Farrakhan has an intimate relationship with the CBC. Bier’s work points out how 20 CBC members posed for a picture with Farrakhan back in 2005. Barack Obama, then a senator, was present at the event, but did not appear in the photograph.

Farrakhan’s meetings with the CBC continued well before and beyond that photo, as several members either had closed-door meetings with the bigoted Nation of Islam leader or attended events with him. In 2002, Farrakhan briefed the CBC at the Capitol regarding his recent trip to the Middle East at the request of John Conyers, a Democratic representative from Michigan. Six months after the 2005 photo, several members of the CBC met up with Farrakhan again, this time in New Orleans.

Although the relationship fizzled for a while, Keith Ellison, current deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, reignited it, attending a private event at which Farrakhan was also present in 2013. In 2015, Rep. Danny Davis (D-Illinois) spoke to a crowd at the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March, an activist gathering Farrakhan organized.