Tell us about your Million Man March experience!

Long Live the Spirit of the Million Man March

Yoke Mc / Joacim Osterstam

On Monday, October 16, 1995 the Million Man March was held in Washington, DC. under the leadership of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Black men (African American) men from across the United States converged on Washington to convey to the world a vastly different picture of the Black male and to unite in self-help and self-defense against economic and social ills plaguing the Black community. It was a day of absence, atonement and personal responsibility.

In what the Minister would later describe as a glimpse of heaven, nearly two million men (and a few women) attend the march, exceeding everybody’s expectations. There are no reports of incidence as the men take a day without smoking, drinking or disrespecting each other.

Where you at the Million Man March?

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All socio-political-religious differences are irrelevant as Black men from all classes express communal brotherly love. The world saw Black men from a different perspective following the March’s success. During the Minister’s lecture he defined the motivating factors of why he called the march and he defined atonement, explained where it is in the scriptures of the Bible, and gave and eight stage process that leads to atonement. At the end of the lecture he led the men in a pledge to improve the community.

This is an excerpt from this historic ‘speech at the mall in Washington, D.C.

“We’re talking about moving toward a perfect union. Pointing out fault, pointing out our wrongs is the first step.

The second step is to acknowledge. … To acknowledge means to admit the existence, the reality or the truth of some reality. …

The third step is that after you know you’re wrong and you acknowledge it to yourself, who else knows it except you confess it. … What happens after confession?

There must be repentance. (fourth) When you repent, you feel remorse or condition or shame for the past conduct which was wrong and is wrong and sinful. It means to feel contrition or self-reproach for what one has done or failed to do. … But, atonement means satisfaction or reparation for a wrong or injury. It means to make amends. It means penance, expiation, compensation and recompense made or done for an injury or wrong. So, atonement means we must be willing to do something in expiation of our sins. … If we make atonement it leads to the sixth stage.

And the sixth stage is forgiveness. … Forgiveness means to grant pardon for, or remission of, an offense or sin. It is to absolve, to clear, to exonerate and to liberate. …

Ands then, that leads to the seventh stage. … The seventh tone, the leading tone that leads to the perfect union with God is reconciliation and restoration because after forgiveness, now we are going to be restored to what? To our original position. …

And so, the eight stage is a perfect union with God.

All of these eight steps take place in a process called time. And whenever a nation is involved in sin to the point that God intends to judge and destroy that nation, He always sends someone to make that nation or people to know their sins, to reflect on it, to acknowledge, to confess, to repent and to atone that they might find forgiveness with God. America, oh America. This great city of Washington is like Jerusalem. And the Bible says ‘Jerusalem, oh Jerusalem, you that stoneth and killeth the prophets of God.'”