MILLION MAN MARCH OCTOBER 13, 1995 TRANSCRIPT

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African American men from around the United States are to take part in the Million Man March, in Washington, D.C.. Two views of the march are surveyed by Charlayne Hunter-Gault in Chicago.

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CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: When it comes to black men in trouble, Chicago has seen it all: Gang violence, soaring homicide rates, one in four black men die violently reach year, and a microcosm of a recent national report showing that one in three black males is either in jail, on probation, or parole. Unemployment here tops 22 percent among black males over 16. Over the weekend, a "Chicago Sun-Times" editorial called for the declaration of a national state of emergency for young black men. These are the kinds of grim realities fueling interest in pockets of activity all over Chicago, as blacks here prepare to, in their words, answer the call by Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan for a million man march on Washington, D.C..

MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN, Nation of Islam: It is time that we as black men stand up for the hurt of our families and the hurt of our ancestors!

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: It was two years ago that the controversial Muslim leader first called for a march that would bring black men from all over the country to the nation's capital. The purpose of the march was to have black men atone for their transgressions, especially against their women and children, to stand up to their responsibilities, and to call on America to stand up to hers as well.

MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN: I say, on to Washington! (applause and cheers) And let us go to demand justice! (applause and cheers) Justice for our people!

DARRIN BANKS: I'm sure we all know what this march is about--

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Darrin Banks is a 30-year-old Chicagoan who answered the call. Since then, Banks has been working to generate enthusiasm about the march and participation in it, especially among the homeless men he works with as a counselor on a daily basis.

MAN: Like I really want to participate in the million man march, but financially, I'm not able to.

DARRIN BANKS: For the past months, I've been laboring very hard, as everyone in this room knows, to get sponsorship.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: This shelter, Matthew House, supported by public and private funds, provides counseling and meals five days a week. Banks believes that the march will help make the plight of men here more visible.

DARRIN BANKS: By them being there, it's saying to the powers that be that we've been stepped on, we've been ignored, we've been walked across and treated as if we're, you know, treated as if we're less than people. It's--it's, I think, it's paramount that they are there because of that reason, to say like, hey, we have some needs and some desires that need to be addressed as well. That's what we're bring to the forum. That's our agenda. And I'm trying to help push that.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Banks, a graduate of Northwestern University, who holds a Master's Degree in Business Administration from the University of Chicago, is also helping push the atonement part of the agenda out of his own personal experience.

DARRIN BANKS: Being from a single-parent family, not having a dominant male role figure--role model in my life, umm, I kind of felt as though I lost out on some things, and I, myself, wouldn't want, you know, future generations that come behind me to lose out on some of those things. If we stand up as a community now, our men, and say, hey, it's time for us to regain control of our households, not just father our children's children, but be dads to 'em as well, umm, I think the time has come for that.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Indeed, it was a message that was getting a lot of air time. National shows featuring Minister Farrakhan last Sunday were buttressed here on cable programs with call-ins to key aides like Shahid Muslim, the Nation of Islam's international representative.

SHAHID MUSLIM, Nation of Islam: I just want to say this for the listening audience; that this is a part of history that you do not want to miss out on.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Word is also going out about details of the march in the Muslim newspaper, "The Final Call." The national headquarters of the Nation of Islam is here in Chicago, but a lot of the local activity this past weekend was taking places in churches like the Fernwood United Methodist. Its pastor is the Reverend Al Sampson, a former civil rights activist with Dr. Martin Luther King, and unlike some march supporters, he's also a longtime Farrakhan supporter.

REV. AL SAMPSON, Fernwood United Methodist Church: It seems to me that the spiritual genius of Minister Louis Farrakhan is that he now has issued a call for black men to continue what Dr. King did in the streets of Memphis, Tennessee.

(congregation singing)

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: This is the Park Manor Christian Church. Its pastor, the Reverend James Demus, is another march supporter. In services like this, collections were taken up to charter buses and to buy food for the trip to Washington, although Minister Farrakhan, who preaches self-reliance, has stressed that men pay their own way, even if they have to sacrifice. Later, Demus cautioned against equating the opposition of some church leaders with the positions of their followers. He said impetus for his involvement came from his members.

REV. JAMES DEMUS, Park Manor Christian Church: I got involved with the Million Man March at the insistence, the inquiry and the insistence of one of my members. One of the members of my church and just raised the question, "Rev. Demus, are we going to do anything with this Million Man March?" And I said, "What do you mean?" He says, "Well, umm, you know, this march is being called, and I basically think that I need to go."

