The town council of Greenburgh, New York, vowed to remove an “unauthorized” image of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan from a taxpayer-funded Black Lives Matter mural.
According to CBS News, the $100,000 mural celebrating the BLM movement includes an image of Farrakhan, who has praised Hitler, called Jewish people “Satan” and “termites,” blamed them for American slavery, chanted “death to Israel,” and publicly denied the Holocaust.
The town council claimed it “never approved” the image and promised to remove it, but community activist Clifton Abrams, who led the project, is considering raising funds to keep it up, WABC-TV reported.
A town spokesperson said the 2,500-square foot mural “does not match what was submitted in its original permit request,” according to CBS.
“The Black Lives Matter Manhattan Avenue Mural Subcommittee therefore voted to remove the unauthorized imagery. The artist has agreed that Louis Farrakhan will be taken off of the mural and the image will be removed this week,” the town council said in an Aug. 25 statement.
Abrams, however, said he is meeting with black political leaders to possibly pay for it with private funds.
“We love Minister Farrakhan. He’s an icon,” Abrams said.
“Louis Farrakhan is a vile and rabid antisemite. The hatred he spews against Jewish people should be universally condemned,” Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin and New York gubernatorial candidate told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Anyone who has called Hitler ‘a very great man’ should not be celebrated, especially at taxpayer expense.”
Farrakhan has a long history of inflammatory statements regarding Jewish people.
Should Farrakhan be removed from the mural?
“The Jews, a small handful, control the movement of this great nation, like a radar controls the movement of a great ship in the waters. … The Jews got a stranglehold on the Congress,” Farrakhan said in a 1990 speech in Chicago, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Westchester Jewish Council condemned the image of Farrakhan in the mural, stating that “his long public history of anti-Jewish and other bigoted comments makes his inclusion in this project completely improper,” WABC reported.
The town council of Greenburgh did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment. Farrakhan could not be reached for comment.
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