Columbia’s Million Man March puts ‘Black excellence’ on display, demands equality

Hundreds dressed in their Sunday best marched through the heart of Columbia on a steamy afternoon to send a clear message: “Black Lives Matter.”

Columbia’s Million Man March, organized by local group Rise of A Nation, was inspired by a march of the same name in Washington, D.C., almost 25 years ago. Lead organizer Leo “C-Metro” Jones said that he wanted Sunday’s procession of men, women and children in finery to be a response to news coverage that he said overemphasized the looting and rioting that occurred after peaceful protesting.

“This is the narrative of our Black excellence,” speaker Ashley White said from a podium on the State House steps. “You will no longer have your knee on our necks.”

Sunday’s demonstration-in-motion began in the morning at Martin Luther King Jr. Park near Five Points, and ended at the South Carolina State House, where speakers took the podium to demand racial equality and justice. People of all ages showed up in three-piece suits and sundresses, and in T-shirts emblazoned with messages such as “I am Walter Scott” and “My skin color is not a crime.”

As marchers gathered on Greene Street before the walk, Frado Smith, 50, sold his own T-shirts. “I can’t breathe. Stop killing us. Justice for George Floyd,” the shirts said on the front.

Smith said he first became aware of the deep roots and far-reaching impacts of racism when he was a teenager, listening to music by Public Enemy and recordings of speeches by minister and political activist Louis Farrakhan, who helped organize the 1995 Million Man March.

Smith said the recent wave of activism and uprising across the world — sparked by the videotaped police killing of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis — is meaningful. It matters to him that there are non-Black people raising their voices, he said.

“It’s significant and it’s long overdue,” Smith said.

Beonta Clowney, a 28-year-old social worker, drove to Columbia from Spartanburg with her mother, Sonya Clowney, and her sister for the march. Sonya Clowney, 45, said she brought her daughters to witness what felt like a “pivotal moment.”

“I see people who don’t necessarily look like me this time,” she said. “We’re tired.”

Sonya Clowney, a machinist, pointed to a group of non-Black people standing next to her in the street as an example of the solidarity she’s seeing across the world. And to Beonta Clowney, that’s “beautiful.”

“I feel so supported,” she said.

The Clowneys hadn’t participated in the recent protests against police brutality, but said they watched from home as those demonstrations turned into burning cars and police tear gassing crowds of people. And in conversation with family, Sonya Clowney said she’s used a metaphor to explain the anger of looters and rioters, even though she wants nonviolence.

“The bottom line is they wanted to be heard,” she said. “A pipe under pressure is eventually going to explode ... right where it is.”

‘No justice, no peace’

During Sunday’s march, the crowd chanted the names of Black Americans killed by police, punctuated by cries of “No justice, no peace.” Rows of people filled the width of major Columbia thoroughfares, such as Gervais Street, for blocks. Protesters held up homemade signs that said “Invest in communities not police” and “Justice delayed is justice denied.”

All along the route of the march, at gas stations and in parking lots, bystanders watched and held up cellphones to take videos. One woman stood in a median, watching the march and wiping tears away from her eyes. Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin, Richland County Sheriff’s Department deputies and recently re-elected Sheriff Leon Lott marched with the group.

At the State House, Benjamin encouraged attendees to pay tribute to the Black lives lost by working to better Columbia.

“This is our moment. This is our time,” he said to the crowd. “How do you turn this moment into a movement? How do you turn this pain and passion into progress?”

Others spoke about issues affecting Black communities. They prayed, sang, performed spoken word poetry, cracked jokes and called on the marchers to put their money, voices and voting power to good use in demanding change. They mourned the killings by police of people who looked like them, just days before the five-year anniversary of the massacre at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston.

T’Nae Parker, a longtime activist, said she is watching the United States face the “light of truth” that civil rights icon and journalist Ida B. Wells said would correct wrongdoing by exposing it. As she watched video of the final moments of Floyd’s life, his face pressed to the street as a white police officer kneeled on his neck, she said she felt something shift in her, too.

“With his last breath, the last bit of patience left my body,” she told the marchers at the State House.

Broken toilet results in police call

Her message resonated with Voorhees College baseball coach Marcus Smith, 44, who attended the State House rally with his wife, pharmacist Juanita Smith, 45. The couple moved to South Carolina in December, and said family members expressed concern about how South Carolina would treat them as Black people.

Both said they have been pulled over by police or had cops called on them “for no reason.”

In one such instance, they arrived around 2 a.m. at a hotel just outside of Nashville and realized that the toilet in their room was broken. Instead of receiving help from hotel maintenance staff when they asked for help, Juanita Smith said the front desk called police.

She noted how she had been repeatedly called “Mrs. Obama” by coworkers at a hospital that employed her because she was one of the first Black women to have her job. Marcus Smith pointed out that he hasn’t seen any other Black residents in his gated Columbia community.

It’s those instances and observations that add up as time goes on, Juanita Smith said. It’s what brought them out to the march, she said.

“It’s not about Black and white. It’s about right and wrong,” Juanita Smith said. “... You have to choose what side you’re going to be on.”

This story was originally published June 14, 2020 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Columbia’s Million Man March puts ‘Black excellence’ on display, demands equality."