Khadijah Farrakhan, longtime wife of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, died on Saturday, the Nation of Islam has announced. She was 90.
“Mother Khadijah” worked alongside her provocative and charismatic husband for decades, helping lead their religious and sociopolitical movement, which espouses Black self-reliance. Its home base was Mosque Maryam on the south side of Chicago, where the pair lived. Her death came only seven months after devotees had marked Khadijah’s 90th birthday. The statement said funeral services are to be announced. Mosque Maryam remembered Farrakhan as “a devoted follower” with “a precious soul, a sweet heart.”
Born Betsy Ross, Khadijah Farrakhan married her husband, then named Louis Walcott, in Boston on Sept. 12, 1953. The two had nine children. Their eldest son, Louis Farrakhan Jr., died in 2018, and son Joshua Farrakhan died in 2023. Khadijah Farrakhan converted to Islam in 1955, the same year that her husband joined the Chicago-based movement after being heavily influenced by Malcolm X, his friend from Boston. The pair changed their names around that time. Louis Farrakhan stepped into the organization’s leadership vacuum shortly after Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965. Among his most significant accomplishments was the Million Man March on Washington in 1995.