PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Thursday marks the 30-year anniversary of a historic day in our nation’s capital: The Million Man March.<\/p>\n
Thousands of men from Philadelphia were in the history-making crowd in Washington D.C. in 1995. The memories from that day are powerful enough to still make participants feel inspired.<\/p>\n
“It is a moment in time in American history,” said Philadelphia City Councilmember Curtis Jones, Jr., who attended the Million Man March on October 16, 1995, with his son.<\/p>\n
“I never experienced that vibe ever again,” he said of the positive and inspiring experience he had surrounded by fellow participants in an atmosphere of positivity.<\/p>\n
“I remember leaving from 46th and Market,” said Jones of the bus he boarded along with a number of other march participants. Philadelphia was said to be among the cities that sent the most men to participate in the Million Man March.<\/p>\n
Action News was at the march on that historic day. It was organized by Minister Louis Farrakhan to encourage unity among African American men.<\/p>\n
“It was a spirit of peace that came over all of us,” said Jones, “And it just resonated throughout the crowd. We all looked at each other like ‘Are we really here, is this real?'”<\/p>\n
Ogbonna Paul Hagins of South Philadelphia witnessed it all up close.<\/p>\n
“We were right in the front,” he said. “I remember the feeling of being there, and I saw all of these brothers. I saw MC Hammer. I saw Ice T. Just walking through the streets.”<\/p>\n
For as positive as the day was, many think one thing was missing.<\/p>\n
“We should have had some type of entity… that carried on the work,” said Jones of the need to turn that day’s positivity into action.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia is picking up where the Million Man March left off. The non-profit Philly Truce is holding a 30th anniversary event on Sunday, October 26th. It will bring together participants for a collective 5k with starting points in North, West and South Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
“All of those locations are going to walk about a mile, about a mile and some change. And we’re going to converge at Love Park,” said Philly Truce Cofounder Mazzie Casher.<\/p>\n
The march will culminate with addresses from speakers calling for real action. Hagins, for years, has called for the creation of a so-called Freedman’s Bureau to address issues ranging from education to economic stability.<\/p>\n
The hope is that the inspiration sparked by the Million Man March can still ignite change.<\/p>\n
“A million men could be in one spot doing positive things,” said Jones.<\/p>\n
In addition to the collective 5K, Philly Truce is hosting a week of events to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Million Man March. They include a free art exhibit, a comedy show, a brunch and other events. For more information visit this page at BrotherlyAction.com<\/a>. Copyright \u00a9 2025 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Thursday marks the 30-year anniversary of a historic day in our nation’s capital: The Million…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":307076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[155451,5229,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-307075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-155451","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115381823642648069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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