Despite Farrakhan, Seattle Men To Attend ‘Million Man March’

Charles Rolland won’t be at his desk Monday morning. With his 12-year-old son, Marcus, at his side, Rolland will be in Washington, D.C., taking part in the “Million Man March.”

Rolland, a former chairman of the Washington state Democratic Party and former top aide to Seattle Mayor Norm Rice, is one of several Seattle-area black men planning to attend the one-day demonstration to show their resolve to improve their communities.

And why is Rolland participating?

Now a partner in Gambrell Urban, a Seattle consulting firm, Rolland can afford to live in the heart of largely white, affluent Bellevue, across Lake Washington from Seattle.

But he chooses to live in Seattle’s Central Area, the heart of the black community.

Though he feels that’s where successful blacks should be, one of the prices he pays is constant worry.

“I have a family. I have two young sons. I have a daughter. I concern myself about their safety going to school. I concern myself about who is going to be climbing through my window trying to rob our house and those type of deals,” Rolland said.

But Rolland isn’t willing to run away from the problems. “If we’re going to rebuild this community, we have to take responsibility for it,” he said.

Responsibility is one of the main themes sounded by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who is organizing the event with the Rev. Benjamin Chavis, former NAACP executive director.

As part of his theme for Monday’s march, Farrakhan has called for responsibility to wives, children, families and communities.

Farrakhan also urges reconciliation and atonement, arousing controversy among some blacks who feel the approach is tantamount to a confession: guilty as charged by white Americans.

But Rolland and other Seattle black men who plan to attend the march choose to look beyond the controversy.

“It doesn’t matter how we got into the situation we’re in, what boat brought us,” Rolland said. “We all came over on different boats. But we’re all in the same boat now.”

Son Marcus said he’s glad his dad wanted him to go.

“It’s a really good learning experience for me,” Marcus said.

Joseph Antoine-Zimbabwe, owner of Blackbird Books in Seattle, said Farrakhan should not be an issue, despite his controversial statements about women, gays, whites and Jews.

“This (march) could have been called by Jesse Jackson or Colin Powell,” Antoine-Zimbabwe said.

“It doesn’t really have anything to do with Minister Farrakhan, except he happened to be the one who talked about it and said it needed to happen.”

Health problems will keep Antoine-Zimbabwe from the march, but he has donated money to send others.

Don Briscoe, business manager for Seattle’s Local 17 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, hopes the march will help local black leaders meet and share their ideas with others around the country interested in rebuilding black communities.

“I’m not looking to divide myself from any ethnic or religious group,” Briscoe said. “I’m just looking to take positive steps to change the plight of people who look like me.”

Organizers hope the march will address such issues as rising unemployment, broken families, drug abuse, crime and other conditions that help feed negative media images of black men.

Milford X, a minister in the Nation of Islam, predicted that as many as 300 black men from Seattle would make the trip.

About 15 people recently gathered for a fund-raising party at the home of Jeri Ware, a Central Area community activist.

Ware, whose son plans to attend the march, said proceeds will help pay for transportation and lodging expenses of some participants.

“The desire of all of us is to come back from the march with renewed commitment,” Milford X said.

“All the negativity that’s coming out of this is really due to the fear of the white establishment of 1 million black men coming together. Black men have to unite, because that’s the only way we can get power.”

Farrakhan, in a CNN interview, asked those who could not be there to observe “a day of absence” and called on black women to refrain from shopping and to spend the day with their children teaching them the value of home, self-esteem, family and unity.

The exclusion of women from the march has opened leaders to charges of sexism.

But Seattle journalist Riz Rollins, a gay black man, takes issue with the charges against Farrakhan.

Rollins is uncomfortable with anti-homosexual positions attributed to Farrakhan, but isn’t sure the media have portrayed Farrakhan’s views on gays and women correctly.

“I want to see for myself,” said Rollins, who works for The Stranger, an alternative publication.

“People more often than not approach Farrakhan with their biases in tow. There are some women’s issues Farrakhan is going to have trouble dealing with because he’s Muslim. But there are some issues Jerry Falwell is going to have trouble dealing with, too. Farrakhan is our Falwell. He is our conservative voice.”