Washington, D.C. – Wisdom and Cherie Jzar buckled their three children inside a Toyota Corolla and drove six hours from Charlotte, North Carolina to the nation’s capitol to join thousands of black Americans who rallied Saturday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March and support an emerging grass-roots movement.
 
“This is a call for unity to address our common issues,” Wisdom, 30, who carried his nine-month old daughter on his back, told BlackAmericaWeb.com Saturday. “When the call comes, we’re there.”
 
Wisdom said he attended the Million Man March in 1995, and his family also supported the Million Woman March in 1997 and the Million Family March in 2000. He said he plans to return to Charlotte to help improve the quality of life for his family and his community.
 
“I feel empowered,” Cherie, 28, said Saturday as she looked at the crowd. “I  feel connected, I feel a sense of community.”
 
Thousands of blacks from across the country gathered on the National Mall for the Millions More Movement, which, according, to organizers was created to mobilize black men, women and young people to denounce the substandard education of black students, unemployment, and poverty and social injustice in communities of color.
 
Saturday’s self-empowerment rally was organized by Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan, who was also the architect of the Million Man March. Farrakhan said Saturday's gathering should serve as a catalyst for a long-term movement, an organized campaign and not just a one-day event.
 
"The government will never do for the poor of this nation until and unless we organize effectively to make government respond to the needs of the poor," Farrakhan said in an 80-minute speech from the steps of the U.S. Capitol. “We must go back home and organize as never before.”
 
Criticizing the Bush administration was a major theme of the day. Farrakhan urged black leaders to file a “class action suit” against the federal government for its slow response to survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
 
“We charge America with criminal neglect,” Farrakhan said to applause.
 
But Farrakhan also had sharp words for Democrats as well.
 
"We need to think about a new political party," he said. "The Democrats have used us and abused us. They look at the black and the brown and the poor like this is a plantation, and our Democratic leaders are like the house Negro on the plantation of Democratic politics."
 
Under a bright sun, black folks, some wearing “Millions More Movement” t-shirts, stretched out on blankets, sat in folding chairs and listened to dozens of speakers -- ministers, congressional leaders, civil rights activists and entertainers, who talked of unifying black people for a common cause.
 
The movement calls for black men and women to demand better education for black students; create a black “economic development fund;” become more politically active; help poor blacks; develop a comprehensive health care plan for black Americans and speak out against police brutality.
 
Organizers said they were not necessarily concerned with the number of blacks who attended the event Saturday, but instead encouraged those who did participate to return to their cities with a renewed spirit to bring about social change.
 
Akbar Muhammad, a representative of the Nation of Islam, said an estimated 800,000 people may have attended Saturday’s rally. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority reported that by noon Saturday, subway ridership topped 152,000, according to CNN, and other media reports estimated the crowd at about 100,000.  
 
“We’re in a tug of war for the soul of America,” Rev. Jesse Jackson told the crowd. “We survived slavery, Jim Crow, faith based lynchings, pseudo science, perverted theology, legal and cultural race and gender supremacy -- a system that distorted the image of God and saw us through a limited key hole and not through doors as a whole people, as Sister Maya Angelou said, and still we rise.”
 
Ten years after the historic Million Man March -- where thousands of black men took a public pledge to provide for their families, adopt black children, support black-owned businesses and stop using drugs -- more black men are dropping out of public schools, facing rising unemployment and remain  incarcerated at record highs.
 
Today, many black community activists, educators and psychologists say the challenges for black Americans are so immense that it will take a coordinated, grassroots approach city by city and block by block to address all the social, economic and mental health issues that many black people are experiencing in the nation’s urban centers.
 
“We’ve come here to help ourselves,” D.C. Councilman Marion Barry told the audience. “We still have work to do.”
 
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina served as a dramatic rallying call that underscored the racial disparities between blacks and whites and galvanized the  movement. Many speakers spoke of the federal government’s initial slow response to residents of the Gulf Coast region, and devastation that left more than 1,000 dead, resulting in the largest displacement of black families since the Civil War.
 
Others took issue with the war in Iraq, and black mothers told stories of how their sons were killed unjustly by police officers.
 
According to last week’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, President George W. Bush’s national approval rating has declined to 39 percent, the lowest level during his Presidency. And among black Americans, Bush has only a 2 percent approval rating.
 
Under the Bush administration, 9.4 percent of blacks are unemployed at more than twice the rate of whites and the rate of unemployment among black teenagers is a staggering 32 percent. 
 
“We’re here today at the beginning of the 21st century to lay out a plan,” Sharpton told the audience. “We’ve come here to gas up for a long struggle to  liberate our people.”
 
Singer Erykah Badu challenged the crowd, saying if people are serious about joining the “revolution,” they should start by looking “in the mirror.”
 
The Millions More Movement, organized by a broad coalition of black leaders and lead by Farrakhan, received endorsements from Dr. Dorothy Height and the National Council of Negro Women, Bruce Gordon and the NAACP, Mark Morial and the National Urban League, Russell Simmons and the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, Dr. Charles Steele and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Jackson, Sharpton, the National Action Network and the Congressional Black Caucus. 
 
Albert White, 59, from Silver Spring, Maryland, who attended the Million Man March in 1995, said he was encouraged by Saturday’s attendance of so many young blacks, but wondered if they truly understood the purpose of the movement.
 
“We need to get in the street,” White told BlackAmericaWeb.com Saturday. “We need more of these events.”
 
“I support any movement that uplifts our people,” Dana Miller, 31, who took a bus from Atlanta to D.C., told BlackAmericaWeb.com Saturday.

In the days leading up to the rally, detractors of the Millions More Movement -- black and white -- questioned why another rally was necessary, and some say organizers of the Million Man March failed to marshal a methodical approach to solving the complex problems facing black men. 
 
But Conrad Worrill, director of Inner City Studies for the Jacob Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern  Illinois University, and an organizer of the Millions More Movement, said the 1995 Million Man March was designed “to challenge black men to assume greater responsibility” and he described Saturday’s rally as “a call to action.”

“We need this movement more today than anytime in our history,” Worrill told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “We’ve never advanced without a movement and we need a movement to repair the damage.”
 
Dr. Robert Atwell, president of the National Association of Black Psychologists, who attended Saturday's rally, said members of his association have already met at Howard University and have mechanisms in place to connect with black people -- and black men in particular -- who are experiencing hardships and are in need of immediate mental health counseling.
 
Through the Millions More Movement, Atwell told BlackAmericaWeb.com, his  association will also focus on eliminating racial disparities in America’s health-care system and encourage more black Americans to take greater personal responsibility for their health.  
 
Antonio and Michelle Evans from D.C. relaxed in the shade of tall trees with their two children.
 
“I attended the Million Man March,” Antonio, 45, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “I wanted to bring my family to experience this event, and I wanted to give my son a sense of pride.”
 
Ayinde Jean-Baptiste, 22, a graduate of Northwestern University in Chicago, was just a youngster when he spoke at the Million Man March in 1995.
 
On Saturday, Jean-Baptiste told thousands of  blacks that America needs more “soldiers” to address critical issues impacting the black community and to ensure that the Millions More Movement was not reduced to a one-day rally.
 
“It’s not just a march,” he told the crowd, “we’re building a movement.”