Keith Ellison, his apologists and his defenders have kept telling one lie about his past with the Nation of Islam. The refrain is that all he did was help out with the Million Man March. Just like Obama.
Of course that's a lie. As has been often documented, he had an extensive history with the racist hate group which believes that white people were created by a mad scientist and will be exterminated by UFOs. (It varies from vanilla Islam in some ways.)
Keith Ellison and I were then both 31 years old. He was on record as defending Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism since at least 1989, under the alias of Keith Hakim. But unlike the CBC, which immediately suspended its ties with the Nation of Islam after the vote, Ellison apparently saw no reason to rethink his position. In fact, he continued to identify with Farrakhan and work actively for the Nation of Islam for years after Muhammad’s speech.
In 1995, Ellison himself organized a rally featuring Muhammad—still an outspoken racist and anti-Semite—at the University of Minnesota. Muhammad apparently brought his A-game to the rally, promising that “if words were swords, the chests of Jews, gays and whites would be pierced.”
In 1997, Ellison defended a member of the Minneapolis Initiative Against Racism who said that Jews are “the most racist white people.” In his remarks, Ellison also defended America’s most notorious anti-Semite. “She is correct about Minister Farrakhan,” Ellison insisted. “He is not a racist. He is also not an anti-Semite. Minister Farrakhan is a tireless public servant of Black people…”
In fact, Ellison continued to publicly defend Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam through at least the year 2000, by which time he was serving as a Minnesota state representative.
The media has awkwardly tried to navigate around this history. And numerous defenses of Ellison, from J Street to Think Progress, have glossed over it and dismissed it as right-wing smears.
But Ellison's disavowal of the Nation of Islam has irritated his old buddies. And the Nation of Islam is known to be rather spiteful to defectors. So this piece not only confirms Ellison's past with the hate group, but adds some details.
"But let’s go back and examine words published in the Nov. 6, 1995 edition of Insight News, a Black weekly in Minneapolis: “Third, Minister Farrakhan is a role model for Black youth; however he is not an anti-Semite. He is a sincere, tireless and uncompromising advocate of the Black community and other oppressed peoples in America and around the world. Despite some of the most relentless negative propaganda anyone has ever faced, most Black people regard him as a role model for youth and increasingly, a central voice for our collective aspirations."
...
"That’s pretty powerful language and a powerful argument penned by one Keith X Ellison. Yes. That’s the same Rep. Keith Ellison who represents the Fifth Congressional District in Minnesota and seeks to chair the Democratic National Committee. He was also once known as Keith Ellison-Muhammad."
...
"Years ago sitting in my Chicago office here at The Final Call, when I was managing editor, there was no question about Min. Farrakhan and who he was. There was no question when Mr. Ellison, aka Keith X Ellison, aka Keith Ellison-Muhammad, came to Chicago for an urban peace summit in October 1993 that featured Min. Farrakhan, or a vital summit in Kansas City that included Min. Farrakhan as the major speaker and one who helped legitimize the anti-violence movement in April 1993."
Ellison always knew.