The Final Call

A Message to the WOMEN OF IMPACT Awards 2019

By Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan | Last updated: Mar 12, 2019 - 10:00:37 AM

What's your opinion on this article?

Thank you my dear brother, Abdul Akbar Muhammad, and to Imam Abdul Malik and to all of you who are gathered together to honor brothers and sisters, men and women, who have made an impact in helping to solve the many problems that we are presenting for solution.

I’m honored that Brother Malik invited me to share a few words and I thank him, and I thank you.

Now, my dear brothers and sisters, when we receive an honor, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said to me, we don’t get honor, real honor, until the job is done. So, this Impact Award is encouragement to all the brothers and sisters who are working on the problem of Freedom, Justice and Equality for our people and for all who are deprived of these three essentials of life.  

You have made an impact, but the problem still remains. So, we thank you for your work and we encourage you and others to keep on working and one day we will be able to say, “Wow, job well done. The Black man and woman of America and humanity throughout the earth are free at last, free at last.”

Today is a great day, the 19th of January, and women are marching, saying to the world, no longer will women accept an inferior status or position. The Holy Qur’an, which is the most magnificent book of guidance and scripture says, God speaking, “That the female is not like the male. She is one degree beneath the male.”

Well, if you have a circumference of 360 degrees, one degree of difference is hardly noticeable at all. So, Allah says in the Qur’an, “The Believing Men, the Believing Women. The faithful men, the faithful women. The knowledgeable men, the knowledgeable women. The sacrificing men, the sacrificing women. God, when he puts that conjunction “and” between women and men, in that conjunction it unites two equal parts. So, we cannot have an impact. We cannot solve the problem with men in a state of sickness mentally reducing women to less than that that Almighty God Allah has designed her for.

A few years ago, my beloved little sister, Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez, Linda Sarsour, and many others joined together Black, and Brown and Red, and Yellow, and White, Christians and Jews, and Muslims, and Buddhists, and Hindus, and Nationalists, and Communists, and Socialists and LGBTQ women who saw in the election of Mr. Donald Trump a means in them to cry out in unity. Never again will women accept inferior status relegated to insufficient recognition for the great work that women do.

Today, it grieves me to see the division that the enemy of God has promoted because of their hatred of Louis Farrakhan. I would hope that the women will never let the hatred of a group of people for one man destroy the power of their unity for it is the unity of women all over this earth that is the signal that a whole new world is coming in.

Whatever your differences are let not Louis Farrakhan be the reason why you break apart. This intense hatred of a few for me has led them to insanity. They don’t want our people to associate with you or with me.  They say, “well, if President Clinton stood on the same stage with Louis Farrakhan at the homegoing of Aretha Franklin, he has something to answer for.”

What arrogance of Mr. Alan Dershowitz? (A Jewish lawyer and defender of President Trump.) Now if anybody shakes my hand, or smiles at me, or takes a picture with me, all of a sudden they have become anti-Semitic. It is as though Farrakhan is a walking disease of anti-Semitism.  And if you just stand near him, you are going to become an anti-Semite. First of all, I am not that nor will I ever admit to any such appellation that I am an anti-Semite. I am anti-falsehood, anti-injustice, anti-slavery, anti-neocolonialism, anti-poverty and want for the suffering of the whole of humanity. So, this intense hatred of a few people for me is because I know the truth.  

Their hatred of me is so insane that if we went into the men’s room together or you came into the men’s room while I was in there, you better hurry, do your business and run out before they call you an anti-Semite. This is insanity. 

So, my dear and beloved sisters, go back to the table and sit down and work out differences; but if you want my sisters or want my friends to repudiate me, denounce me, I have 64 years of work in the Black community that has nothing to do with the Jewish people. It is our commitment to change the wretched condition of Black people, now Brown people, now Native American people, now the whole of humanity, and you’re going to allow this intense hatred of one man to spoil the motion of one of the greatest movements of women that I have been blessed in my life to see?

I rejoiced three years ago when the women marched all over the world in unity. Never again allow this to divide you. Tamika Mallory is not an anti-Semite and you know it, Linda Sarsour, nor Carmen Perez, nor any of us. We denounce anti-Semitism. Notice that I said, “we” because I’m involved in that. We hate to see people hated because of their faith, hated because of their particular or peculiar stand.  

All of us are suffering in a world that is going down. So, we need one another but righteousness and wickedness, I’m sorry, cannot remain together. We’re going to have to recognize that righteousness and moral conduct is the glue that will make one brother and sister unite with another. It is not about your idea or mine. It’s about God’s desire to see a new world come in and that new world is anchored in a new woman.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that “75 percent of his work is with women.” And as the earth is three-quarters water and one quarter land, and out of water comes all life. Women, women, women are the most important aspect of life and making a brand new civilization.  

So, sisters, rise up and stand for justice and truth. And, brothers, this is our call to stand up for our women. Never again let any cultural divide come up to make us put women down; and you know what I’m talking about because that cultural divide in Islam is not the way of Allah and Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him. Women and men in Mecca pray together. Women and men work together for the common good.  So, let not these cultural norms interfere with the true norm which is the cultural norm of Islam.

I thank you all for allowing me this privilege this morning to congratulate those who would gain an award for their impact and their work; but I hope, and I pray that women, no matter who they are, will come together and work together to make a mark that says a new world is coming in and it’s coming in through women.  

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, “When you teach a man, you teach an individual; but when you teach a woman, you teach a nation.”  A nation rises on the wisdom that is imparted to women. So, the freedom of women all over the world to gain as much knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of all things is vital. No woman should be left behind.  

When you need a pilot, you don’t say no women apply. When you need an engineer, when you need a judge, when you need a lawyer, when you need a doctor, when you need a companion in struggle, a woman will always be there to help us to be the men that God wants us to be.

I thank you from the depth of my heart. I wish I was feeling better that I could look in your beautiful faces this afternoon, but unfortunately, I’m in Phoenix and I’m not feeling as well as I would like; but I promised that I would be on this phone. I heard your applause at a certain point, and it sounds like you have a great crowd there.  

May Allah bless you, and guide you, and protect you, and keep you and me pushing toward the goal, which is the unity of all of us who are oppressed that we rise up together and bring in a brand new world, and a brand new civilization.

Thank you for listening. As-Salaam Alaikum.