Last week, the world mostly ignored the 90th birthday of Minister Louis Farrakhan, the once-fiery and formidable leader of the Nation of Islam religious sect.
Corporate and social media’s indifference to Farrakhan speaks to an unofficial sunsetting of the traditional black leadership class, the death of the legacies left by Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Farrakhan has fallen into the same irrelevance that more than a decade ago captured his fellow Chicago-based racial justice comrade Jesse Jackson, the founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. Both men reached their social and political peaks decades ago. Farrakhan’s was the Million Man March in 1995. Jackson’s was his 1988 presidential campaign. Age and social media deplatforming canceled Farrakhan. Barack Obama and Parkinson’s disease canceled Jackson.
Farrakhan and Jackson, the spiritual and cultural heirs of Malcolm and Martin, tell us a great deal about the divergent visions and social impact of their mentors.