The national NAACP withheld its endorsement of the march, but hundreds of local NAACP chapters helped to organize it. Although Farrakhan spoke for more than two hours about White supremacy in the United States, the emphasis of the day was about Black men taking responsibility for themselves and their communities. As The Washington Post’s David Maraniss put it, “it takes a million men to make a million man march and … a million men are different in a million ordinary ways.”ADADAnd although some had criticized the exclusion of Black women, there ended up being a few: Rosa Parks and Maya Angelou spoke that day. Though it’s impossible to quantify, many Black men to this day credit the Million Man March with making them better spouses, fathers, voters and community leaders. Some of the seeds of the Black Lives Matter movement were planted 25 years ago at the Million Man March.

Source: Washington Post October 16, 2020 10:52 UTC