D.C. Rally A Tribute to The Passion Of a Million

Jimmy Covington, 54, of Greensboro, N.C., said he stayed away from the 1995 event in part because of a wariness of Farrakhan. But now Farrakhan appears more like a unifier than a divider, Covington said. Also, his son, Stacy, 28, was determined to come to Washington to hear Farrakhan.

Covington said he'd planned to participate in a golf tournament this weekend, but his wife and daughter convinced him it was a good chance to bond with his son. Covington said he worked the evening shift for much of his career -- "I really wasn't home all that much."

Some came out of a sense that they had missed history by not attending in 1995. "I have regretted every single day since not coming," said Rollin Clayton Jr., a jazz percussionist-turned-social worker from Akron, Ohio. He sat holding his camera, saying he was looking for an image to take home to the boys he counsels at a charter school.

"I'm seeing love, joy, togetherness, harmony, people coming together, people of different religions coming together," he said as he surveyed the crowd near the pool at the foot of the Capitol.

He missed the 1995 event because he was raising his daughter alone after the death of his wife. Although he was sorry to miss the Million Man March, he cherishes his involvement in his daughter's life. "I want to let men know we need to get involved and stay involved with their families," he said. His daughter, he added, "turned me into a good dad."

The essential quality of yesterday's event was "togetherness of people," said Clayton, 52. "We need to be organized enough to sit at a table and say this is what we need."

When Keith Lorenzo Holmes walked onto the Mall in 1995, he realized he had never felt so comfortable. "It was like an army, and it was so beautiful," he said of the hundreds of thousands African American men gathered that day. "For once in my life, I felt like I didn't have to worry about a thing."

Yesterday, Holmes, 44, was sitting on a stool, selling posters that display his poems. A radio engineer and former Army captain who lives in Columbia, Holmes said he was eager to contribute to Farrakhan's movement, although not as someone who stands at a podium or in front of cameras.

One of his poems is called "Seeking." On one of the posters Holmes offered for sale yesterday, the verses appear above a picture he took of the 1995 gathering. The first line is: "Day after day, we must all seek our goal. Believing in ourselves heart, mind, and soul."