This October marks the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March on Washington. Louis Farrakhan and others have endorsed a Millions More Movement to celebrate the original march, and to establish and move forward on a Black Agenda to solve meet our needs. While it's noble to organize and a welcomed change that the coming march includes both genders, marching in general is a tad outdated. MMM was followed by 1997's Million Woman March in Philadelphia,1998's Million Youth March in New York City and Million Youth Movement in Atlanta, 2000's Million Family March, and last year's Million Worker March in Washington, DC. How many more Million Marches are we gonna' have? I can't help but conclude that this is a “feel good ” march more like a family reunion or summer revival. And up to this point, I have heard very little about this march from the Hip Hop community. This new march seems to lack the mass appeal of the first one so, it is highly probable that it will not match the numbers of 1995's march. It is even less of a likelihood that it will spark and sustain a movement for change. Even the 1995 march failed to achieve this. And that is the problem I have with the first march.

THE ATMOSPHERE

It had been a decade of increasing drug use and violence, rising rates of single motherhood, and increasing rates of black men in prison. In 1995, we were in the third year of the Clinton era of politricks with Blacks holding the sentiment that Bill was the closest thing we would ever have to a Black president. Our celebration was cut short by the Republican takeover of Congress after the 1994 elections. Their “Contract With America ” attacked Affirmative Action, proposed Welfare Reform, and a lot of other 'ish' in the fine print. 

Windows95 was all the rave. The internet was still relatively new. And, the economy was “thriving ” with the tech bubble just beginning to inflate. That year also marked a decade of crack in Amerikkka. And Hip Hop was in the throes of an East Coast/West Coast Rivalry which lead to the devolution of the culture to white corporate Amerikkka and the cacophony that exists in the music today. 

White society as a whole was against the march specifically because the event was the brainchild of Nation of Islam (NOI) leader, Louis Farrakhan. The mainstream press stirred fears that having so many Black men gathered in one place would yield violence. Conspiracy theorists laid claim that Cointelpro would assassinate Farrakhan to incite riots with tens of thousands killed while attempting to burn the U.S. Capitol, the White House, and New Babylon as we know it. And others claimed the Mothership was gonna' land on The Mall straight out of Cosmic Slop.

October 16 was unseasonably cold for an early autumn day in DC. All of the 3,000 plus member Washington Police force was on duty along with the US Capitol Police, Park Rangers, and of course the Secret Service. RFK stadium was set up to accommodate 10,000 busloads. Key streets were closed to vehicular traffic. DC Metrorail was on a 12-hour rush hour schedule with trains running every 3 minutes. News Choppers panned the sky. And we came by the busloads. Buses and cars for miles and miles. From the triple-deckers of Boston to the double shotgun houses of New Orleans. From the brownstones of Brooklyn, the greystones of Chicago, and the Mediterranean and Spanish Colonial bungalows of Los Angeles, we came. Brothers said to hell with the train and began the roughly 2 mile march from RFK westward down East Capitol Street, Independence Avenue, and Constitution Avenue to the National Mall. It was a flowing river emptying into a mighty sea. Other pedestrian tributaries spilled from the west and north sides of town. When all was said and done, we had PEACE and a Mecca on the Mall.

There was entertainment and various speakers-some well-knowns and plenty of lesser-knowns. Most speeches were uplifting but repetitive. The NOI collection buckets were passed around to “donate ” for the clean-up of the Mall. The climax was Farrakhan's 60 minute diatribe steeped in numerology and symbolism. Brothers hugged and hugged and hugged. So much love. So, much love. 

And then it was over....

THE COUNT CONTROVERSY

Farrakhan and the march organizers stood firm in their claim that there were over 1 million people at the Million Man March. In promotions for the anniversary march they claim over 2 million people. "Whitey" says there were 800,000 give or take 200,000. It was so controversial that the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing stepped into the debate around the time the NOI threatened to sue the US Park Service for intentionally undercounting the crowd. When the smoke cleared, USPS was out of the crowd estimate business. It must be noted that the Baltimore-Washington Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area has nearly 2 million Black people with at least 950,000 males. Add Metro Philly and the Tri-State Area with 1 million and 3.2 million black people respectively (also 2 hour and 4 hour drives) and the Mid-Atlantic Region has a combined 3 million black males. This corridor also has one of the largest number of NOI members and the march was heavily promoted there. So, it is quite reasonable to conclude that three-fourths of the march's 1 million consisted of 25 percent of the corridor's Black male population. And with the brothers coming from all over the country, it is reasonable to assume that another 250,000 came from outside the Bos-Wash Megalopolis. In my opinion, there were indeed a million marchers.

MILLIONS MORE MOVEMENT???

Two questions come to mind in light of the current effort to stage an anniversary march. Is there a need for another march? And why are the organizers calling this a movement?

Let me first say that you don't march first and then start a movement. Yet, Black men marched in October 1995 and still failed to produce any long-term or sustained outcome save a lasting memory of 1 day of brotherhood. We had a very successful march but the whole event can be likened to a Sunday in any Black Church throughout Amerikkka. We had feel good speeches, the church has feel good sermons. People leave church on a high but return to the same old weekly routine of life. Ditto for million man marchers. Sure, we had an increase in memberships at both community-based and national nonprofit organizations, but these were short-term gains. We also had a significant increase in adoptions of Black orphans and a slight decrease in crime in a six month period afterwards. The march definitely galvanized Black men, but the organizers provide little or no post-march activities or programs to keep this movement going. Ten years later we still have the same problems: Prison Industrial Complex, Drugs, High Employment, Teen Pregnancy, Teen Dropouts, Educational Gap, Income Gap, and now increasing suicide rates. What did the march accomplish besides “atonement ”???? Why wasn't there anything in place for a post march activism and movement?

Most successful marches come out of movements. The Civil Rights Movement had the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. The Women's Suffrage Movement had the ostensibly mislabeled Women's Suffrage Parade on Washington in 1913, but was a march nonetheless. Both marches had specific political goals and were essentially climaxes of decades long movements that began at the grassroots level. There was no “movement ” in the strictest sense of the word before the 1995 march. There was no truly defined goal only a broad list of ailments. A Day of Atonement. The problem with Atonement for Black Christians and Muslims is that you can bet your bottom dollar that they'll backslide.

So, it is oxymoronic to call this anniversary march a movement. It's a family reunion. Another “Day of Atonement.” Can I get a AMEN?

Put up or shut up MMM organizers. I await an agenda, the organization and mobilization for the true emancipation of our people. Until that time I'll continue to contribute on the grassroots level.

Peace from the shotgun house, 

- Jupiter “Gadfly ” Hammon Soul on Fire

Links:

http://www.millionsmoremovement.com/about.htm

  http://www-cgi.cnn.com/US/9510/megamarch/10-16/transcript/

Released: July 13th, 2005

The views and opinions expressed herein by the author do not necessarily represent the opinions or position of Playahata.com.