Expanded from a speech delivered at the Georgia Dome in October 1992, this was Minister Farrakhan's first book, released by FCN Publishing in May 1993. Drawing on the teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, it presents the Nation of Islam's community model as an answer to America's crisis of crime, drugs, prisons, and moral decay. Farrakhan lays out a program of self-help, discipline, and community responsibility offered as a "torchlight" for the whole nation.
Author: Louis Farrakhan (the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan) · Original publisher: FCN Publishing (Chicago), 1993
From the Book's Preface
"This book represents some of the guiding principles taught to us by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. This man and his teachings have been responsible for transforming the lives of millions of black men and women, many of whom this society has rejected as incorrigible, irredeemable, irreformable, irretrievable, hopeless and lost. Yet, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, with the Word of Allah (God), has been able to initiate the process of our salvation, redemption and resurrection, which continues to this day. ... This book is humbly submitted as a torchlight for guiding the country out from its present condition toward a more peaceful and productive society in which mutual respect governs the relations between the diverse members of America." — from the Preface of A Torchlight for America
From the Book: Toward a Moral Rejuvenation in America
Text taken from "A Torchlight for America" by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan (1993), as published by The Final Call.
In the Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
The root problem in America is spiritual, necessitating a spiritual solution. President Clinton should call for a convening of the spiritual leadership to spearhead a moral rejuvenation among the American people. Representatives of all races and all faiths should be brought to Washington, D.C., to hold conferences with President Clinton and government leaders toward the aim of developing programs for building the values and moral backbone of America, and for building better race relations.
Without a moral backbone, the nation cannot stand upright. Those creatures that have a backbone but cannot stand upright are known as four-legged beasts. Those creatures that have no backbone at all generally belong to the species called serpents. It is written in Genesis that beasts and serpents caused the fall of man. The destruction of beasts and serpents is foretold in the book of Revelation. As human beings, if we hope to enter the kingdom of heaven, we are meant to aspire toward righteousness, rather than act in a manner that makes us worse than the lowest of animals, the beasts and the serpents.
A convening of the spiritual leadership with the leadership in government is a first step toward building the country's moral backbone. The central problems we should focus on are the basic value of human life, greed, criminal behavior and the treatment of women. It is the mistreatment of women that is the first act of criminal behavior in the society.
Why not dispatch the spiritual leaders to develop educational and spiritual programming that will expand knowledge, develop character and thereby lead to a more enlightened and harmonious society across race, class and sex lines?
Broadcasters and other influential members of the media must also be summoned and shown their responsibility in the development of America's moral character. They are one of the main culprits in numbing the people's moral consciousness in a way that allows the people to engage in evil with impunity. If they would participate in a concerted effort to strengthen America's moral backbone through enlightened TV programming, America's chances for success would be greatly improved.
The artistic community has historically been in the vanguard of social change. What is now needed is for the artistic community to lead a cultural revolution. On the physical level, man is what he eats. Spiritually, "...as he thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7). If the American people are constantly fed filth and garbage through newspapers, magazines, television, movies, plays and music; if the public, like the proverbial swine, has become a lover of filth; and if thoughts guide behavior, what do the thoughts of the American people produce? Do the thoughts of the American people produce rape, incest, murder, theft, greed, and the destruction of family and the institutions of society? I would argue that the answer is yes.
Therefore, along with summoning the spiritual leadership to convene with leadership in government, the artistic community needs to be shown its responsibilities to the overall mental and spiritual health and well-being of society and the world. Our gifts, as artists, are a blessing from God. We have the responsibility of the proper use of our gifts. Additionally, movie producers, record producers and publishers all have a responsibility to the spiritual, moral and mental well-being of the American people.
Will it profit the major producers and publishers to become filthy rich by feeding filth to the American public at the cost of the survival and progress of the nation? Who among the artists, producers, agents, publishers, writers and directors would like to be, in part, responsible for helping America become as the modern Rome, Babylon, Sodom and Gomorrah, all of which earned the wrath of God? If the artistic community would take up the challenge, and if the business community would not use its money to back filth and foolishness, if the real hunger and thirst of the people for knowledge and quality entertainment were fed, the country could be turned around almost overnight. A positive direction could be charted for the American people, which they must move toward if they hope to be saved from the country's present course.
