Word: farrakhan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Noting that Jackson had claimed to be waging a moral crusade, Jewish leaders turned the morality issue against him. If Jackson did not disavow Farrakhan, they argued, then Walter Mondale should reject Jackson as unfit for any role in the party's political campaign. Caught in the controversy, Mondale faced the delicate task of trying to maintain Jewish support without alienating Jackson and his millions of black supporters...
...agile Jackson, flirting with the double danger of diplomatic and political disaster throughout the hectic week, ended it with some claims to success. He calmed the Farrakhan issue by disavowing the renegade minister's hateful words and returned to Washington with 48 men freed from Castro's prisons: 22 Americans jailed for alleged criminal offenses, mostly related to drugs, and 26 anti-Castro Cubans who were granted entry into the U.S. (see following story...
...Jackson was moving on to Havana later on Monday, reporters back home were catching up with Farrakhan's latest pronouncements. Though reporters were barred from his Sunday-afternoon harangue to followers at his Chicago headquarters, the speech was carried by a local radio station and a few journalists taped it. Some reports said Farrakhan had called Judaism a "gutter religion." Farrakhan vehemently denied this, offering a reward of "$100,000 and my life to anyone" who could prove he said "gutter." He insisted he had termed it a "duty religion," as though the distinction were significant. People listening...
Early Tuesday morning, CBS Morning News asked Jackson for his reaction to Farrakhan's anti-Semitic remarks. Jackson replied, "I have no reaction. In America people have freedom of speech. They can say what they want to about what they want to. Pressed, he complained, "I don't understand what he said. I don't understand the context of it. I feel no obligation to respond to it." Jackson told other reporters that he would respond only when he learned the contents and context of Farrakhan's speech...
Mondale, aware of the rising emotions in which he could be engulfed, blasted Farrakhan's remarks as "venomous, bigoted and obscene," and said, "It is crucial that all of us, including the Rev. Jackson, repudiate Farrakhan." Henry Siegman, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, called Farrakhan "a vulgar bigot." But Siegman claimed that "the real issue is whether Walter Mondale will finally screw up enough courage to publicly break with Jesse Jackson unless Jackson repudiates, clearly and unequivocally, the political support of his racist and anti-Semitic friend...