Amazing Grace

Williams considers herself a rare voice speaking out about alleged sexual harassment in the Nation. "Until there are some changes in how our rights as women are protected, when a situation such as mine arises, it is unfair to ask us to put up with this madness," she complains in the letter to Farrakhan. "Our Laborers [NOI officials] do not investigate anything unless it concerns them. I believe that Laborers who sexually abuse women in the name of God have to know that they will be punished. There is no fear in them. There has to be fear put in them. Minister Benjamin abused women's trust before (in the name of God), and the fact that he did it again, immediately after he came into the NOI, proves that he did not learn anything from [the] NAACP scandal." Minister Benjamin, she charges, "moves on other brothers' wives, and even when they report it, it goes ignored." She ends her complaint to Farrakhan with this warning: "Something very bad is going to happen if Minister Benjamin is not stopped. He is still, to this day, the same way, and has no intention of changing. He is always talking about how hard he works for the Nation, so it seems to me he thinks that we are the 'perks' of his hard work."

Only a white demagogue would refuse to meet with Louis Farrakhan. He has shown in every way that he has come to terms with American racism and poses no overt or covert threat to the status quo. Meeting with Joe Lieberman would be a not so subtle signal to African Americans that they should follow the lead of the Congressional Black Caucus, which now says that it is comfortable with the right wing of the Democratic Party, represented by Lieberman and Gore. Farrakhan's gesture only buttresses his image as a loyal American who wants to do the best for his nation.