Roy S. Johnson: 29 years after Million Man March (I was there), Black men must mobilize again

This is an opinion column.

I still recall the feeling as the escalator ascended. It was almost 29 years ago, and I’d taken an early train from New York to Washington, D.C., to join other Black men on the spacious grass between the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument. Hundreds of thousands of other Black men.

Black men vowing to do more. To be better.

I didn’t go as a journalist, but as the father of a 17-month-old son. A son born into a world where he would need to do more. To be better.

That started with me.

There had been more male melanin on the train that morning than usual. Even more nodding and smiling than usual. Our numbers grew as we moved from the Metro subway line and made our way to the gathering place. Smiling. Nodding.

The escalator ascended into an ocean of brown that almost overwhelmed me—though certainly lifted me. To do more. To be better.

The day was October 16, 1995, and the occasion, of course, was the Million Man March, an event organized by Minister Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, and NAACP Executive Director Dr. Benjamin Chavis. (I took a zillion photos that day—okay, so I was being semi-journalist. But because selfie was not yet in the dictionary, there’s not a single photo me there that day.)

The day drew Black men from every sector—from every neighborhood, from every faith. From every jagged mountain that Black men have had to climb for centuries.

Black men lifted. Lifted and vowing to do more. To be better.

Nearly three decades later, Black men must mobilize again.

We must do more—for ourselves, for our families, for our boys.

And, yes, for history.

We must be better for us.

Perhaps the catalyst is Kamala Harris.

A similar emotion to what I felt that day in the nation’s capital in October 1995, a similar difference filled a digital convening this past Monday evening when 20,000 Black men joined a Zoom for three hours to affirm support for Harris’ bid to become the first female President of the United States.

Organized by my friend and journalist/media owner Roland S. Martin, the call was a parade of calls to action by voices well-known and less so. Calls to diffuse the malaise that so easily overcomes us as we climb those mountains and dispute the misinformation concocted to confuse us.

In 2020, 87% of Black male voters chose Biden instead of Trump, according to Edison Research exit polls. Yet that fact is often diminished beneath the 91% of Black women who supported Biden and who continue to be the single most coveted and valuable constituency in the nation.

Diminished by claims in recent months—no, crowed by Republicans—that Black men were deflecting to Trump.

Diminished by the shucking of Sen. Tim Scott, who made us gag in January when he told Trump, “I just love you,” during a January speech.

Diminished by the jiving of Byron Daniels, who ignorantly intimated that Blacks were better off under Jim Crow.

Diminished by the naïve gullibility of both men believing they had a snowball’s chance anywhere in America this summer of being selected as Trump’s running mate.

To be clear, the men’s call was inspired by one held the previous night when 44,000 Black women from around the nation had chuch on a Zoom and raised $4.5 million in a bit over four hours to support Harris’ presidential bid.

The men raised $1.3 million to support Harris. Now, to also be clear, the calls were not a competition but an emphatic collaboration. An unassailable declaration that Black men have our sisters’ backs.

That we will do more. That we will be better.

Not merely for history but for the story unfolding now in too many of our communities.

The narrative around senseless, deadly decisions that we cannot ignore.

In Birmingham, where gun violence perplexes, frustrates, and angers us all, myriad Black men are already doing more, as chronicled by my colleague Alaina Bookman for our series Beyond the Violence. Among them: Eric Jones, Dee Pogue, Seyram Selase, Judge Andra Sparks, Gerrel Jones, and Jamaree Collins.

Soon after herstory is made (yeah, I wrote that), brothers, we must convene again and similarly commit our passions and pockets to doing more. To be better.

To lift (read: fund) programs such as these in Birmingham and nationwide, programs striving to make a difference and make us different.

Striving to smooth the mountains we’ve climbed for our boys and beyond.

So they can do more. So they can do better.

In a world where we made a difference. A world we helped make different.

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I was raised by good people who encouraged me to be a good man and surround myself with good people. If I did, they said, good things would happen. I am a member of the National Association of Black Journalists’ Hall of Fame, an Edward R. Murrow Award winner, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at rjohnson@al.com, and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj.