Louis Farrakhan is one of America’s most influential black leaders. Yet, as the evidence of modern-day slavery in Africa became public in the 1990s, he and the Nation of Islam attempted to cripple the burgeoning abolitionist movement at every turn — actually denying that there was an active Arab slave trade in black Christians in the Sudan. The reason why was later discovered to be Farrakhan’s substantial financial dealings with Arab countries where blacks were enslaved.

The famously vengeful Farrakhan’s hold on the black community, and its subsequent fear of offending him and his militant followers, shamefully restrained many black leaders and institutions from joining the fight against slavery.

Watch Prof. Julius Coles, former director of Howard University’s Ralph J. Bunche International Center, go out of his way to “not take a position” on whether black slavery existed in Africa. The occasion in question was a March 13, 1996, forum discussion at the Bunche Center about modern-day slavery in Mauritania and Sudan featuring members of the American Anti-Slavery Group.