Interchange – Louis Farrakhan: The Last Radical Conservative

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Louis Farrakhan, Black Lives Matter, and the future of black political leadership in the United States. I speak with Freddie deBoer about his Harper’s Monthly article “The Charmer” and the way Farrakhan’s “Million Man March” served as both a show of force and an example of resistance and separation from white America, prefiguring both the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements. The March a strange ideological mix part GOP convention, part Black Panther rally, according to deBoer. Bonus: Louis Farrakhan was first a violin prodigy, then a calypso singer calling himself “The Charmer.”

GUEST
Fredrik deBoer is a regular blogger and writer currently writing a column for the Observer. He’s been published in Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, The New York Times, Politico, Playboy, Full Stop Quarterly, Vox, Salon, Talking Points Memo, N+1, Jacobin, In These Times, The Week, The New Inquiry, Quartz, The Huffington Post, and others. He is also an academic whose scholarly work concerns writing assessment, applied linguistics, writing program administration, and higher education policy.

He blogs at “Interfaces of the Word.”

MUSIC
“Brown Skin Gal” by Louis Wolcott (“The Charmer” Louis Farrakhan)
“Ugly Woman” by Louis Wolcott (“The Charmer” Louis Farrakhan)
“Is She Is or Is She Ain’t” by Louis Wolcott (“The Charmer” Louis Farrakhan)

CLIPS
A 16 year old Louis Wolcott (Farrakhan) appearing on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour playing violin (1949)
60 Minutes Interview with Mike Wallace (1996)
Farrakhan plays Mendelssohn, 1993 (Youtube)
Tavis Smiley “State of the Black Union” Farrakhan Speech (2006)

RELATED
“Louis Farrakhan, the last radical conservative” by Freddie deBoer

CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
Board Engineer: Jonathan Richardson
Executive Producer: Joe Crawford