Prof. Gates Responds To Minister

Du Bois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates Jr. yesterday lambasted a local Black leader who criticized him on Boston radio.

Minister Don Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam in Boston, spoke on local radio Sunday to criticize an editorial by Gates. In the piece, which ran on a full page of The New York Times last week, Gates blasted the "demagogues and pseudo-scholars" who he said preach anti-Semitism. He singled out a new book by Nation of Islam researchers, The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, Vol. 1, as "the Bible" of a new isolationist movement.

In a speech on WILD, an urban contemporary music station, Muhammad defended the book and called for a televised debate between one of Gates' academic sources and Nation of Islam researchers.

In an interview yesterday, Gates said he would "rather be attacked" than "feel compromised by silence in the face of blatant falsehood."

Gates, who is currently conducting academic research in ltaly, said yesterday in a telephone interview with the Crimson that he would love to see such a debate, although he doubts it will come about.

Gates called Muhammad's speech a "pathetically limp response" that did not attempt to refute the editorial's specific charges.

"It's not unexpected," Gates said. "I found it predictably expected and pathetic."

Among other remarks, Muhammad said Sunday that, "Harvard has ruined more Negroes than bad whiskey."

When contacted yesterday, Muhammad said he is "not interested in discussing" Harvard's relationship to its Black professors, and declined to discuss Gates' piece further.

Gates said he doesn't see many followers of this separatist trend--whose most prominent figures include Louis Farrakhan and city University of New York Professor Leonard Jeffries--on Harvard's campus.

"What we find [at Harvard] is a typicalintellectual attitude that we want to defend theFirst Amendment and the right for students to readwhat they want to read," he said.

Gates, the chair of the Department ofAfro-American Studies, said students will choosethe texts in his Afro-Am seminars next year. Buthe said he would leap at the chance to do a"critical reading" of the Nation of lslam's book.

"I would love to do a demolition job on that,"he said.

Gates said he first sent the piece--which wasoriginally written as an address to board ofdirectors of B'nai Brith and the JewishAnti-Defamation League--to The New York times lastspring. When the Rodney King verdict sparked riotsin Los Angeles in May, Gates said he decided tohold the editorial.

"I didn't want the two events to be confused inanyone's mind," he said.

Gates said he stands behind his decision towrite it, saying it is "very important thatsomeone in my position stands up and says this iswrong."

A grateful message from a Holocaust survivor isamong the dozens of positive letters, cables andfaxes Gates said he has received in response tohis editorial.

He said he feels "very good" about writing thepiece. "Someone should have done it earlier," hesaid.

This story was compiled with wiredispatches.

"What we find [at Harvard] is a typicalintellectual attitude that we want to defend theFirst Amendment and the right for students to readwhat they want to read," he said.

Gates, the chair of the Department ofAfro-American Studies, said students will choosethe texts in his Afro-Am seminars next year. Buthe said he would leap at the chance to do a"critical reading" of the Nation of lslam's book.

"I would love to do a demolition job on that,"he said.

Gates said he first sent the piece--which wasoriginally written as an address to board ofdirectors of B'nai Brith and the JewishAnti-Defamation League--to The New York times lastspring. When the Rodney King verdict sparked riotsin Los Angeles in May, Gates said he decided tohold the editorial.

"I didn't want the two events to be confused inanyone's mind," he said.

Gates said he stands behind his decision towrite it, saying it is "very important thatsomeone in my position stands up and says this iswrong."

A grateful message from a Holocaust survivor isamong the dozens of positive letters, cables andfaxes Gates said he has received in response tohis editorial.

He said he feels "very good" about writing thepiece. "Someone should have done it earlier," hesaid.

This story was compiled with wiredispatches.