Posts Tagged ‘RACISM’

Amerikkka is under a Curse oooo!

September 14, 2020

Crowds tear down statues, attack Wisconsin state senator – Times of India

July 5, 2020

Crowds tear down statues, attack Wisconsin state senator – Times of India

Crowds tear down statues, attack Wisconsin state senator – Times of India


— Read on newsinternational0.wordpress.com/2020/06/24/crowds-tear-down-statues-attack-wisconsin-state-senator-times-of-india/

Black officer (HALF-BLACK -CONFLICTED BY WHITE MOTHER),who detained George Floyd had pledged to fix police – Twin Cities

July 1, 2020

Black officer (HALF-BLACK-conflicted by white mother),who detained George Floyd had pledged to fix police
By NEW YORK TIMES |
PUBLISHED: June 28, 2020 at 10:26 a.m. | UPDATED: June 28, 2020 at 10:37 a.m.
MINNEAPOLIS — There were two Black men at the scene of the police killing in Minneapolis last month that roiled the nation. One, George Floyd, was sprawled on the asphalt, with a white officer’s knee on his neck. The other Black man, Alex Kueng, was a rookie police officer who held his back as Floyd struggled to breathe.

Floyd, whose name has been painted on murals and scrawled on protest signs, has been laid to rest. Kueng, who faces charges of aiding and abetting in Floyd’s death, is out on bail, hounded at the supermarket by strangers and denounced by some family members.

Long before Kueng was arrested, he had wrestled with the issue of police abuse of Black people, joining the force in part to help protect people close to him from police aggression. He argued that diversity could force change in a Police Department long accused of racism.

J. Alexander Kueng (Courtesy of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office)
He had seen one sibling arrested and treated poorly, in his view, by sheriff’s deputies. He had found himself defending his decision to join the police force, saying he thought it was the best way to fix a broken system. He had clashed with friends over whether public demonstrations could actually make things better.

“He said, ‘Don’t you think that that needs to be done from the inside?’” his mother, Joni Kueng, recalled him saying after he watched protesters block a highway years ago. “That’s part of the reason why he wanted to become a police officer — and a Black police officer on top of it — is to bridge that gap in the community, change the narrative between the officers and the Black community.”

As hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against the police after Floyd’s killing on May 25, Kueng became part of a national debate over police violence toward Black people, a symbol of the very sort of policing he had long said he wanted to stop.

Derek Chauvin, the officer who placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, has been most widely associated with the case. He faces charges of second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter; Kueng and two other former officers were charged with aiding and abetting the killing. At 26, Kueng was the youngest and least experienced officer at the scene, on only his third shift as a full officer.

The arrest of Kueng, whose mother is white and whose father was from Nigeria, has brought anguish to his friends and family. “It’s a gut punch,” Joni Kueng said. “Here you are, you’ve raised this child, you know who he is inside and out. We’re such a racially diverse family. To be wrapped up in a racially motivated incident like this is just unfathomable.”

Two of Alex Kueng’s siblings, Taylor and Radiance, both of whom are African American, called for the arrests of all four officers, including their brother. They joined protests in Minneapolis. In a Facebook Live video, Taylor Kueng, 21, appeared with the head of the local NAACP to speak of the injustice that befell Floyd, acknowledging being related to Alex Kueng but never mentioning his name.

Alex Kueng’s sister Radiance posted a video of Floyd’s final minutes on Facebook. “Just broke my heart,” she wrote. In an interview, she said that as a Black man, her brother should have intervened. She said she planned to change her last name in part because she did not want to be associated with her brother’s actions.

“I don’t care if it was his third day at work or not,” she said. “He knows right from wrong.”

A FULL HOUSE

Through his life, Alex Kueng straddled two worlds, Black and white.

Kueng, whose full name is J. Alexander Kueng (pronounced “king”), was raised by his mother, whom he lived with until last year. His father was absent.

As a child, Kueng sometimes asked for siblings. Joni Kueng, who lived in the Shingle Creek neighborhood in north Minneapolis, signed up with an African American adoption agency.

When Alex was 5, Joni Kueng brought home a baby boy who had been abandoned at a hospital. Alex soon asked for a sister; Radiance arrived when he was 11. Taylor and a younger brother came in 2009, when Alex was about 16.

