The group leaving from the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles is being organized by Najee Ali, director of Project Islamic Hope, a civil rights group. Ali said he was no Michael Jackson fan ("Come on, I'm 41 years old"), but the activist believes the pop star is being railroaded, in part because he is black. "If they can get Michael," Ali says, "they can get any of us."
Ali points out that two white celebrity defendants, TV actor Robert Blake and music producer Phil Spector, were both released on $1 million bond. Jackson, on the other hand, was ordered to put up $3 million. Blake and Spector are accused of murder. Jackson is accused of lewd behavior with a child.
Heather Nelson, left, and Krissie Petrovay show their support for Michael Jackson by donning T-shirts Monday in Encino, Calif.
(Jim Ruymen -- Reuters)
|
|
"So we see a double standard, and that concerns us," said Ali, who says he believes Jackson is innocent.
Ali's statements track those made by one of Jackson's most vigorous defenders, his older brother Jermaine, who has compared the pursuit of Jackson to a "lynching."
On Monday, it was outside Jermaine's house in Encino where the "Caravan of Love" was announced. Encino is on the other side of Mulholland Drive from Beverly Hills, where Michael Jackson is renting a mansion. (He says he will never again live in Neverland because he feels the property and his privacy were violated by the extensive search by law enforcement officers preceding his arrest).
For some years, Jermaine Jackson has been a member of the Nation of Islam, the separatist black Muslim group directed by Louis Farrakhan. Since Michael Jackson's arrest, Leonard Muhammad, chief of staff of the organization and Farrakhan's son-in-law, has become a close adviser to the Jackson camp.
The Nation of Islam, headquartered in Chicago, issued a statement saying it had "no official business or professional relationship" with Jackson, though the group said it "wished him well."
But Leonard Muhammad is clearly a member of the team. At a meeting billed as a regular gathering of Jackson's financial advisers on Monday at a Beverly Hills hotel, Muhammad sat at the head of the table, the Associated Press reported.
Geragos has insisted that Muhammad is just an adviser, one of many. Brian Oxman, an attorney who has represented the Jackson family but not Michael Jackson himself, said of the ties to the Nation of Islam or Muhammad: "It's nothing. Michael Jackson listens to everyone and then he makes up his own mind."
Thursday evening about 100 fans gathered outside the Neverland property in support of the singer, some dressed as Jackson impersonators, others sporting a single sequined glove. Coming from around the country and even as far away as the Netherlands and Japan, the supporters held candles and sang Jackson songs. A few of the younger fans were accompanied by their parents.