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Rev. Demus meets regularly with representatives from the Nation of Islam, and like other march supporters defers to the Muslims on the leadership of the march. One of the several march events last weekend was held at the predominantly black Kennedy King College on Chicago's South side. Here, Muslims and non-Muslims passed out free information and hawked buttons, hats, T-shirts, and other march paraphernalia. The meeting revealed some of the simmering tensions over the march. There were especially harsh words for Jesse Jackson, who had earlier met with some Jewish leaders in New York who were concerned about Minister Farrakhan's leadership because of his alleged anti-semitism. Former Chicago Congressman Gus Savage.

GUS SAVAGE, Former Congressman: I have praised Jesse Jackson. I marched with, as you know, campaigned for him in '84, '88, at my own expense around this country. But if he were brother, when he is wrong, he is wrong.

MAN IN CROWD: Right!

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Earlier, at the headquarters of Operation PUSH, the economic and social justice organization founded by Rev. Jackson, he defended his meeting with Jewish groups and addressed some of the criticisms aimed at Minister Farrakhan.

REV. JESSE JACKSON, PUSH Founder: I met with Minister Farrakhan about it, and discussed it head up. He is sensitive to how he is viewed by many beyond the black community. His focus on atonement and reconciliation is the right direction.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Rev. Jackson once said he would not attend the march but changed his mind.

REV. JESSE JACKSON: I determined that the march would have a moral tone, i.e., a real tone of reconciliation, of bridge building, real strong in its positions against racism, against sexism, against anti-semitism, against homophobia.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Polls show that there is overwhelming support for the Million Man March in the black community, but there is still some reservation, although most of those voices have been muted in the last few days here in Chicago. Some 14 African-American Christian ministers from the Chicago area endorsed the march last week, but nationally, only one of the top six black church organizations, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, has officially endorsed it. Black religious critics, including two of the major black Baptist organizations, said they were concerned about very strong theological differences with Minister Farrakhan's Muslims and about the participation of women. But critics here in Chicago refused to go on camera. Tamara Kerrill, a reporter for the "Sun-Times," has been reporting on the march and measuring support.

TAMARA KERRILL, Chicago sun Times: It seems that somehow publicity about this march or information that has, you know, come across on the television via Farrakhan or whatever, has kind of, umm, pacified a lot of people and convinced them that this march is worthwhile.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Kerrill said that the biggest complaint she had heard was about the call by the organizers for women to remain at home.

TAMARA KERRILL: The black women in the newsroom are pretty, pretty diverse and pretty divided on how they feel. Some of them are--don't understand opposition at all, and, you know, these are all, you know, independent but reasonably liberal women. The other components that are there also are the religion of Islam, which is, is a religion that does not, you know, permit women a lot of civil freedoms, and so you put that in the mix, plus the history of the Civil Rights Movement, in which a lot of black women felt that they were asked to take a back seat on gender issues that were important to them as black women--you can't really separate the two--so there's a feeling that maybe this is kind of a continuation of a trend.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Echoing this sentiment, the Reverend Sanja Stinson, one of the few Chicago women who agreed to speak on the record about this aspect of the march. She is the director of Matthew House, the homeless center.

REV. SANJA STINSON, Matthew House: I really feel that gender should not play a factor, because I understand the concept and I support the concept; however, I do have a concern when you separate gender, when you say African-American man, and unity to me means family, family means to be together.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But many prominent Chicago women are endorsing all aspects of the march, including the call for women to stay at home. Former civil rights activist and alderman Dorothy Tillman serves on the national organizing committee of the march.

DOROTHY TILLMAN, Chicago Alderman: Well, I don't think black women are being asked to stay at home. They're being told not to come to Washington. They didn't go to Vietnam. They didn't go to Korea. What they're being told is that we need to stay home, back where we live, and work, making sure that there's an atonement in terms of prayer. Now I raised my children in church. We pray all the time. Take it--don't let 'em go to school, don't you shop. You got a responsibility too. Don't go to Washington, just make sure black women don't shop that day. You take 'em, you pray, and as you're praying and you are teaching your children, you talk to them about the problems that's going on in the African-American community.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Amin Muhammad, an aide to Minister Farrakhan, said he was pleased with the response. And what would constitute success?

MINISTER AMIN MUHAMMAD, Nation of Islam: The pooling of our resources to make a demand on ourselves and then by doing that make a demand on government to be more responsible, to see us rebuild the wasted cities. That--that is success. But us coming together just in the process, this has never happened in history. And the movement towards October 16th in and of itself is a success. Every day is a success, and every day, it makes you feel blessed to be alive in this moment in history, to see our people coming in to unity.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: You guys going to the Million Man March?

MAN: Million Man March?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Uh huh.

MAN: Probably so, if we can get off working. (laughing)

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: But you want to go?

MAN: I want to go, yes, I do.

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Late this week, organizers said they had filled 200 buses so far and that they expected area men to use other forms of transportation also. They're predicting that some 47,000 men from Chicago will make the trip to the Million Man March.

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