New Million Man March Plan Is Under Fire

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The New York Sun

A plan to reprise the Million Man March came under fire yesterday over the role of two notorious anti-Semites in organizing the commemoration.


Organizers are planning a press conference Monday to announce the “Millions More Movement” rally in Washington that is slated to take place in October on the 10th anniversary of the original march, which drew hundreds of thousands of African-American men to the National Mall.


Just as in 1995, one of the key planners of the event is the leader of the Nation of Islam, Minister Louis Farrakhan. The planning committee for this year’s rally also includes the head of the National Black Panther Party for Self Defense, Malik Shabazz. Both men have been criticized for repeatedly making anti-Semitic statements.


The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, said he was disappointed and angry that respected African-American leaders have chosen to band together with Minister Farrakhan and Mr. Shabazz.


“It’s outrageous,” an exasperated Mr. Foxman said. “They’re signing up with one bigot and now another bigot. When will it stop?”


According to a news advisory, the committee convening the rally includes prominent black leaders, including two former presidential candidates, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Reverend Al Sharpton; a talk show host, Tavis Smiley; a former congressman from New York, the Reverend Floyd Flake; Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat of Washington, D.C., and the chairman of the NAACP, Julian Bond.


Mr. Foxman acknowledged that the 1995 event produced a sense of “empowerment and sovereignty in many people.” However, he said he did not understand why the commemoration could not have gone forward without divisive figures like Minister Farrakhan and Mr. Shabazz. “Why do we need them?” Mr. Foxman asked. “Why are these good people tolerating this?”


Minister Farrakhan and Mr. Shabazz did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story. However, in an interview published last month in the Nation of Islam’s newspaper, Final Call, Mr. Shabazz urged march participants to “stand strong against the lies of old Abraham Foxman.”


A spokeswoman for the march committee, Gloria Murry, said she was not certain how many of the 34 African-American leaders listed as conveners of the event planned to attend the Monday kickoff.


“Most of them are going to be there,” Ms. Murry said. “A lot of them are going to be in the same room for the first time.”


Ms. Murry said inclusiveness is one of the key goals of this year’s gathering. “Last time, it was just men. This time, women are invited, children, everybody,” she said. “They’re trying to make it a more multicultural, more cross-gender kind of thing.” She said the overarching goal of the rally is to promote pride, self-reliance, and skill training in the minority community.


An economist and television commentator who has agreed to serve as a convener for this year’s anniversary rally, Julianne Malveaux, said she was persuaded to do so because of the promises to include women. “I’m very pleased by the personal and moving appeal Minister Farrakhan has made to women,” she said in an interview yesterday. “We really do not have time for some divisions.”


Asked about Minister Farrakhan’s history of anti-Semitic statements, Ms. Malveaux said, “Who hasn’t made comments that upset people?….If some people want to judge, that’s their choice.”


An activist in the gay and African-American communities, Keith Boykin, said Minister Farrakhan has also extended an olive branch to homosexuals. At a conference in Atlanta in February, the Nation of Islam leader said he welcomed the participation of gays and lesbians in this fall’s event.


Mr. Boykin joined in the 1995 march, but he said the hundreds of gays who did so were not invited and they viewed their participation as a protest.


“There are some encouraging signs that the march will be more inclusive,” said Mr. Boykin, an attorney who lives in Manhattan. He said of Minister Farrakhan, “I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and see what happens. I do believe in redemption.”


Mr. Boykin and others planning to join in the event said they believed Minister Farrakhan has tempered his views in recent years, particularly in the wake of two serious bouts with prostate cancer. “I’m assuming he has grown and evolved with respect to a lot of issues,” Mr. Boykin said.


Mr. Foxman disagreed, saying there is no sign of change in Minister Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic views. “He has not repented. He has not taken back anything he has said,” Mr. Foxman said.


The ADL Web site quotes Minister Farrakhan as saying in February, “Listen, Jewish people don’t have no hands that are free of the blood of us. They owned slave ships. They bought and sold us. They raped and robbed us.”


In an interview taped just prior to the 1995 march, Minister Farrakhan said he considered many Jewish landlords to be “bloodsuckers.” He also faulted Palestinian Arabs, Koreans, and Vietnamese for draining wealth from the black community. Nevertheless, Minister Farrakhan has repeatedly denied being racist or anti-Semitic. An organization that monitors hate groups in America, the Southern Poverty Law Center, has called Mr. Shabazz’s Black Panthers organization, “violently anti-Semitic.”


Mr. Shabazz is an attorney with a law degree from Howard University. He served as an aide to a former mayor of Washington, Marion Barry, and ran unsuccessfully for the city council there in 1998.


During a speech in February at Carnegie Mellon University at Pittsburgh, Mr. Shabazz argued that Zionism is “racism” and “terrorism.” He called on Jews in the audience to identify themselves and endorsed anti-Semitic books, including one that asserts that Jews were disproportionately involved in the trade of African slaves.


According to the ADL, during a 2002 protest in front of the B’nai B’rith building at Washington, Mr. Shabazz declared, “Kill every god— Zionist in Israel! God—- little babies, god—- old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!”


Most speakers at the 1995 march refrained from racist invective. Some said they deliberately chose to ignore Minister Farrakhan in their remarks. However, a former congressman echoed Minister Farrakhan’s charge that Jews, Koreans, and Vietnamese were seeking to “enrich their own” at the expense of the black community.


One person on the list of leading backers of the Millions More Movement rally, Donna Brazile, said she had not authorized the use of her name. “Someone has taken my name. I have not talked to anyone regarding this,” Ms. Brazile complained.


Ms. Brazile said she had agreed to talk more about the rally with one of the organizers, the Reverend Willie Wilson of Union Temple Baptist Church at Washington, but she had not agreed to join the host committee. Later, she said she might give some help to the organizers.


One person who appeared on the list of conveners said it appeared many names were simply those of speakers from a February conference on the “State of the Black Union.” The offices of Rev. Jackson and Rev. Sharpton said they could not immediately confirm their participation in the October rally.


Rev. Wilson did not return a call seeking comment for this article.


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