CSUN Black Students Plan Farrakhan Talk

NORTHRIDGE — Controversial Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan will speak at Cal State Northridge on Nov. 4 to commemorate the seizure of the school’s administration building by protesting black students in 1968 and the subsequent formation of a black studies department.

Farrakhan, who has been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks, is scheduled to speak at a $20-per-ticket event at CSUN’s North Campus Stadium, part of a weeklong series of anniversary activities sponsored by the university’s Black Students Union and Pan-African Studies Department.

“He’s just a wonderfully articulate speaker,” said Fabian Speights, a leader in the Black Students Union group. Speights said the title of Farrakhan’s 7 p.m. address will be “Death on the Horizon,” although Speights could not elaborate on what the title meant.

A spokesman for Farrakhan confirmed the planned speech, but said the title will be “The Struggle Continues” and expressed surprise at the planned outdoor venue, saying it might raise security concerns.

“I’m not sure we’d want to hold something outside,” said Wazir Muhammad, West Coast bureau chief for the Final Call, the Nation of Islam’s newspaper.

James Dennis, a professor in CSUN’s Pan-African Studies Department, said Farrakhan has spoken at the campus at least three times in the past, but said those appearances were in the early 1980s. Dennis said CSUN, with several thousand black students among its 27,000 enrollment, has one of the largest black studies departments in the country.

Dennis said he is not expecting any controversy associated with Farrakhan’s visit. But two San Fernando Valley rabbis, while stopping short of protesting Farrakhan’s appearance, said the visit will make Jews uncomfortable because of his past remarks. And they urged the minister to use the speech as an opportunity for reconciliation with the Jewish community.

“I think the ball is in his court,” said Rabbi Harold Schulweis of Temple Valley Beth Shalom in Encino.

“I wish he would not say things that divide people from one another,” added Rabbi Jerrold Goldstein of the Hillel Jewish Student Center adjoining the campus. Goldstein said CSUN has more than 5,000 Jewish students, the most of any university in the Western United States.

On Nov. 4, 1968, Dennis said, a group of black students seized the administration building at the campus, then known as San Fernando Valley State College, to protest a coach who allegedly had kicked a black student. Some of the students were later prosecuted for the incident, Dennis said.