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Among the judges, attorneys and Police Department brass who recently gathered to honor Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, one man stood out as a puzzle: Tony Muhammad, Western regional minister of the Nation of Islam.
Yes, that Nation, those hard-talking advocates of Islam and black nationalism notorious for four decades of bad blood with law enforcement. These are the guys who took on 75 LAPD officers in a 1962 shootout that left one Nation member dead and 22 police and Muslims injured. A portrait hangs in the lobby of their Vermont Avenue mosque of Oliver X. Beasley, a member killed by sheriff's deputies in another shootout in 1990.
Yet Muhammad came to the party, celebrating Parks' 37 years of service, as a welcome guest. He thanked the chief for building bridges with his members in a joint fight against crime. "For the first time in history, there has been healing between the Nation of Islam and the Los Angeles Police Department," Muhammad declared to the audience.
Healing is not a word usually associated with the Nation of Islam or its fiery leader, Louis Farrakhan. Among many African Americans, the Nation has long been respected as a positive force: clean-cut Muslims in suit and bow tie helping gang members get right, preaching a message of black pride and self-sufficiency. Outside the black community, however, the Nation has just as long been mistrusted as a militant, separatist, race-baiting, Jew-hating sect of radical--and unorthodox--Muslims.
But when Farrakhan kicks off the organization's annual meeting at the Los Angeles Convention Center today--the first time the massive event will be held outside his Chicago-area home base--the refrain of healing will be everywhere.
It is in the World Saviours' Day convention's theme: "Healing the Wounds to Bring About a Universal Family." It is in the convention's workshops--"Healing the Wounds Among the Children of Abraham," for instance--and the wide call for people of all races and religions to attend the convention, which is expected to draw more than 20,000.
Farrakhan, 69, a skilled musician, will begin the five-day convention tonight with a Beethoven violin concerto at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts--"a healing piece for humanity," as Muhammad describes it. The concert will pay tribute to Farrakhan's musical idol,...