State Senate blocks Quinn nominee over ‘radical’ views
SPRINGFIELD — In a rebuke to Gov. Pat Quinn, the Illinois Senate on Thursday rejected a Nation of Islam follower whose website advocates black separatism for a third term on the state Human Rights Commission.
The Senate voted down public-access Cable television personality Munir Muhammad for the $49,960-ayear post after Republicans condemned his group’s Web page, which warns against racial mixing and advocates a separate territory within the U.S. for the descendents of slaves, both ideologies advanced by Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad.
Munir Muhammad’s group, the Coalition for the Remembrance of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, also parrots Elijah Muhammad’s views on its website that blacks should not be taxed and black children be taught separately “by their own teachers.”
“To appoint someone with these radical views to the Human Rights Commission, I think, is a travesty,” said Sen. Tim Bivins (R-dixon).
Muhammad, appointed to the post in 2003 by Gov. Rod Blagojevich, needed 30 votes to win reappointment. But he drew only 20 votes, with 30 senators voting against his nomination and four voting present.
“He’s not being appointed to some transportation authority or some other benign committee. He’s making decisions about human rights, and he says himself that he ascribes to a belief that says race-mixing and interracial marriage is wrong,” said Sen. Dale Righter (R-charleston).
Muhammad, of South Holland, hosts two talk shows, “Muhammad and Friends” and “The Munir Muhammad Show,” that air across the country.
His guests have included Barack Obama when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois; Sen. Dick Durbin (D-ill.); former Mayor Richard M. Daley; Blagojevich, and Cardinal Francis George.
Several black senators defended Muhammad, insisting he didn’t embrace the views on his organization’s website and claimed he would take them down. They said he is an open-minded individual.
Attempts to reach Muhammad at his coalition headquarters were unsuccessful. Someone answering the phone there hung up on a Chicago Sun-times reporter three times.