The following article was published in the October issue of The BluePrint: A Spelman Spotlight Publication
On Saturday, October 10, 2015, 42 Spelman students were sponsored by Student Government Association, Student Life and Engagement, Spelman’s Women’s Research and Resource Center and Education department to attend the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March. The event, titled “Justice or Else” took place in Washington, D.C.
The historic political protest was a commemoration of the Million Man March originally held on October 16, 1995 where Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the religious group Nation of Islam called upon one million black men to assemble. Boston University used crowd counting science developed in the 1960s to estimate 837,000 black men and women gathered at the D.C.
National Mall downtown, making it the largest civil rights demonstration in history. Reuters reported that the Justice or Else rally was “far smaller,” because attendance was in the thousands.
In the 1995 march, Minister Farrakhan encouraged the black community not to spend money on that day to show the United States the importance of black dollars to the national economy. In addition, he promoted hope, peace and change within the black community. During the 20th anniversary march, the Nation of Islam leader called for the end to police brutality and for justice after a series of deaths of black Americans being killed by police officers.
Young protestors were sporting flags, holding signs and wearing tops that read black lives matter, the young protestors were praised by Farrakhan. He called them “the next leaders of the civil rights movement” and called on older leaders to support them. “We got some fine young men that we aren’t training. I’m 82 — I don’t know how long I got but I’m not worried cause I got a torch lit with the wisdom of good,” Farrakhan said.
Throughout the five-hour convening speakers emphasized the need for a conscious effort and individual commitment to racial movement in order to achieve justice. Spelman sophomore Jillian Lea said, “The Million Man March was a true testament of resilience and peace. The atmosphere of the movement was one of strength, power, frustration, but also resolve. That resolve being— as African Americans we’re tired of iniquitous injustice and we’ve made our mind up that we will lay down no more.”
Marleca E. Higgs, a junior English major said while she enjoyed the march, she felt that there was a bigger issue with Farrakhan’s speech, calling it “extremely vague—without changes in the system on which this country was built, nothing will change,” Higgs said.
For some Spelmanites, participating in the event connected the past to the present. Freshman Maya Conyers grew up seeing a picture of the 1999 march on her dad’s wall and she hoped to one day follow in her father’s footsteps and attend the event. Of the march, Conyers said, “It was a great experience. I was excited because my father went to the first one. [This march] was fighting for the rights of women, Latinos, and black people. Conyers notes that, “Even though it’s the Million Man March, Spelman women have always been involved— beyond the Spelman education, students are involved socially too.”
Upon conclusion of the rally, students made the 11-hour bus trip back to Atlanta to discuss ways to implement speech into action following their attendance at the historic event.