Professor: Why The Million Man March Was a Total Failure

It’s been three decades since hundreds of thousands of Black men gathered in Washington, D.C. at a rally organized by the National African American Leadership Summit, the Nation of Islam and several Black civil rights organizations, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

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Since time has passed, maybe we can come to terms with an uncomfortable truth: The Million Man March was a disappointment.

Listen….there is something beautiful about Black men coming together and committing to do better for our community. The fact that the march — which occurred Oct. 16, 1995 — happened at all is worth celebrating…but where was the follow-through? The two biggest goals of the march were political and economic in nature.

So, let’s look at the legacy of that day and how it impacted those goals. Warning: you might not like what you see.

Politics

One of the biggest goals of the march was to push back against President Bill Clinton’s disastrous 1994 Crime bill. That was made into law just a year before the march, but it was already beginning to have a disastrous impact on the Black community. But things only got worse because of that bill.

Incarceration rates for Black men significantly increased during the 1990s because of the War on Drugs and stricter sentencing laws for drug offenses. To put it bluntly, we were sentenced longer and were thrown in jail at  higher rates than every other racial groups for similar crimes. By 2000, 9.7% of Black males aged 25 to 29 were in prison. That was over six times higher than that of white men.

It was not until the 2010s that things began to change after mass incarceration and public pressure forced states to take a close look at the ramifications of how they were implementing Clint’s crime bill. So on that metric the march was a political failure, but it also failed to achieve its economic goals.

Economics

Another objective of the Million Man March was to combat the unemployment rates that Black men faced. In 1995,  unemployment rates for Black men was approximately double that of their white counterparts. There were many speeches that day that talked about how there was going to be a focus on Black male rates of unemployment and a promise that things would get better. Nothing became of this either.

It makes sense that there would not be an immediate change. It would be unreasonable to expect Black men’s unemployment rates to go up overnight. But in the year 2000, five years after the march, the unemployment rate of Black men was still double that of white men. And in 2025, 30 years after the march, we are doing a bit better…but not much.  The Black male unemployment rate at 6.3% compared to 3.7% for white men. Not double as it had been, but not far from it.  

So, what happened…? Why did nothing lasting become of what happened that day? The answer is quite simple.

There was no concrete, actionable plan for future action beyond the speeches and pledges. There was also an incredible amount of money collected that had an unclear destination. $1.9 million was raised that day; however, an audit later revealed the event had a debt of about $66,000 due to various unpaid bills and fees…how does that happen?

Ultimately, the Million Man March was a wonderful day of solidarity that had little lasting impact. It gave Black men a sugar high that quickly dissipated. If we are being honest, we must call it what is was: A failure.