Million Man March
Associated Press remembers historic event
WASHINGTON—The Million Man March is remembered by many who were there as a watershed event, despite the fact that its impact on the way America regards African-American men remains an open question 20 years later.
It was something the United States has not seen for decades: thousands upon thousands upon thousands of men, most of them black, congregated peacefully on the National Mall, clapping, cheering, testifying, promising they would work for a better future for themselves and their families.
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who led the first Million Man March, will commemorate that event on Saturday with a "Justice or Else" march on the National Mall. The goal, organizers say, is to incorporate calls for justice for the current deadly shootings mostly of black men with the anniversary of the original gathering.
Attention has been focused on the relationship of African-American men with the police and law enforcement since the fatal shootings of 17-yearold Trayvon Martin in 2012 in Florida and 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Since then, deaths of other unarmed black males at the hands of law enforcement officers have inspired protests under the "Black Lives Matter" moniker around the country.
"Even though, if you talk about 2015, we've had some problems— lot of problems in this past year—I think that since the first Million Man March a lot has happened, things have moved forward and I'm looking forward to seeing us do some of the remaining things that need to be done," said Harvard professor Charles Ogletree, who attended the original march with his son and namesake back on October 16, 1995.
Millions watched live coverage of the 1995 march on television as Farrakhan and other civil rights leaders spoke about increasing pride and responsibility and condemned negative racial stereotypes about black men.
Immediately afterward, organizers said that around 1.7 million black men registered to vote and participation by black men in social and civil organizations skyrocketed. The National Park Service estimated the attendance at around 400,000, but subsequent counts by private organizations put the number at 800,000 or higher. The National Park Service has refused to give crowd estimates on mall activities since.
Farrakhan called the original march "a magnificent and important day" but said today "conditions we face and rising levels of tyranny and oppression have brought us to another point in our sojourn in America."
Saturday's event "is not a march, but a gathering of those who are sober minded and serious about placing a demand on the United States government and putting power behind that demand to force the government to give us what we deserve," said Farrakhan, who has also recently focused on black-on-black crime in cities like Chicago. Farrakhan has called for federal and state government intervention in police investigations, and for greater responsibility in the black community for the violence in the inner city.
The leadership of the controversial and sometime militant Farrakhan, who has been criticized for his past inflammatory statements against Jews, gays and others—kept some away from the 1995 march. It turned out to be one of the largest gatherings on the National Mall since the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. called for an end to racism in his "I Have A Dream" speech.
President Barack Obama, who attended the first Million Man March, will be in California on Saturday.