The Wrong Guy: No honor in honoring Farrakhan

By John Railey
Winston-Salem Journal

Beaufort Bailey must have been thinking of another guy.

When he pushed in vain several days ago for his alma mater, Winston-Salem State University, to bestow an honorary degree on Louis Farrakhan, Bailey must have really been thinking of someone else. Bailey must have been thinking about Gene Walcott, the track star and violinist who attended what was then Winston-Salem Teachers College before changing his name to Farrakhan and eventually becoming the head of the Nation of Islam.

Farrakhan is a racist hatemonger. But Walcott? “I always liked him because he was talented, plus he was just a likable guy when I was in school with him,” said Bailey, a Forsyth County commissioner. “I just felt a good relationship with him.”