The Million Man March: Its effect may be debatable. Its significance is not.
Source: Washington Post Business
By Michael A. Fletcher
October 9 at 7:19 PM
Justice or Else!
That is the provocative name Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has given Saturday’s rally marking the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March.
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Oct. 16, 1995: Aerial view of the Capitol during the Million Man March. Boston University researchers
funded by ABC-TV estimated the crowd to be 837,000, plus or minus 20 percent.
Charles Pereira/Associated Press
Much has changed since, an evolution perhaps best symbolized by the trajectory of one man who attended the Million Man March: Barack Obama. Then, he was a fresh-faced Illinois state Senate candidate; now, of course, he occupies the White House.
“It is because of continued injustice that people are crying out for justice,” said Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., the former NAACP chief who directed the Million Man March and is serving as a consultant to Saturday’s rally. “It would be incorrect to say we have made no progress. But it would be equally incorrect to say all is well.”
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“All we’ve got to do is go back home and make our communities a decent and safe place to live,” Farrakhan said. “And if we start dotting the black community with businesses, opening up factories, challenging ourselves to be better than we are, white folk, instead of driving by using the N-word, they’ll say: ‘Look. Look at them. Oh, my God — they’re marvelous.’?”
It was the kind of message that some activists denounce these days as blaming the victims of the nation’s checkered racial history for their plight. But it also resonates with black Americans across the political spectrum, from Clarence Thomas — who has praised Farrakhan — to Obama. Not for a moment would they endorse Farrakhan’s separatism, or his anti-Jewish rhetoric, or the Nation of Islam’s dizzying cosmology. But for them and many others, his self-help message hits home.
“What I saw was a powerful demonstration of an impulse and need for African American men to come together to recognize each other and affirm our rightful place in the society,” Obama said in an interview with the Chicago Reader after the 1995 march. “There was a profound sense that African American men were ready to make a commitment to bring about change in our communities and lives.”
Read more: httphttp://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-million-man-march-its-effect-may-be-debatable-its-significance-is-not/2015/10/09/5fde11cc-67a4-11e5-8325-a42b5a459b1e_story.html
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washingtondc ?@washingtondc Oct 7
Celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March this Saturday on the National Mall: http://bit.ly/1L4Wdq0
I still have my VHS tape recording of the MMM event that I watched live and taped from CSPAN that day (that had full coverage all day for like 10 hours from about 6 am to 4 pm). Also bought the commemorative tape that they offered.
Spike Lee made a fascinating film called "Get on the Bus" a year later, where the story took place a few days before the march and followed multiple men as they made the long cross-country trip by bus from Los Angeles to D.C.
Then 2 years later (October 1997), there was a Million Woman March here in Philly on the Parkway that I went to with Mom and my sisters -
We filled up the same Parkway that people saw with the Pope a few weeks ago, all the way from Eakins Oval in front of the Art Museum (which is @ 25th St), all the way down to 17th St. by Suburban station. The center (inner lanes) of the Parkway is 6 lanes of roadway with a median in between. The outer lanes are 2 lanes on either side with medians separating each side from the center lanes (total 10 car lanes on the Parkway).
but alas, the best laid plans ... 
