FIRST ON FOX: A high Biden White House adviser has been employed for many years as a minister at a Washington, D.C., church that has hosted a number of activists and non secular leaders with lengthy histories of antisemitism, together with one Black activist who, throughout a 2002 speech, known as for “Zionists” in Israel, together with their infants, to be murdered.
Rev. Thomas Bowen, who’s listed on Shiloh Baptist Church’s web site as a minister of social justice and has been employed on the church since 2002 in a number of management roles, joined the White Home in February to function the senior adviser for the White House Office of Public Engagement, which “works on the native, state, and nationwide ranges to make sure neighborhood leaders, numerous views, and new voices all have the chance to tell the work of the President.”
Shiloh Baptist Church, a historic Black church that Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband visited on Christmas Day in 2022, is led by Reverend Physician Wallace Charles Smith, Shiloh’s senior minister and a longtime mentor of Bowen. Throughout a sermon earlier than Shiloh’s congregation final month, Bowen known as Smith his “hero,” “pal,” and “mentor … to whom I owe a debt that I may by no means ever repay.”
Bowen’s social media can be littered with praise of Rev. Smith, who invited a number of activists with lengthy histories of antisemitism into their church.
LEFT-WING ACTIVIST WHO HIRED ONE OF FARRAKHAN’S ‘TOP SOLDIERS’ HAS VISITED BIDEN WHITE HOUSE 7 TIMES
Thomas Bowen serves as Biden’s senior advisor for public engagement (Instagram/Thomas Bowen)
In April 2018, Rev. Smith hosted the Nationwide Black Males’s Conference at Shiloh Baptist Church, which was billed as a five-day summit for “mobilizing and organizing brothers for a greater future for our neighborhood” and opposing President Trump. Every day had a distinct theme, which included reparations, and several other of the audio system concerned with the summit had a problematic historical past of antisemitism and vile rhetoric in opposition to White folks.
Within the months earlier than the conference, Rev. Smith met at Shiloh Baptist Church with the conference’s co-host Malik Shabazz, the founding father of Black Legal professionals for Justice and former chairman of the New Black Panther Occasion. Shabazz, who has been labeled by the Southern Poverty Regulation Heart (SPLC) as a “racist black nationalist with an extended, well-documented historical past of violently anti-Semitic remarks and accusations concerning the inherent evil of white folks,” posted a photo of him and Smith hugging on his Fb and mentioned that they had a “nice assembly” collectively. Shabazz additionally added that “Pastor Smith and different pro-Black Christian preachers will probably be talking” on the conference.
Shabazz, who posted a photograph with infamous antisemite Louis Farrakhan in 2020 with the caption, “I HAVE WALKED WITH THE BEST” and known as the Nation of Islam chief “one of many nice influences in my life” final 12 months, made a number of different posts within the months main as much as the 2018 conference touting Shiloh Baptist Church because the host of the conference, together with movies that confirmed he was in attendance at church occasions whereas Bowen was on the church’s payroll.
SPLC’s web site lists a number of vile quotes uttered by Shabazz, including remarks from a 2002 speech in Washington, D.C., the place he reportedly mentioned, “Kill each goddamn Zionist in Israel! Goddamn little infants, goddamn previous girls! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!” In one other speech from the early 2000s, he additionally pushed antisemitic tropes about “Zionists” controlling the media and overseas coverage.
Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam speaks at Saint Sabina Church Could 9, 2019, in Chicago. (Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Solar-Instances by way of AP)
Earlier this 12 months, Shabazz posted a photo of him and former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from 2012 and mentioned his “views are formed by my experiences.” He mentioned he was invited by a now-deceased journalist for the Nation of Islam’s publication and mentioned Farrakhan was in attendance with dozens of imams. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly known as Israel an “illegitimate regime” and has known as for its “elimination.”
When pressed by Fox Information Digital on his ties to Farrakhan and his lengthy historical past of antisemitic remarks, he responded, “Don’t have any associations with Louis Farrakhan. Am not anti semetic (sic).” Fox adopted up with a social media publish displaying him and Farrakhan, prompting him to say, “That means I’ve no present associations with him.”
The opposite co-host of the conference was Minister Hashim Nzinga, who has since died and was serving because the chief of employees for the New Black Panther Occasion when he died in 2020. He additionally made a number of controversial statements, in keeping with SPLC, together with saying, “Each White man and each Jew is the satan by nature.” Throughout a 2016 interview with the Los Angeles Instances, he was requested to answer Shabazz’s remark about killing Zionists, prompting him to confess, “I nonetheless say that on a regular basis now. You’ve gotta kill them earlier than they kill you. … If somebody brings hurt to us, we’re gonna kill them.”
