COMMENTARY: After the march: the current state of black America

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.) UNDATED _ As African Americans observe the third anniversary of the Million Man March, it seems appropriate at this point to […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)

UNDATED _ As African Americans observe the third anniversary of the Million Man March, it seems appropriate at this point to assess the movement it produced.


Three years after Minister Louis Farrakhan proclaimed October 16, 1995 to be a”Holy Day of Atonement”for black men and drew hundreds of thousands of men to Washington, where are we in the atonement process?

There have been the follow-up marches endorsed by Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam _ last year’s Million Woman March in Philadelphia and this year’s Million Youth March, one in New York and one in Atlanta. Did they change anything?

In short: Is the black community better off today than it was three years ago? And, if so, did it have have anything to do with the Holy Day of Atonement and the thousands of the people in the streets?

It depends on who you talk to.

For James Muhammad, editor of the Nation of Islam’s newspaper, The Final Call,”the spirit of the Million Man March is still alive.”He argues that the black community”heard the message and is actively embracing the message of atonement.” Muhammad points to statistics showing a decrease in crime and an increase in membership in black civic and religious organizations as evidence and maintains that while the flurry of community activities following the initial march has”understandably”lessened, some of the local organizing committees remain quite active.

Muhammad also claims a number of”entrepreneurial businesses”were initiated in the aftermath of the Million Man March although he was unable to cite specific examples.

Ironically, it is precisely this need for economic empowerment that raises the ire of Carl Upchurch.

A peace activist and former gang leader who organized the first national gang summit in 1993, Upchurch worries whether three years after the Million Man March”we are effectively strategized about any of the issues in our community.” He contends, for example, that”economic development has become a slogan”among African Americans, and he sees few models really designed”to help communities become self-sufficient.” A notable exception, he said, is the program developed by the Rev. Frank Madison Reid of Baltimore’s Bethel AME Church, which attempts to generate business capital to spur entrepreneurship and create jobs.


Upchurch, whose personal odyssey as a South Philadelphia gang leader and prison inmate was chronicled in his 1996 memoir,”Convicted in the Womb”(Bantam Press), voices similar concerns about”howâÂ?¦we really approach the killing of our young people.” He said while many people, particularly the Rev. Jesse Jackson, wax loud and eloquent about the violence and despair facing black youth, few have put forth any meaningful strategies to combat the problem.

Yet, as with Reid, there are exceptions.

The Rev. Eugene Rivers, who, like Upchurch, is a former gangbanger from Philadelphia, runs the nationally acclaimed Ella J. Baker House serving troubled youth in Boston. He also co-founded the Ten Point Coalition, which links churches and law enforcement agencies and has helped to drastically reduce the incidence of youth violence in that city.”All of us _ Rev. Jackson, all of us _ would do well to take a page from Rev. Eugene Rivers,”Upchurch said.

For Upchurch, the key to the success of Reid and Rivers is that they”are organizing their efforts around the biblical mandate of serving `the least of these.'”Such an approach, he believes, must be the foundation of any national coalition purporting to serve the needs of African Americans.

Upchurch’s point is well-taken. Notwithstanding the increases Muhammad cites in volunteerism and entrepreneurship, the reality is that poor people _ particularly poor blacks _ are often”pimped”by those purporting to speak for them. Social service programs, for example, often function as little more than employment programs for the middle class.

Even events celebrating the altruistic efforts of true community heroes _ those whom pollster George Gallup calls”the saints among us”_ are often suspect. Such occasions are often self-congratulatory in nature, as if the events’ sponsors are congratulating themselves for honoring the saint.

Thus, three years after the Million Man March, the need for atonement remains as valid among those who supposedly provide the solution as those who constitute the problem. Perhaps in the future we should do less marching and more atoning.


DEA END ATCHISON

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