Anniversaries are important and their observance says something about the magnitude and importance of the event, whether good or bad. They teach lessons from history and happenings that must never be forgotten.
If individuals and nations fail to acknowledge or pay homage to important anniversaries, they lose valuable perspectives. These moments can guide us forward along a path of greater success or leave us blindly wandering on, committing past errors in a cycle of failure and frustration.
The 29th anniversary of the Million Man March, observed Oct. 16, 2024, offers us vital lessons that must be learned. The March themes—atonement, reconciliation and responsibility—are perhaps more needed now than during the March.
We live in a time of little appreciation for life’s higher values. Insults and antagonisms rain down on all levels of society. Disunity tears the country apart. There is rampant violence, gross self-centeredness, cancerous selfishness, inordinate vanity, and deeply held injuries.
Spiritual things are abandoned in pursuit of fame, wealth and perceived power. Conflict is a tool for gaining followers, attracting voters or briefly being the center of attention.
Celebrity and riches are worshipped. The downfall of celebrities and the wealthy are devoured with glee. Their misfortunes, whether self-induced or otherwise, are targets for mockery, social media memes and massive amounts of attention.
“Patriotism, religious faith, having children and other priorities that helped define the national character for generations are receding in importance to Americans” were among the findings of a Wall Street Journal-NORC poll last year.
“Some 38 percent of respondents said patriotism was very important to them, and 39 percent said religion was very important. That was down sharply from when the Journal first asked the question in 1998 when 70 percent deemed patriotism to be very important, and 62 percent said so of religion,” the poll found.
It also found, “The share of Americans who say that having children, involvement in their community and hard work are very important values has also fallen. Tolerance for others, deemed very important by 80 percent of Americans as recently as four years ago, has fallen to 58 percent since then.”
“A new Pew Research Center survey finds that 80 percent of U.S. adults say religion’s role in American life is shrinking—a percentage that’s as high as it’s ever been in our surveys,” the polling group reported in March.
“Most Americans who say religion’s influence is shrinking are not happy about it. Overall, 49 percent of U.S. adults say both that religion is losing influence and that this is a bad thing.”
This isn’t healthy for American society.
Such trends are even more concerning for our community. We suffer through these ills as well as divisions that lead to character assassination and literal assassination. Family relations often pit us against one another. Politics can obliterate love and devotion.
We don’t have discussions. We have heated arguments as old, unhealed pain arises again and again. Sometimes words and emotions lead to more violence and at minimum more trauma.
We need a healing.
We need a process to take us from where we are to where we need to be. We were given that methodology in the Eight Steps of Atonement shared with us nearly 30 years ago at the Million Man March in Washington, D.C., by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. His masterful organizing and divine vision for the March reflects the very process he spoke of.
He showed us the way to atone and reconcile with one another. No segment of our community was denied, not even those who tried to kill the March. Many were allowed to speak to nearly two million Black men assembled on the steps of the Capitol and National Mall, and the world on that crisp October day.
He took responsibility for the God-given vision he was blessed with, not complaining about those who opposed him, nor targeting them.
He focused on the need and the vision for the March and the time of great danger we were in given portrayals of Black men as a menace to and the downfall of American society.
We were depicted as violent, irredeemable and irreformable. Black boys were labeled super-predators who could not be changed. And, the Minister warned, the stage was being set for our mass destruction with the world in tacit agreement. We were already suffering under mass incarceration with ever more punitive laws and sentences used against us.
Minister Farrakhan offered us a healing and lessons for healing the United States of America if she would heed divine guidance coming through him.
October 16, 1995, and that date every year after was consecrated as a “Holy Day of Atonement” by Black religious leaders. It is also an annual “Day of Absence,” no school, no work, no sport, no play.
A day where we can sit with one another, loved ones and any we have ill affected or who have ill affected us to heal wounds. This, by God’s Grace, gives us a clean slate and a new start.
“This year, October 16, 1995, we propose a Million Man March on Washington and we call it the ‘Day of Atonement,’ meaning ‘at one;’ coming together as one, being as one, reconciling our differences,” Minister Farrakhan said May 6, 1995, at the Apollo Theatre in New York.
It was atonement, reconciliation and responsibility in action as the Minister exposed the U.S. government’s attempt to divide our community by indicting the daughter of Malcolm X, under the influence of a White Jewish informant, in a plot to take his life.
The Minister’s response against the enemy was so strong that the case was essentially dropped. Qubilah Shabazz was given a plea deal. It was the beginning of reconciliation between the late Dr. Betty Shabazz and the Nation of Islam, with the widow of Brother Malcolm speaking at the Million Man March.
“The Qur’an talks about Satan as the ‘accursed one,’ one ‘removed from God.’ Sin makes us remote from God, and any human being who is removed from God is removed from power, from the sensitivity that is necessary to cultivate the better qualities of self.
Sin has brought this breach; our lack of oneness with God, and so on this Day of Atonement, we are asking the government of America to acknowledge her sins against the people.
“We are going to acknowledge our sins, but America has to acknowledge her sins against the people. She has to repent and make atonement for her sins against the struggle of poor and Black people for justice and her sins against the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party.
The Civil Rights Movement, other organizations—Black and White—with whom the government has some ideological or philosophical disagreement. Perhaps in the government’s making atonement she can help herself and her people toward making a new beginning.
“The government of America has to turn away from the abuse of power and authority; turn away from that which is wicked, improper and unrighteous. Whether the government atones or not, let us do this so that the gaping wound in us and our families and our people as a whole may be healed,” he said.
What is the Atonement process? The Eight Steps of Atonement to promote peace and settle differences include:
Someone must point out the wrong
Acknowledgement of wrong
Confess the fault; first to Allah (God), then to those offended
Repentance; a feeling of remorse or contrition or shame for the past conduct which was wrong and sinful
Atonement; meaning to make amends and reparations for the wrong
Forgiveness by the offended party; to cease to feel offense and resentment against another for the harm done
Reconciliation and restoration; meaning to become friendly and peaceable again
Perfect union with Allah (God) and with each other.
What beautiful words, tools and lessons from the Million Man March. Let’s remember these tools and put them to work.
—Naba’a Muhammad, editor in chief, The Final Call