Radiance Kueng, 21, said their adoptive mother did not talk about race. “Race was not really a topic in our household, unfortunately,” she said. “For her adopting as many Black kids as she did — I didn’t get that conversation from her. I feel like that should have been a conversation that was had.” Growing up, Alex Kueng and his family made repeated trips to Haiti, helping at an orphanage. Alex Kueng and his siblings took a break from school to volunteer there after the earthquake in 2010.

Joni Kueng, 56, likes to say that the Kuengs are a family of doers, not talkers.

“I had to stay out of the race conversations because I was the minority in the household,” Joni Kueng said in her first interview since her son’s arrest. She said that race was not an issue with her, but that she was conflicted. “It didn’t really matter, but it does matter to them because they are African American. And so they had to be able to have an outlet to tell their stories and their experience as well, especially having a white mom.”

Joni Kueng taught math at the schools her children went to, where the student body was often mostly Hmong, African American and Latino. Classmates described Alex Kueng as friends with everyone, a master of juggling a soccer ball and a defender against bullies. Photos portray him with a sly smile.

Darrow Jones said he first met Alex Kueng on the playground when he was 6. Jones was trying to finish his multiplication homework. Alex Kueng helped Jones and then invited him into a game of tag.

When Jones’ mother died in 2008, Joni Kueng took him in for as long as a month at a time.

By high school, Alex Kueng had found soccer, and soon that was all he wanted to do. He became captain of the soccer team; he wanted to turn pro. The quote next to his senior yearbook picture proclaimed, “We ignore failures and strive for success.”

Alex Kueng went to Monroe College in New Rochelle, New York, to play soccer and study business. But after surgery on both knees, soccer proved impossible. Alex Kueng quit. Back in Minneapolis, he enrolled in technical college and supported himself catching shoplifters at Macy’s.

About that time, he started talking about joining the police, Joni Kueng recalled. She said she was nervous, for his safety and also because of the troubled relationship between the Minneapolis police and residents.

Given his background, Alex Kueng thought he had the ability to bridge the gap between white and Black worlds, Jones said. He often did not see the same level of racism that friends felt. Jones, who is Black, recalled a road trip a few years ago to Utah with Alex Kueng, a white friend and Alex Kueng’s girlfriend, who is Hmong. Jones said he had to explain to Alex Kueng why people were staring at the group.

“Once we got to Utah, we walked into a store, and literally everybody’s eyes were on us,” recalled Jones, whose skin is darker than Alex Kueng’s. “I said, ‘Alex, that’s because you’re walking in here with a Black person. The reason they’re staring at us is because you’re here with me.’”

By February 2019, Alex Kueng had made up his mind: He signed up as a police cadet. Only a few months later, his sibling Taylor, a longtime supporter of Black Lives Matter who had volunteered as a counselor at a Black heritage camp and as a mentor to at-risk Black youths, had a confrontation with law enforcement.

Taylor Kueng and a friend saw local sheriff’s deputies questioning two men in a downtown Minneapolis shopping district about drinking in public. They intervened. Taylor Kueng used a cellphone to record video of the deputies putting the friend, in a striped summer dress, on the ground. “You’re hurting me!” the friend shouted.

As the confrontation continued, a deputy turned to Taylor Kueng and said, “Put your hands behind your back.” “For what?” Taylor Kueng asked several times. “Because,” said the deputy, threatening to use his Taser.

Taylor Kueng called home. Alex Kueng and their mother rushed to get bail and then to the jail. “Don’t worry, I got you,” Alex Kueng told his sibling, hugging Taylor, their mother recalled.

Alex Kueng reminded his sibling that those were sheriff’s deputies, not the city force he was joining, and criticized their behavior, his mother recalled.

After Taylor Kueng’s video went public, the city dropped the misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and obstructing the legal process. The sheriff’s office announced an official review of the arrests, which resulted in no discipline.

DIVERGING PATHS

Alex Kueng’s choice to become a police officer caused a rift in his friendship with Jones.

“It was very clear where we stood on that,” said Jones, a Black Lives Matter supporter who protested on the streets after the deaths of Jamar Clark and Philando Castile at the hands of police. “Our fundamental disagreement around law enforcement is not that I believe cops are bad people. I just believe that the system needs to be completely wiped out and replaced. It’s the difference between reform and rebuilding.”

After Alex Kueng became a cadet, Jones went from seeing Alex Kueng twice a month to maybe three times a year. He said he did not even tell Alex Kueng when the police pursued him for nothing and then let him go.

In December, Alex Kueng graduated from the police academy. For most of his field training, Chauvin, with 19 years on the job, was his training officer.

At one point, Alex Kueng, upset, called his mother. He said he had done something during training that bothered a supervising officer, who reamed him out. Joni Kueng did not know if that supervisor was Chauvin.

Chauvin also extended Alex Kueng’s training period. He felt Alex Kueng was meeting too often with a fellow police trainee, Thomas Lane, when responding to calls, rather than handling the calls on his own, Joni Kueng said.

But on May 22, Alex Kueng officially became one of about 80 Black officers on a police force of almost 900. In recent years, the department, not as racially diverse as the city’s population, has tried to increase the number of officers of color, with limited success.

That evening, other officers held a small party at the Third Precinct station to celebrate Alex Kueng’s promotion. The next evening, he worked his first full shift as an officer, inside the station. On that Sunday, he worked the 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. patrol shift, his first on the streets.

On May 25, Alex Kueng’s third day on the job, Alex Kueng and Lane, now partnered up despite both being freshly minted rookies, were the first officers to answer a call of a counterfeit $20 bill being passed at a corner store. They found Floyd in a car outside.

After they failed to get Floyd into the back of a squad car, Chauvin and Tou Thao, another officer, showed up.

As Chauvin jammed his knee into the back of Floyd’s neck, Alex Kueng held down Floyd’s back, according to a probable cause statement filed by prosecutors.

Chauvin kept his knee there as Floyd repeated “I can’t breathe” and “mama” and “please.” Through the passing minutes, Alex Kueng did nothing to intervene, prosecutors say. After Floyd stopped moving, Alex Kueng checked Floyd’s pulse. “I couldn’t find one,” Alex Kueng told the other officers. Critics of the police said the fact that none of the junior officers stopped Chauvin showed that the system itself needed to be overhauled.

“How do you as an individual think that you’re going to be able to change that system, especially when you’re going in at a low level?” said Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality in Minneapolis. “You’re not going to feel OK to say, ‘Stop, senior officer.’ The culture is such, that that kind of intervening would be greatly discouraged.”

All four officers have been fired. All four face 40 years in prison. Alex Kueng, who was released on bail on June 19, declined through his lawyer to be interviewed. He is set to appear in court Monday.

A day after Floyd’s death, Jones learned that Alex Kueng was one of the officers who had been present. Around midnight, Jones called Alex Kueng. They talked for 40 minutes — about what, Jones would not say — and they cried.

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“I’m feeling a lot of sadness and a lot of disappointment,” Jones said. “A lot of us believe he should have stepped in and should have done something.”

He added: “It’s really hard. Because I do have those feelings and I won’t say I don’t. But though I feel sad about what’s occurred, he still has my unwavering support. Because we grew up together, and I love him.”

Jones said he had gone to the protests but could not bring himself to join in.

Tags: George Floyd

New York Times
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— Read on www.twincities.com/2020/06/28/black-officer-who-detained-george-floyd-had-pledged-to-fix-police/

FLOYD OOO!–REPARATIONS OOO!–CALIFORNIA BILL TO STUDY IT!

June 13, 2020

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.google.com/url?rct%3Dj%26sa%3Dt%26url%3Dhttps://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2020/06/12/bill-to-study-african-american-reparations-passes-california-assembly/%26ct%3Dga%26cd%3DCAEYACoUMTcwNDQ1NzcxMDMzMzM5MzQ2NzEyGjRkYWRiOGQ5NWY4YmFmZTc6Y29tOmVuOlVT%26usg%3DAFQjCNGxl0SFhf7vgN4qarn-EYcFobU4jA&source=gmail&ust=1592131240070000&usg=AFQjCNEZDLwKoZ5mMg_po6Y4is4q9D4q2A

FLOYD OOO!— MONEY POURS IN OOOO!

June 8, 2020

Floyd Mayweather offers to pay all of George Floyd’s funeral expenses in four different cities
NaijaparrotJun 2, 2020Read original
Floyd Mayweather has offered to cover the funeral expenses for George Floyd, the African-American man whose death while in police custody in Minneapolis prompted protests across the United States.

According to Hollywood Unlocked, the famous American boxer told the publication’s founder CEO Jason Lee about his commitment to take care of all Floyd’s funeral expenses.

During a private conversation between Mayweather and Hollywood Unlocked CEO Jason Lee, the retired boxer reportedly revealed that he was distraught after learning the minimal charge former officer Chauvin Derek received for killing George Floyd last week Monday.

The former five-division world champion’s promotional company, Mayweather Productions, confirmed on Twitter he had made the offer, and several local media reports have said the family have accepted.

The family plans to hold three services in different locations, including Houston, Floyd’s hometown, Charlotte, and Minneapolis.

Although, a GoFundMe campaign created by Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, for his memorial has received more than 290,000 donations totaling to $7,583,670, as of Monday evening (June 1).

FLOYD OOO!-STOP FUNDING YOUR OWN OPPRESSION IN AMERICA, BLACK PEOPLE-GO BACK TO AFRICA AND INVEST!

June 8, 2020

  Protesting Without An Africa Plan, Is Protesting In Vain!

“If you aren’t trying to pull your resources out of America, you will continue to fund your own oppression here in America.”

“Dynast, Black people in America are funding their own oppression, their taxes fund the bullets that cops use to murder us with. Their taxes fund the prison that disproportionately imprisons black people. Their taxes fund the U.S. military that destabilizes countries across the globe, the only option is to leave America,” says Dr. Kambon !

   “Black people are funding the same oppression that we protest.”   Dynast Amir   says “The time is now is.Take your American dollar and flip it in Africa.”

We have gone from freed black slaves who built the republic of Liberia, a country that set the example of how a black republic should be run, to being reduced to arguments over which old racist white guy is a better fit to lead black people. 

  Read More   Share Via: dynastamir.com

FLOYD OOO!–FAMILY GOFUND PAGE REACHES $13MILLION O!–BLACK/WHITE SOLIDARITY FOREVER O!

June 6, 2020

FLOYD OOO!-GEORGE FLOYD!- POEM BY FEMI OGUNLOLA

June 5, 2020

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2522262267877091&id=100002800260604?sfnsn=scwspmo&extid=J2e7QcJx5j5GALJU

Death Note

By FEMI OGUNLOLA,ON FACEBOOK

BLACK IS HUMAN!!!

FLOYD Lives On. We will continue to speak out until justice is served and Racism Abolished.

He called his mom …
Handcuffed.
Face down.
Knee on his neck.
They did nothing.

He called the officer “Sir.”
They did nothing.

He begged for his life.
He begged for water.
He begged for mercy.
They did nothing.

His nose was bleeding.
Her body was shaking.
He lost control of his bladder.
They did nothing.

He shouted, “I can’t breathe anymore.”
They did nothing.

Twelve more times.

” I can not breathe.”
” I can not breathe.”
” I can not breathe.”
” I can not breathe.”
” I can not breathe.”
” I can not breathe.”
” I can not breathe.”
” I can not breathe.”
” I can not breathe.”
” I can not breathe.”
” I can not breathe.”

They did nothing.

One last time, he gasped, “I can’t breathe.”
They did nothing.

He lost consciousness.
They did nothing.

A firefighter asked that they check his pulse.
They did nothing.

The medical staff on leave begged them to stop.
They did nothing.

Deprived of oxygen.
Her organs scream.
His brain wrecked.
They did nothing.

They saw George Floyd die.
His life is fading.
Slow death.
They did nothing.

A lynching on the ground.
They did nothing.

For eight agonizing minutes.
Four officers watched.

He cried out for his mother …
An adult man …
Crying for the woman who gave her life ….
How he feared to join her in death.
And still they did nothing.

A black man.
A gentle giant.
Murdered because he was black.
And still, they did nothing ..

The officers should be arrested.
And still they did nothing.

Don’t be too heartless to type REST IN PEACE
Rest in peace ߙ ϰ ߏ 찟 ُ ߏ 찟 ُ ߏ 슊 Let justice be done

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DO NOT BREAK THE CHAIN
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BLACK IS HUMAN ALSO, NO HUMAN IS MORE HUMAN THAN ANOTHER HUMAN

FLOYD NOT LLOYD OOOO!-THIS BLACK SCHOLAR CALLS IT ANTI-BLACKNESS NOT RACISM!-FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

June 4, 2020

When black people are killed by the police, “racism” isn’t the right word.

By Kihana Miraya Ross

Dr. Ross is a professor of African-American studies. June 4, 2020, 5:00 a.m.

