Photo released after 12-years of then U.S. Senator Obama and Louis Farrakhan

Esme Cribb in a Talking Points Memo (TPM) article titled “The Photo That Never Saw The Light of Day: Obama With Farrakhan In 2005” released a photo taken by Askia Muhammad of then Democrat U.S. Senator Barack Obama and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

The photo above was hidden for 12 years and has now been released in Askia Muhammad’s autobiography. 

Pictured from left to right are: Minister Farrakhan’s son-in-law, Leonard Farrakhan Muhammad; His son and security chief, Mustapha Farrakhan; U. S. Sen. Barack Obama; Minister Farrakhan’s son Joshua Farrakhan; Minister Louis Farrakhan, and the Rev. Willie F. Wilson, pastor of Washington, D.C.’s Union Temple Baptist Church.

Cribb reports:

A journalist announced last week that he will publish a photograph of then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D) and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan that he took in 2005 at a Congressional Black Caucus meeting, but did not make public because he believed it would have “made a difference” to Obama’s political future.

The photographer, Askia Muhammad, told the Trice Edney News Wire that he “gave the picture up at the time and basically swore secrecy.”

[ … ]

Reached by TPM on Thursday, Muhammad said a “staff member” for the CBC contacted him “sort of in a panic” after he took the photo at a caucus meeting in 2005. TPM has published the photo above [featured photo] with Muhammad’s permission.

TPM learned about the photograph and Muhammad’s upcoming book from a write-up in Richard Prince’s Journal-isms newsletter.

The Discover the Networks profile on Louis Farrakhan notes:

In the 1960s Farrakhan developed a strong enmity toward fellow NOI [Nation of Islam] member Malcolm X, who backed a more moderate vision of black civil rights than did Farrakhan. When Malcolm in 1964 publicly revealed that NOI leader Elijah Muhammad had impregnated several of his teenage secretaries, Farrakhan, outraged at what he perceived to be Malcolm’s disloyalty, called him a traitor and denounced him in the NOI newspaper Muhammad Speaks: “Only those who wish to be led to hell, or to their doom, will follow Malcolm. The die is set, and Malcolm shall not escape, especially after such evil, foolish talk about his benefactor; such a man is worthy of death and would have been met with death if it had not been for Muhammad’s confidence in Allah for victory over his enemies.” Ten weeks later, on February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was killed in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom by three gunmen with ties to NOI. [Emphasis added]

According to Discover the Networks:

Farrakhan also has a long, well-documented history of venom-laced references to the “white devils” and Jewish “bloodsuckers” who purportedly decimate America’s black community from coast to coast. He has referred to Judaism as a “gutter religion,” and to Adolf Hitler as “a very great man“ — though he later claimed that he had meant only that Hitler was “wickedly great.” He has made innumerable statements depicting whites and Jews as loathsome, racist oppressors of blacks. [Emphasis added]

In March 2000 the Philadelphia Inquirer quoted Farrakhan saying, “White people are potential humans … they haven’t evolved yet.”

So we can now see why the Congressional Black Caucus did not want a picture of Louis Farrakhan entering one of their meetings hand in hand with Senator Barack Obama.

RELATED VIDEOS:

Obama with Farrakhan in 2005: The hidden picture.

Louis Farrakhan meets with members of the Congressional Black Caucus including Representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA-43) and Al Green (D-TX-09) privately after a town-hall event in 2005 discussing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This meeting was at St. Augustine Church in New Orleans, LA.

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