Anniversary of Million Man March inspires reflection, reunion
For one family, civil rights call remains the same
Omar McGee is returning to the Million Man March.
The former Hollywood director/ writer and founder of a successful Los Angeles charter school came to the 1995 Million Man March as a confused 19- year- old.
He’d grown up on the hardscrabble streets of Flint, Mich., frequently skipping school and communing with drug dealers and pimps.
But when his father told him in 1995 that they were driving to the Million Man March in Washington, it proved to be a turning point.
“Walking through the crowd it was like, ‘ I’m a doctor,’ ‘ I’m a lawyer,’ ‘ I’m a construction worker,’ — Cosby was not necessarily a sitcom, it was like, this is actually real,” McGee, now 39, recalled of the feeling.
McGee is one of many people across the country traveling to Washington for the anniversary gathering of one of the largest civil rights mass rallies in history.
The first march in 1995 compelled black men to atone for their mistakes, reconcile with their loved ones and take responsibility for their actions.
Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan was the key organizer, but speakers ran the gamut, from members of Congress to celebrities to the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
In the days before social media and cellphone culture, buzz erupted across the country about the march, and celebrities and politicians clamored to announce they were going.
Immediately after the march, McGee took the D. C. Metro to Howard University and filled out an application. By that January, he was a student. That move would guide the rest of his life.
Now, McGee is flying to the 20thanniversary gathering slated for Saturday in Washington, and his father, Arthur McGee, will meet him there. The day before, McGee will go to the White House to discuss his Executive Preparatory Academy of Finance and his students’ high test scores.
He is hoping to learn from this march how he can help push understanding between groups of people.
“I don’t understand why Muslims and Christians can’t have a great dialogue — we can love each other without believing in the same things,” McGee said. “I just feel the Million Man March really pushed that.”
This time around, the buzz around the rally has been more low key, perhaps because people frequently “attend” events via their devices. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus are expected to speak and, unlike the first, there is not a push to drawa million, said Minister Ishmael Muhammad, son of Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad and national assistant minister to Farrakhan.
The theme this time is “Justice or Else” and is intended to cover not just black Americans, but also Native Americans, Latinos, women, soldiers and the range of racial and ethnic groups, Muhammad said.
Speakers will address issues from immigration to Native American land rights to the string of black males who have died at the hands of police in recent years. “As we look at the trend all over the world, the cry for justice is universal,” he said.
Arthur McGee remembers packing his motor home with Omar McGee, two other sons, two nephews and nine boys from the neighborhood into his motor home and driving to Washington for the march 20 years ago.
The owner of a collision shop that is the oldest black business in Flint said times are troubled and the march’s empowerment message is needed again.
“Things on black men have been so hard,” said the elder McGee, 76, saying that black men trying to get education or succeed face many roadblocks. “Everything we try to do they tear it down,” he said.
Like the McGees, Musaddiq Muhammad attended the first march. He was 27 and the young owner of a barber shop in Coconut Grove in Miami.
Today, he owns several restaurants and salons, and, as he was 20 years ago, is a husband and father. This time around, he is hoping for “just a great, great common thread and… unity,” he said.
“As we look at the trend all over the world, the cry for justice is universal.”
Ishmael Muhammad, national assistant minister to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan