"The Federal Reserve is owned by... the Jews. You go back to the Rothschilds, and you go back to a lot ofthe early Jews that are in that financial system."

This spurious allegation was among the many voiced by Khalid Muhammad of the Nation of Islam (NOI), in his infamous harangue at Kean College in New Jersey late in 1993. NOI leader Louis Farrakhan, in a March 19, 1995, speech, was more specific:

"The Rothschilds financed both sides of all the European wars. They always wanted to get their hands on the Central Bank of America. And they finally did. On Dec. 22, 1913, Congress passed into law the Federal Reserve Act.... [T]he international bankers took control of the money by taking control of the Central Bank of America, the Federal Reserve...."

Farrakhan’s words echo the conspiracy tracts advertised in extreme right publications such as The Spotlight of the anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby and those of the anti-Semitic and white -supremacist "Identity church" movement. Indeed, all of these varied hatemongers could have sat comfortably alongside one another in the audience at Howard University on February 23, 1994, when Malik Shabazz (a warm-up speaker for Khalid Muhammed) shouted sharp questions while more than a thousand persons responded in a manner reminiscent of the Nuremberg rallies:

"Who is it that controls the Federal Reserve?"
   "Jews!"
"Who?"
   "Jews!"

Next: Conclusion