The word “racism” is everywhere. It’s used to explain all the things that cause African-Americans’ suffering and death: inadequate access to health care, food, housing and jobs, or a police bullet, baton or knee. But “racism” fails to fully capture what black people in this country are facing. The right term is “anti-blackness.” To be clear, “racism” isn’t a meaningless term. But it’s a catch-all that can encapsulate anything from black people being denied fair access to mortgage loans, to Asian students being burdened with a “model minority” label. It’s not specific. Many Americans, awakened by watching footage of Derek Chauvin killing George Floyd by kneeling on his neck, are grappling with why we live in a world in which black death loops in a tragic screenplay, scored with the wails of childless mothers and the entitled indifference of our murderers. And an understanding of anti-blackness is the only place to start. Anti-blackness is one way some black scholars have articulated what it means to be marked as black in an anti-black world. It’s more than just “racism against black people.” That oversimplifies and defangs it. It’s a theoretical framework that illuminates society’s inability to recognize our humanity — the disdain, disregard and disgust for our existence. ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story The African-American studies professor Frank B.Wilderson, who coined the term “Afro-pessimism,” argues that anti-blackness indexes the structural reality so that in the larger society, blackness is inextricably tied to “slaveness.” While the system of U.S. chattel slavery technically ended over 150 years ago, it continues to mark the ontological position of black people. Thus, in the minds of many, the relation between humanity and blackness is an antagonism, is irreconcilable. Anti-blackness describes the inability to recognize black humanity. It captures the reality that the kind of violence that saturates black life is not based on any specific thing a black person — better described as “a person who has been racialized black” — did. The violence we experience isn’t tied to any particular transgression. It’s gratuitous and unrelenting. Image A memorial site in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was killed by the police.Credit…Stephen Maturen/Getty Images Anti-blackness covers the fact that society’s hatred of blackness, and also its gratuitous violence against black people, is complicated by its need for our existence. For example, for white people — again, better described as those who have been racialized white — the abject inhumanity of the black reinforces their whiteness, their humanness, their power, and their privilege, whether they’re aware of it or not. Black people are at once despised and also a useful counterpoint for others to measure their humanness against. In other words, while one may experience numerous compounding disadvantages, at least they’re not black. Contin

So when we’re trying to understand how a white police officer could calmly and casually channel the weight of his entire body through his knee on a black man’s neck — a man who begged for his life for over eight full minutes until he had no air left with which to plead — we have to understand that there has never been a moment in this country’s history where this kind of treatment has not been the reality for black people. From whips to guns, the slave patrols of the 16th century are the ancestors of modern day police departments. Mr. Floyd’s killer just happened to make the news, happened to have video footage documenting his desperate screams to his deceased mother for help from the other side. Mr. Floyd’s brutal killing is not an exception, but rather, it is the rule in a nation that literally made black people into things. Black people were rendered as property, built this country, spilled literal blood, sweat and tears into the soil from which we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. The thingification of black people is a fundamental component of the identity of this nation. Reckoning with this reality is significantly more difficult than wrestling with prejudice, racism, and even institutional or structural racism. And it does more than any of these concepts do to help us make sense of over 400 years of black suffering — of our unremitting interminable pain, rage and exhaustion. Mr. Floyd’s death is the story of our babies, of the numerous black children who grow up literally or metaphorically under the steel heel of a police boot. It is the story of our families, who since the Middle Passage, have had to suffer the unimaginable. But when they kill our children, our mothers and fathers, we are expected to forgive, to be peaceful in the face of horrific violence. We are asked to respect a law that cannot recognize our humanity — that cannot provide redress. And when time and time again the law demonstrates it will never protect us, that it will never hold those individuals and systems that harm us accountable, we are expected to peddle a narrative that the system works, that justice will prevail. Mr. Floyd’s brother lamented, “I just don’t understand what more we’ve got to go through in life, man.” People are in the streets today because years ago we marched peacefully and belted Negro spirituals, hoping they would recognize our humanity. We wore Afros like crowns remembering our beauty. We put our fists in the air demonstrating our strength. We declared that our lives matter in every gorgeous dimension, demanding they stop killing us in the streets and in our homes with impunity. People are in the streets today because despite all of the people who lost their lives — literally and figuratively, in this fight for black life, the struggle continues. So let’s stop saying racism killed George Floyd, or worse yet, that a racist police officer killed George Floyd. George Floyd was killed because anti-blackness is endemic to, and is central to how all of us make sense of the social, economic, historical and cultural dimensions of human life.

kihana miraya ross is an assistant professor of African-American studies at Northwestern University. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

MILLION MAN MARCH OOO!-A VIDEO TO REMEMBER THE BLACK MAN EVENT!

