Million man march
One million black men marched in Washington DC on October 16th. Don Rojas, Minister of
Information in Grenada until the US invasion, comments on the implications of the march.
• The march was controversial both in the Black novement and among left activists. Why did you decide to participate: I thought it was important for progressives and people on the left generally and certainly people of color on the left to participate in this march from the position of critical support. I thought it was important for the left not to be left out, not to be marginalized by what clearly was going to be a huge mobilization of African Americans — most perhaps from the ranks of the working class, and a lot of them young. So in spite of the serious problems that I had with the lack of political direction, and with the overall orientation of the march - the emphasis on atonement and reconciliation — I became convinced at least a week before that large numbers of men would be showing up for a number of reasons, not necessarily in sync with the call by Farrakhan and Chavis. I also had a lot of problems with the exclusion of women from the march. I thought that was just another manifestation of the Nation of Islam's backward patriarchy. They have not really advanced very much on the women question and on the whole range of other questions that are critical to those of us on the left. But as I argued on the day of the march, "I intend to march in Washington to make one simple statement to the world — the cancer of racism is eating away at the heart and soul of America, thus depriving all its people, of all colors, the fullest realization of their humanity. I will not be marching to the drumbeat of Louis Farrakhan or Benjamin Chavis or any of the other leaders and organizers of this march but rather to the clarion call of my conscience and to the imperatives of our time. They have their agenda and I have mine. Some aspects of both overlap but they are by no means identical. Many friends and colleagues will also be marching, not to atone for our sins before the world, as Farrakhan wants us to do, but to call attention to America's greatest sin — racism. We will be marching to protest the hemorrhaging Don Rojas is former minister of information in Maurice Bishop's government in Grenada, former director of communications for the NAACP and a former editor of the New York Amsterdam News. His book on the crisis of Black leadership will be published next year by Times books. He was interviewed for Independent Politics and International Viewpoint on October 25, 1995, by Steve Bloom.
of Black America not only by its own hands but more severely by those with their hands on the levers of real political and economic power in this country. We will be marching to demand - yes demand, not beg — jobs with decent pay for all Black Americans, male and female. We make this paramount because without honest work a man has little or no dignity and self-respect. Jobs are among the most important debts America owes to the sons and daughters of its former slaves. Yet the march has been so depoliticized by Farrakhan's emphasis on atonement that it is being perceived by the power brokers as posing little or no threat to America's status quo. Major establishment figures from President Clinton to Colin Powell, to the leadership of the Republican Party have embraced the "objectives" of the march, if not its caller. • Some women did attend. What was the response? There was no hostility that I observed toward the sprinkling of women who participated. I also saw a handful of whites in the audience and here too there was no hostility. As I said on the day of the march, "no one who shares these concerns should be excluded or should exclude themselves from this march. Indeed, Black men should encourage their wives, mothers, daughters and sisters to absent themselves from their jobs, schools, and shopping malls and present
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* USA themselves in Washington to stand with their men in a forceful demonstration of Black unity and solidarity in these critical times. Now is not the time for Black women to stay at home and pray on Farrakhan's anointed 'Holy Day!" • What attitude did Black women activists take? They were pretty much split down the middle on the question of whether or not they should support the march. Angela Davis, the most prominent opponent of the march among Black female activists, came out at a press conference in New York and very strongly denounced it. But there were other prominent and not so prominent Black women, who did express critical support for the march. Some of them actively participated in organizational work leading up to it. So there was no consensus among Black women activists. • What was the main reason people turned out? What messages resonated with the crowa? The ideas expressed by Farrakhan were not the main reasons that people turned out. They came for a range of reasons. Many came to protest to the government the terrible plight of Black males Some did come, in fact, to seek bonding and a sense of community and brotherhood with other African-American men from around the country. I could sense that, I could hear that, I could feel that spirit of unity that sense of power in numbers and in single-mindedness of purpose. And that was a very powerful thing. But I also saw how the crowd (and I was in the middle of the crowd) reacted very positively to the more political points made in several of the speeches. Unfortunately, the speeches were a mixed bag. Some were very backward and reactionary, some were progressive. Some were a little of everything. It seemed as though there were two realities taking place that day. One on the stage where the speakers and the leaders of the march were expressing themselves, and another among the million men who were there. They came looking for powerful leaders. They didn't find them on the stage. They found them among themselves. They found leadership in their ranks and I think that's going to be a very positive thing in the months ahead as they return home and get involved in the civic and political life of their communities. New grassroots leadership will emerge. How progressive that leadership will be remains to be seen. This is, I think, a challenge for those of us on the left, not only to monitor it closely but to get involved at the local level and help to give guidance and direction to that emerging leadership, particularly among young people.
• Many Black officials and entertainers endorsed and/ or participated in the march. What is the relationship between Farrakhan and these more "mainstream" elements in the Black community? Unfortunately most of them played second-fiddle to Farrakhan on this thing. His marathon speech — two and a half hours — was far too long. It was rambling and lacked any sharp focus. There wasn't enough emphasis on public policy issues, too much mysticism and numerology. Just the 28 International Viewpoint n° 271 - November 1995 length of the speech itself was a violation of the privilege of being the keynote speaker and did reflect, in my view, a kind of megalomania in Farrakhan. Hopefully that can be brought into check if structures of accountability emerge in the months ahead that will make the NOI and Farrakhan more accountable to African-American communities around the country. The most powerful part of his speech was where he dealt with white supremacy, when he said that white supremacy must die in order for humanity to live. I think that s a very powerful point. I was hoping that he would develop it more, but he didn't. The bourgeois media's interpretation of this was that his old anti-white racism was expressing itself again, which of course is nonsense. A critique of white supremacy does not translate into anti-white racism. Farrakhan's emphasis on self-help, self-improvement, selfreliance, all solid values in themselves, hark back to the days of Booker T. Washington's accomodationist position vis-a-vis segregation in the South. This was vehemently opposed by W.E.B. DuBois. Farrakhan has been called the Booker T. Washington of the 1990s. In my view while these values are good in themselves they are not necessarily an antidote to racial and social inequality. Inequality is systematic, it is structured into all the social, political, and economic institutions of U.S. capitalism and I don't think that Farrakhan and his people in the NOI understand it in those terms. So in order to destroy the structures of inequality we need more than self-help and self-improvement. We need a broad-based mass movement that is political in nature, one that challenges the power structure.
• Farrakhan's stakes have gone up. He is now in the ranks of major Black Leaders in this country... Farrakhan is not, despite what many think, a flaming radical given to anti-semitic speeches, at least he isn't any longer. His effort to enter the mainstream has also had an affect on him. He learned something from the fiasco of Khalid Muhammad's vile speech on a New Jersy campus. He is trying very hard to clean up his image, and has particularly sought the assistance of Chavis, when he was still head of the NAACP, and Kwesie Mfume when he was chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. The attempt by the mainstream media to demonize Farrakhan is something positive in the eyes of most black Americans. Given the hatred of the white power structure they will turn out in massive numbers to hear him speak as a simple act of defiance. And despite his sexism and homophobia he has the keen ability to capture the essence of the Black condition. He provides a voice for the voiceless, expressing the profound resentment that exists within the community. Clearly, he isn't afraid of what white people will think of him. That is why he has gained the ear of the masses in a way that no other Black leader can even hope to match at the present time.