BIDEN CABINET OFFICIAL POSES FOR PHOTO WITH ONE OF FARRAKHAN’S ‘TOP SOLDIERS’ AT DNC
Malik Shabazz proclaims plans for a Million Youth March in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Sept. 6, at Restoration Plaza on Fulton St. (Todd Maisel/NY Every day Information Archive by way of Getty Photographs)
“As well as, Nzinga mentioned within the interview that homosexuality is evil, that Jews management the media and are chargeable for the Sept. 11 assaults and that blacks are God’s ‘chosen folks,’ Jesus himself being black,” the LA Instances reported on the time.
An archived itinerary of the conference revealed that Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries’ controversial uncle, Leonard Jeffries, was additionally a speaker on the occasion. The elder Jeffries, who has an extended historical past of antisemitism, is described on the conference’s web site as a “political scientist” who “achieved nationwide prominence within the early Nineties for his historic statements about Jews” and highlighted how Jeffries “said that Jews financed the slave commerce, used the film business to harm Black folks, and that whytes [sic] are ‘ice folks’ whereas Africans are ‘solar folks.’”
Shabazz posted Jeffries’ speech on his Fb web page, the place he opened his remarks by saying “Black energy” earlier than asking the group to offer a spherical of applause for Shabazz and Nzinga for organizing the conference. He additionally gave a shoutout to Farrakhan throughout his remarks.
One other speaker on the conference was Dr. Boyce Watkins, who wrote the ebook “The ten Commandments of Black Financial Energy” and is a staunch defender of Farrakhan. In a 2018 tweet, Watkins defended Farrakhan evaluating Jews to termites, saying, “Anybody attacking [Louis Farrakhan] for his assertion about being ‘anti-termite’ might be a termite themselves.” He has additionally used antisemitic tropes like saying Jews management Hollywood and the music business.
In September 2023, Watkins mentioned, “I really like Farrakhan. Interval.” And in a 2022 video, he boasted about being invited to the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviour’s Day occasion and mentioned the Nation of Islam “are like brothers to me. Once I go in there, once I roll up there, I get a lot love from all of the NOI brothers and the sisters. I simply need to give them a shoutout proper now.”
It’s unclear whether or not Bowen, who beforehand served as director of African American strategic engagement within the government workplace of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, was concerned with the planning for the conference or was in attendance. However an archived model of Shiloh’s web site says he was one of many 5 “assistant pastors” on the time of the conference. He didn’t reply to Fox Information Digital’s request for remark.
Just a few years earlier, in 2015, Rev. Smith hosted Farrakhan and dozens of Black neighborhood leaders at his church for an invitation-only assembly to debate the upcoming twentieth anniversary of the “Million Man March.” Farrakhan, who was surrounded by a number of Nation of Islam members along with Rev. Smith and Cora Masters Barry, who confronted backlash earlier this summer time for an unearthed clip saying, “F— the White girls,” spoke on the personal occasion.
An article from the Washington Informer, a “woman-owned multimedia information group serving the African-Individuals” within the DC space, reported on the time that Farrakhan, whereas talking at Shiloh, mentioned he believed it was time for Blacks to “distribute the ache” so they don’t seem to be the one ones struggling.
President Biden throughout the White Home Creator Economic system Convention within the Indian Treaty Room of the White Home in Washington, D.C., Aug. 14, 2024. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs)
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Shiloh additionally hosted former President Obama’s controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright that 12 months, according to a tweet from Bowen saying he was “preaching” the “Miseducation of the Palestinians.” Wright beforehand delivered the viral “God rattling America” sermon and used an antisemitic trope accountable Jews for preserving him from speaking with Obama after Obama received the 2008 presidential election. The feedback ignited backlash from the Anti-Defamation League on the time, calling Wright’s feedback “inflammatory and false.”
“The notions of Jewish management of the White Home in Reverend Wright’s assertion categorical basic anti-Semitism in its most vile kind,” an ADL spokesperson mentioned in 2009. “In a brief succinct sentence, Reverend Wright manages to each label a number of the President’s closest advisors solely by their non secular beliefs and provides them powers superior to the President himself.”
The White Home and Shiloh Baptist Church didn’t reply to Fox Information Digital’s requests for remark.