November 15, 2018

Check out @TheMillionManM’s Tweet:

https://twitter.com/TheMillionManM/status/1062448357094973441?s=09

As Salaam Alaikum (Peace be upon you) | Over 80 years of service and counting

open

About The Million Man March

A Glimpse of Heaven

The Million Man March, Oct. 16, 1995

Inspired and led by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, more than a million Black men gathered in Washington, D.C. to declare their right to justice to atone for their failure as men and to accept responsibility as the family head.

On that day, Monday, October 16, 1995 there was a sea of Black men, many who stood for 10 hours or more sharing, learning, listening, fasting, hugging, crying, laughing, and praying. The day produced a spirit of brotherhood, love, and unity like never before experienced among Black men in America. All creeds and classes were present: Christians, Muslims, Hebrews, Agnostics, nationalists, pan-Africanists, civil rights organizations, fraternal organizations, rich, poor, celebrities and people from nearly every organization, profession and walk of life were present. It was a day of atonement, reconciliation and responsibility.

“The Million Man March was one of the most historic organizing and mobilizing events in the history of Black people in the United States,” said Chicago-based Dr. Conrad Worrill, who was a main organizer of the March and the current president emeritus of the National United Black Front.

Congress shut down that day and President William Clinton was “out of town.” Mainstream media in American and media outlets from around the world were watching. The world did not see thieves, criminals and savages as usually portrayed through mainstream music, movies and other forms of media; on that day, the world saw a vastly different picture of the Black man in America. The world saw Black men demonstrating the willingness to shoulder the responsibility of improving themselves and the community. There was neither one fight nor one arrest that day. There was no smoking or drinking. The Washington Mall, where the March was held, was left as clean as it was found. Two of the best descriptions of the Million Man March include the word “miracle” and the phrase “a glimpse of heaven.”

Along with those who attended, many men, women and children spent the day at home watching the event on television and participating in the day of fasting and absence. Workers did not go to work that day, children did not go to school that day and no one engaged in sport or play.

During Min. Farrakhan’s message to the millions gathered in the mall and those watching on television around the world that day, he explained to the world the need for atonement and he laid out the eight steps of atonement. Thus, for the past 18 years, people gather, reflect and observe the Holy Day of Atonement.

At the conclusion of the March, the millions of men repeated a pledge given by Minister Farrakhan that focused on a personal commitment to be responsible and active in improving the Black community. The purpose was for Black men to take responsibility for their own actions and to help develop their own communities, and to atone for their lack of responsibility. Many of the men assembled took the pledge given that day seriously and have been actively involved in making their word bond ever since.

“The March changed my life and my perspective of life in so many ways. I (gained) a tremendous commitment to the betterment of my culture, and a heightened capacity to care and to love. I am now trying to live by the code of honor and the right conditions set forth in the pledge that I took,” said Glenn Towery, owner of Fairy God Brother Productions and Film Company, LLC that produced the DVD, Long Live the Spirit, a documentary about the Million Man March.

“I have formed my own company and am striving to create culturally enriching productions for African Americans and the world. Thank you Minister Farrakhan for being a conduit to God that allowed such a magnificent idea as the Million Man March to come through your person into fruition. Thank you Benjamin Chavis and all of the organizers, planners and conveners of the Million Man March.”

Immediately following the March, roughly 1.7 million Black men registered to vote and organizational memberships skyrocketed—the NAACP, churches and mosques reported huge increases and the National Association of Black Social Workers reported a flood of 13,000 applications to adopt Black children.

The spirit of the March continues to this day.

“Since the Million Man March, October has become a special month for me,” said Dr. Ayo Maat, Organizer in Green and Disability Issues. “During the first march, I kept my children out of school and they stayed up all night and watched the event the entire day without complaint or fatigue. Since then, I have been working to instill the spirit of atonement and uplift of the race.”

“The spirit, energy, and the ideas that were articulated on that day still resonate among the activists and organizers and thinkers and the masses of Black men who participated in 1995,” said Dr. Worrill. “Although it may not appear that the energy and spirit and impact of that day is still with us; it has manifested itself with us today as Black men are engaged in numerous projects inspired by the Million Man March that can be documented.”

In another public display of accountability, the Million Man March was the first ever public march to provide an independent Financial Audit of its operations.

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