan and was in New Orleans in 2006, where she told Mr. Farrakhan she’d like to meet with him to plan a strategy for getting post-Katrina New Orleans on the national agenda. (Ms. Waters’s office has declined to say whether such a meeting took place.)

“The difference between Farrakhan and some members of the alt-reich whose heinous bigotry has received a lot of attention this past year,” CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted last February, is that “Farrakhan has a much larger following and elected officials meet with him openly.” Another difference is that with a few exceptions such as Mr. Tapper, the media don’t seem to care.

Mr. Bier is an accountant and freelance writer.