Looking for Farrakhan

This impressionistic biography of Louis Farrakhan begins with the first back-to-Africa movements of the 19th century. In "Antecedents," Florence Hamlish Levinsohn surveys the many ways in which black Americans have sought to reject America and embrace Africa; she ends the summary with the Moorish Science Temple predecessors to the Nation of Islam (NOI). Levinsohn continues her search for Farrakhan in the history of the NOI, ending with the story of Louis Eugene Walcott, as Farrakhan was known before becoming a Muslim. She finally concludes that he is "the most influential man in the black world," and "a con artist, a charlatan, a demagogue, and an egomaniac." This is an important addition to the body of work about Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.