Todd Brewster & Peter Jennings by The Century for Young People: 1961-1999: Changing America
Tags: United States, Historical, Juvenile Nonfiction, History, Biography & Autobiography, 20th Century
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ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend Ronald Goldman. Five days after the killings Americans flocked to their TVs to watch as Simpson fled from the police in a low-speed chase on a Los Angeles freeway. Simpson, in the backseat of a white Ford Bronco, gripped a revolver in one hand and a cellular phone in the other, announcing that he would kill himself if he couldnât see his mother.
By the time Simpson surrendered to the police, Americans were hooked on this tragic story. At first the case seemed to focus the nationâs attention on the problem of domestic abuse. Simpson had been arrested before for hitting his wife, and she had once made a frightened 911 call when he had threatened her. But race soon became the dominant issue. Simpson was black, and his ex-wife and her friend were white. When it was discovered that one of the investigating officers had regularly used racist language, many African Americans became convinced that Simpson had been framed.
The trial was broadcast live on television for eight months and nine days. White Americans tended to believe that Simpson was guilty of two murders, while black Americans tended to believe he was the victim of a racist frame-up. It seemed asthough the whole country was watching when, on October 3, 1995, the jury pronounced the verdict of not guilty. You could almost hear the nation split in two as most black Americans cheered and most whites shook their heads in disgust.
The dream of true integration, the kind that would fulfill Americaâs promise of equality and unity, seemed more remote than ever. Two weeks after the Simpson verdict, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan led the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. Women and whites were excluded. By focusing only on black men, the march appeared to reject the ideal of integration that had inspired Martin Luther King Jr. when he led the famous March on Washington in 1963. The Million Man March did stress some positive valuesârespect for women, responsibility to families, and a condemnation of violence. Still, it seemed that Kingâs vision of a tolerant, integrated America was now a part of history.
African American men around the nation, including T. Deon Warner, born in 1959, traveled to Washington for the Million Man March.
T here is a perception in America that black males are the lowest, dirtiest, most conniving criminal people on this earth. Even black people think that. I know. Iâm black and I am male and I have to overcomethat image every day of my life. I am an attorney at a Houston law firm. And Iâm a pretty good lawyer. I work on the forty-third floor of this modern sixty-four-story building. Itâs a class building, the kind of place where everybody wears suits every day. One day I was riding the elevator up to my floor when a white woman got on, and as soon as she saw me she started clutching her purse, as though to protect it from me. I thought, âThis cannot be happening. Surely, I do not look as though I could ever be a threat to this woman or her purse.â But, for some reason, to her I did.
So when they announced that there was going to be this Million Man March and that one of the goals of the march was to try to change the negative perception of the black male, I knew that I had to go. I didnât care how I got there or what I had to give up to go. It would be worth it to start changing the perception of black males. They were also trying to make a general statement that there are a lot of black males who donât go to prison, who are not beating their wives and girlfriends, and who are not out to rob everybody they see on the street.
I flew up from Houston and met a friend of mine from Michigan, and we made it down to the march site by about 4:45 A.M.When we got to the grounds things were still pretty empty. And then I started seeing people coming out of the woodwork. I mean, they were coming from all directions. Just thousands and thousands of people. About
By the time Simpson surrendered to the police, Americans were hooked on this tragic story. At first the case seemed to focus the nationâs attention on the problem of domestic abuse. Simpson had been arrested before for hitting his wife, and she had once made a frightened 911 call when he had threatened her. But race soon became the dominant issue. Simpson was black, and his ex-wife and her friend were white. When it was discovered that one of the investigating officers had regularly used racist language, many African Americans became convinced that Simpson had been framed.
The trial was broadcast live on television for eight months and nine days. White Americans tended to believe that Simpson was guilty of two murders, while black Americans tended to believe he was the victim of a racist frame-up. It seemed asthough the whole country was watching when, on October 3, 1995, the jury pronounced the verdict of not guilty. You could almost hear the nation split in two as most black Americans cheered and most whites shook their heads in disgust.
The dream of true integration, the kind that would fulfill Americaâs promise of equality and unity, seemed more remote than ever. Two weeks after the Simpson verdict, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan led the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. Women and whites were excluded. By focusing only on black men, the march appeared to reject the ideal of integration that had inspired Martin Luther King Jr. when he led the famous March on Washington in 1963. The Million Man March did stress some positive valuesârespect for women, responsibility to families, and a condemnation of violence. Still, it seemed that Kingâs vision of a tolerant, integrated America was now a part of history.
African American men around the nation, including T. Deon Warner, born in 1959, traveled to Washington for the Million Man March.
T here is a perception in America that black males are the lowest, dirtiest, most conniving criminal people on this earth. Even black people think that. I know. Iâm black and I am male and I have to overcomethat image every day of my life. I am an attorney at a Houston law firm. And Iâm a pretty good lawyer. I work on the forty-third floor of this modern sixty-four-story building. Itâs a class building, the kind of place where everybody wears suits every day. One day I was riding the elevator up to my floor when a white woman got on, and as soon as she saw me she started clutching her purse, as though to protect it from me. I thought, âThis cannot be happening. Surely, I do not look as though I could ever be a threat to this woman or her purse.â But, for some reason, to her I did.
So when they announced that there was going to be this Million Man March and that one of the goals of the march was to try to change the negative perception of the black male, I knew that I had to go. I didnât care how I got there or what I had to give up to go. It would be worth it to start changing the perception of black males. They were also trying to make a general statement that there are a lot of black males who donât go to prison, who are not beating their wives and girlfriends, and who are not out to rob everybody they see on the street.
I flew up from Houston and met a friend of mine from Michigan, and we made it down to the march site by about 4:45 A.M.When we got to the grounds things were still pretty empty. And then I started seeing people coming out of the woodwork. I mean, they were coming from all directions. Just thousands and thousands of people. About
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