{"id":2725,"date":"2011-10-17T11:03:55","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T18:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.57.196.122\/~gdatwofo\/theavtimes\/?p=2725"},"modified":"2011-10-24T13:22:41","modified_gmt":"2011-10-24T20:22:41","slug":"16th-anniversary-of-million-man-march-celebrated-locally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/2011\/10\/17\/16th-anniversary-of-million-man-march-celebrated-locally\/","title":{"rendered":"16th Anniversary of Million Man March, celebrated locally"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>PALMDALE- A crowd of about 50 attendees gathered at the Larry Chimbole Cultural Center Saturday to mark the 16th<\/sup> Anniversary of the Million Man March.<\/p>\n

The event was hosted by the Antelope Valley Study Group, from 12 to 3:30 p.m., and brought together speakers from the Nation of Islam, as well other community leaders.<\/p>\n

The local celebration was held as a continuation of a larger celebration, which took place in Philadelphia a week earlier to commemorate the 16th<\/sup> Anniversary of the Million Man March \u2013 when civil rights organizations, social activists, and African American men converged en masse at the United States Capital on October 16, 1995. Many of the themes from the original Million Man March \u2013 accountability, unity, activism, reconciling differences and changing public perception \u2013 were reemphasized at Saturday\u2019s local commemoration.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
V. Jesse Smith addresses the audience, as event organizer Stan Muhammad looks on.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe all must understand that it\u2019s not about Christianity, it\u2019s not about Islam, it\u2019s not about I\u2019m black and I\u2019m white,\u201d said organizer Stan Muhammad. \u201cIt\u2019s about obedience to God Himself, whether I see Him as Allah, Jesus, Jehovah, Yahweh, or whatever you want to call Him, the most important thing that we can do as human beings is obey His will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rev. Hilde Brooks, of the Center for Spiritual Living, urged the audience to see past differences to recognize the similarities that unite everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not different than you,\u201d Brooks said, to the mostly African American crowd. \u201cI am not any more privileged than you are; it doesn\u2019t matter if my hair is blond and I can swing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooks said, as a woman, she had to work just as hard, and endure many of the same struggles faced by the women in the room, including being marked, ridiculed and accused.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a biracial son and my heart cries for him,\u201d said Brooks. \u201cI pray everyday, please don\u2019t profile my baby.<\/p>\n

Speaker V. Jesse Smith urged the audience to become advocates for change in the Antelope Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to become an active, outspoken and assertive individual to fight for change in our own community,\u201d said Smith. \u201cThat outspokenness may look like violence, it may look like confrontation, but you have to have that kind of confrontation in order for justice and peace to take place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speakers Emmett Murrell of The Community Action League and Darren Parker of the Merit Commission also spoke at the event.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The featured presentation was a speech given by Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan, via DVD. The video was taken from Farrakhan\u2019s 2011 Holy Day of Atonement address on October 9, 2011 in Philadelphia. Farrakhan touched on a series of topics throughout the hour-long speech, including unemployment, war, Martin Luther King, President Obama, education, economics and the Tea Party.<\/p>\n

Farrakhan said that the time for marching was over and commanded listeners to mobilize for action.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future of our people depends on our ability for action to bring about the results that we\u2019ve been begging others for, which will never come to us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have got to do it ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information, or to order the Holy Day of Atonement Commemorating the 16th anniversary of the Million Man March DVD, contact 310-925-2071.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PALMDALE- A crowd of about 50 attendees gathered at the Larry Chimbole Cultural Center Saturday to mark the 16th Anniversary of the Million Man March. The event was hosted by the Antelope Valley Study Group, from 12 to 3:30 p.m., and brought together speakers from the Nation of Islam, as well other community leaders. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theavtimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}