The Bible refers to the people as sheep, who, as the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said, are easily led in the wrong direction. The people are responding to what the leaders have offered them, which is called "popular culture." The people's appetite has been made insatiable for filth. If the leaders turn away from evil and indecency, then the people will turn. If the artists turn away from filth and indecency, then the people will follow. This is why it is written in the scriptures that the people need a "good" shepherd. In every field of endeavor, good leadership has to be asserted to turn corruption, greed, filth and indecency into righteousness.
From the Book: "Ending the Health-Care Crisis" (Excerpt, pages 138–140)
Excerpt from "A Torchlight for America," pages 138–140, as published by The Final Call, November 28, 2023. Bracketed figures are The Final Call's updated figures.
According to the Rand Corporation, in a statement published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, "one-fourth of hospital days, one-fourth of procedures, and two-fifths of medications could be done without [at that time]." I want you to think about this. Because it should be no secret that when there's a profit to be made, regardless to its adverse effects on human life, there are always those who will choose wealth over the health of the American people.
Medical care is big business. Three quarters of a trillion dollars [now $4.3 trillion], or 12% [now 18%] of the gross national product of this country is spent on health care expenditures.
In many respects America has become a pill society. Billions are spent each year on over-the-counter drugs. Americans spend $1.5 billion [now $24.5 billion] a year on cholesterol-lowering drugs instead of eating properly. Merchants of death have a vested interest in keeping you ignorant and perpetually sick.
Over $160 billion [now over $237 billion] is spent each year on cancer and heart disease treatments, and there is no guarantee that with surgery or with another of the various forms of treatment you'll be free of the disease. Treatments, including surgery, tend to further traumatize the body and depress the body's immunological systems. For example, one of the treatments of cancer is chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy is literally germ warfare on the body. The treatment is a by-product of W.W. II chemical and biological warfare research. Chemotherapy works by attacking cells within the body, killing normal cells in its efforts to kill the cancerous cells.
The result is a weakened body with no guarantee that you are cured of cancer. I am only pointing out the disadvantages of current treatments. I am not suggesting that you should not take the treatments prescribed by your doctor when your cancer or disease has progressed so far along that surgery or chemotherapy is the only option available.
The food industry is a $400 billion industry [now an estimated $1.5 trillion], based on promoting death-dealing overly processed foods. America's diet of three meals a day with three snacks in between each meal is unhealthy. It is unhealthy because it consists largely of fast food and food that is overly processed in America's food factories.
The foods get defibered, degerminated, defatted, refatted, and manipulated in countless ways other than how food is intended for us to eat. It's no coincidence that the first heart attack reported in America was in 1896, the same time our diets began changing from a rural-based local supply of food to the national food supply chains of highly processed foods.
It is now being proven by scientists that what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught on how to eat to live — one meal a day, no snacks in between meals, and to eat only the best foods — is absolutely correct and good for the body.
By our not having the knowledge of chemistry, we do not understand the effects from how the food industry injects hormones into chickens, beef, lamb and pork to fatten these animals up to get them to the market quicker to make a quicker dollar. We do not understand that as we ingest these meats, our bodies react to the hormones. As a result, our girls, at 9, are developing breasts and having their menses. Our young men are prematurely developing sexually.
These hormones stimulate sexual development. When you add this to the degenerative kind of display of nakedness and filth in movies, television, songs, books and magazines, no wonder teenage sex and teenage pregnancy and teenage violence is greater now than it ever was. This is a vicious circle of death dealing for the sake of profit. And who is the loser? The American people, especially Black people and particularly Black men.
How do we break this vicious cycle? How do we get out of this cycle of death? First, we must go back to Him who gave us the gift of life and Who is the Best Knower of how to protect, develop and properly care for and nurture the life that He has given. And that is Allah (God), the Creator Himself.
About this text: The complete book — A Torchlight for America, FCN Publishing Co., Chicago, 1993, 171 pages, ISBN 0-9637642-4-1 — is held by the Internet Archive as a borrow-only lending copy, so the full text cannot be carried here. The passages above are the portions of the book that The Final Call itself has published, carried here with their sources named. Added to GaryNoi.com October 24, 2026.
