Nineteen years ago today, I stepped out of the subway onto the streets of Washington, DC at 4am. My friend @Arlethia Fluffy Friday and I had driven through the night to attend the Million Man March. What I witnessed that day was life-changing. It set me on my lifes path to documenting Black peoples struggle for freedom, safety, and opportunity. I spent my 20s photographing the Million Man, World Day of Atonement (1996), Million Woman (1997), Million Youth (1998), Million Youth Movement (1998), Million Family (2000), and Millions More Movement Marches (2005). In my late 30s, I launched One Million Strong, a touring exhibit that graced the halls of The National Black Theater Festival, the International Civil Rights Museum, and the North Carolina Museum of History. Presently, I am working on a coffee table book and images from One Million Strong are on display at the William Grant Still Arts Center as a part of Return of the Mecca: The Art of Islam and Hip Hop, curated by @Sohail. All of this was made possible through the gracious support of mentors, friends and family like @Jamel Shabazz, @Deborah Willis, @Amon Muhammad and my beloved @Rachael Derello. Many thanks to all of you have come out for the exhibit, performed in or participated in programs like Catch the Fire and The People United. Please check out the excerpt from the upcoming book (see text below) as well as photos from recent shows, including the outdoor installation that we created at the 2014 convening of Alternate Roots. Im overjoyed to speak that the last paragraph of this excerpt is in the process of being re-written, based upon the inspiring and invigorating uprising presently occurring in Ferguson and beyond. Stay woke, my people! Stay woke! ONE MILLION STRONG: PHOTOS FROM THE MILLION MAN, MILLION WOMAN AND MILLION YOUTH MARCHES At 4am on Monday, October 16th,1995, all roads leading into Washington, DC were backed up for miles. The subways were jam-packed. There were Black men running through the dimly-lit, pre-dawn streets of DC to the Capitol Mall, where 200 years before enslaved Africans were auctioned. They were answering the call of the drum. They were eager. They were kind. They were hopeful. They brought their children, wives, cameras, signs. Many of those men stood on their feet for 12 hours without food or drink, awaiting the words of Maya Angelou, Rosa Parks, Min. Louis Farrakhan, and so many more. They stood in their glory - Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, Rastas, Black Israelites, working class, corporate. Some of everybody. One million or more. The March was in 1995. Three years after the LA Riots, sparked by the ruthless beating of Rodney King (RIP); two years after the same officers were acquitted for using excessive force. Just 13 days after OJ Simpson was declared not guilty. Almost no one in the world had a cell phone. YouTube did not exist. Betty Shabbazz, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King were still alive. As were Nelson Mandela and Amiri Baraka. We were wearing X hats and Africa medallions, reading The Autobiography and Jawanza Kunjufu. Saying word to the mutha, as in the the Motherland, and word is bond, as in because we are African, we value oral culture. Folks were sending their kids to Saturday school to learn about ancient Egypt. The Cosby Show and A Different World were in heavy syndication. As a result, enrollment at HBCUs had peaked. The soundtrack of our lives was on some old DO FOR SELF. Sovereignty. Excellence in presentation. Street scholarliness. The art of parlayance. Respecting one another. Friendly competition. An odd dance. A turning point. Reinforcing patriarchy, capitalism, misogyny, homophobia, and colonialism while deconstructing and transforming it all at once. Eric B. and Rakim, Public Enemy, Tribe, KRS-One, Latifah. R&B was about romance, making love, desire, REAL SINGING. Seductive with plenty left to the imagination. Luther. Phyllis Hyman. Stephanie Mills. Patti LaBelle. Anita Baker. Cut to 10 years later. The Millions More Movement March. Perhaps 100,000 people came out to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Million Man March. Those who came brought lawn chairs and picnic blankets. There were vendors everywhere, including trucks full of free merchandise, emblazoned with the branding of urban apparel superstars like Phat Farm. Scattered throughout were die-hard nationalists, hair locked, braided, afroed; fists in the air. Still committed. But our movement was threatening to become a circus. In the 19 years since the Million Man March, many of our cherished Black thought leaders have died and many of those who remain have been decisively discredited by the media and, at times, other Black leaders. We have become so desensitized to the everyday assault and insult of racial oppression that we convince ourselves racism is dead or that we may be over-reacting. That is until something like Jena 6 or the senseless murder of Trayvon Martin occurs. Then we march, we change our profile pics, we sign on-line petitions for a day or maybe a week until we succumb to the persistent pressure of American culture - somehow, after the blood is dry and the wound has grown too deep to see, we are just supposed to forget and move on. In the almost 20 years since the Million Man March, our protest marches have become reactionary implosions with no long-shoe game to change our overall quality of life. The Million Man March and the subsequent marches that it inspired are the last time in American history that Black people have proactively organized en masse with a long-term political agenda focused on improving our overall quality of life. What happened to us?
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 23:17:13 +0000
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