Farrakhan praises Obama at Nation of Islam convention in Chicago

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Speaking to thousands of members of the Nation of Islam in Chicago at their annual convention, Minister Louis Farrakhan on Sunday praised presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama as the only hope for healing America's racial divisions.

Farrakhan spoke about the war in Iraq, the nation's ailing economy and the increase in natural disasters, saying the world was in a perilous state and Obama could help it recover.

"We are witnessing the phenomenal rise of a man of color in a country that has persecuted us because of our color," he said.

"If you look at Barack Obama's [diverse] audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed from what they were," Farrakhan said. "This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be a better place."

The speech, titled "The Gods At War—The Future is All About Y.O.U.th," closed the Nation of Islam's annual Saviours' Day Convention, which commemorates the birth of the movement's founder, Wallace D. Fard Muhammad.

Five months later, in February 2007, Farrakhan appeared at Ford Field in Detroit, suggesting it was time for a new era.

The Sunday speech at McCormick Place convention center again contradicted statements that Farrakhan's speech in Detroit last year was his final public address. Speculation arose about a potential successor to the controversial 74-year-old Muslim leader after September 2006, when an ailing Farrakhan handed leadership of the Nation over to an executive board.

Obama's big tent.