Jason Miccolo Johnson was one of three photojournalists who received the Gordon Parks’ “Choice of Weapons” awards this month in Ft. Scott, Kansas. He’s known for doing portraits of leaders such as Thurgood Marshall and Nelson Mandela, as well as Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama.
In 1995, Johnson spent a 12-hour day taking photos at the Million Man March in Washington D.C.
KMUW’s Carla Eckels sat down with Jason who shared details about covering the march 30 years ago.
CARLA ECKELS: Describe was it like, heading to the National Mall.
JASON MICCOLO JOHNSON: We ended up at Union Station eating and it was eerie, because it was real quiet and peaceful outside, and we passed groups of Black men on the street. It was like everybody had turned the streets over to all [the] Black men. But it wasn't a sense of fear or trepidation that one might experience walking the streets at night. It was, “Hey, brother, what's happening? Hey, what's up,” you know? And it was a sense of recognition and pride and expectation for the next day.
ECKELS: Jason rose early the next day and gathered at the edge of the National Mall.
JOHNSON: There were already thousands of men on the mall, and we’re in total darkness. The thing I remember most that stood out was hearing the music of Marvin Gaye, “What's Going On” album being played in the background….and seeing all the Fruits of Islam men lined up and looking dapper as always, you know, like a drill team.
ECKELS: He immediately sought out the media area to try to find his credentials.
JOHNSON: And somebody found them, and said, “Oh yeah, we have Jason Miccolo Johnson, here's your credentials, right here.” So great, great relief. What I didn't know then was that there was a separate media entrance to get to the stage that they had set up for the media. So, I went through the crowd trying to get to the front, and it was a thick crowd, and it took me about half an hour.
ECKELS: Jason reached a retaining wall leading up to the Capitol steps that was about 4 feet high.
JOHNSON: Well, the men were clustered in so thick at this point, and it's still dark. I had to get lifted over that wall, and I showed them my media credentials. “Hey, Brother, I'm trying to get to the front, to the media.” And, literally, one took my bag, and others picked me up and lifted me over the wall and put me down other side and everywhere I was going, “Excuse me, excuse me” and they just parted and let me through and then, soon as I went through, it’s like the waters came back together, and it was elbow to elbow. I never will forget that, and the generosity and the kindness that they showed me and allowed me to go to the front, to get to the media stage.
ECKELS: What was it like to be around so many Black men?
JOHNSON: It was empowering in one word. It was a sea of Black ... faces, and you felt the power of togetherness, the power of oneness. And I remember photographing Benjamin Chavis, who was the national coordinator, and he was standing on some type of object that allowed him to rise a little higher up. And on each side of him were Fruits of Islam members. These were the people in the nation who were serving as security, and so they were flanking him on each side, but he was elevated up in the middle, and they formed ... a triangular shape. And I have a great picture of that shot, and that's one of my most powerful images.
ECKELS: Did you see men of all ages?
JOHNSON: [Yes] ...from all walks of life. I saw people whom I knew, friends, sons of friends, sons of prominent leaders. I photographed the sons of Earl Graves, the founder of Black Enterprise magazine, and then I saw women in the audience. As the day went on, there were women who were participating as volunteers in the medical tent and legal, as well as some prominent people. Civil Rights Activist Queen Mother Moore in a wheelchair — took a picture of her gathering around, so, as the day blossomed, I photographed so many speakers being in that confined area on the stage.
ECKELS: Jason Miccolo Johnson then went further out into the crowd.
JOHNSON: I wanted to get out and go back in the crowd and get some crowd shots, you know, three or four blocks away from the main stage, and that's where you really got to see the folks with signage. One sign said, “We're Black and Strong.” I ended up making four postcards from the Million Man March afterwards, and one of the cards was a man and a woman sitting on the edge of the reflecting pool looking towards the Capitol. And I shot them from the back because she was leaning her head on his shoulders, side by side, but on her t-shirt, on her sweatshirt, it said, “Go ahead, brothers. Go ahead, Black man, we got your back.”
ECKELS: You photographed the mass crowd on the west side of the Capitol.
JOHNSON: I wanted a wide shot that encapsulated the whole march. How do you show a million men in one shot? And I took my widest lens, I had a monopod, and I put the camera on a monopod, and on a five second timer, just enough time for me to hoist the monopod up into the air, tilt it down so you see the elevation of the camera angle today, it would be like a drone shot, but by the high angle, it allowed you to see the depth of all the people behind the first ... several rows. You can see our way back to the Washington Monument, and that's why I shot it that way. And you can see men from edge to edge, from Constitution Avenue to Independence Avenue.
ECKELS: It’s such a powerful shot. I remember listening to the radio in Ohio and hearing people say they weren’t sure of the numbers. What are your thoughts? The photo shows a vast sea of people.
JOHNSON: It not only shows a vast sea of people from edge to edge, from left to right and from front to back, but it also shows the congested nature of how close they were standing. Typically, when they designed these grids to try to figure out how many people are in a certain space, they allow for a ... 3x3 feet square box. That's what a typical human space would take up, and these guys were elbow to elbow, at least for the first block. Now, once you got past the reflecting pool ... there was more space for them to spread out. But it continued way past three blocks, and three blocks in every direction, and it went all the way back to 17th Street. And that's when you can really see the breadth and scope and depth and the density, which was critical into assessing the numbers, is how dense the crowd was.
ECKELS: Jason took photos throughout the day until 6 that evening.
JOHNSON: So, I spent 12 hours there on my feet shooting, and in the end, as I'm walking away, after the crowd had left room, there were men cleaning up the grounds, picking up papers and all of that. And the vendors were the last vestige of people there. And I photographed the busses and people getting on the busses. [They] had signs from different cities. ...I reviewed this moment, this day, in my head over and over, and I had looked back at the famous March on Washington and said, “Now, what is it that they did that was so powerful and so memorable?” I wanted to make sure that I captured those shots. It was not only the breadth and scope of the depth of the amount of people who was there, but then also looked for those powerful moments on the faces of individuals to tell the story of signage, of the posters.
ECKELS: One of the posters read, “I am my Brother's Keeper.”
JOHNSON: And that was hoisted over a couple of men's heads, and on this huge bedroom sheet they had, “I’m Black and I’m Strong,” and that was a big, big sign that they were holding up. And then there were various fraternities there. So, I tried to capture the different groups that was there, the different organizations. The Alphas, the Q's, they were there in permanent numbers.
ECKELS: Jason also tried to capture what people were wearing that signified the city they were from.
JOHNSON: The Kansas City group, St. Louis, LA — all of that because I wanted to show it visually. I wanted to tell the story visually of what the Million Man March was like that day, so if there was somebody years later who wasn't there, and they need to see the pictures, I wanted to show them the totality of it from every angle. From left to right, from the back to the front, to the podium, the speakers. And the most challenging thing was photographing the speakers, because they had this bulletproof glass surrounding [them] and [during] the evening time on the west side, you get the light coming in, reflecting on that glass, and it's hard to see the speaker behind it.
ECKELS: You were working throughout the day. I’m curious, was there any particular speakers who stood out to you that day?
JOHNSON: Minister Farrakhan stood out for me. But then there was this little kid , probably about 10 or 12 years old ... he spoke very powerfully. I remember Dr. Dorothy Height speaking and listening intently. Betty Shabazz, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson ... I captured that shot of three of them and one other unidentified person in that shot. And I thought, “You know, this ties it all together.” We have the disciples of Martin Luther King, disciples of Malcolm X, and the widow of Malcolm X. So, it was a full circle moment. It was being covered live by B.E.T. — Black Entertainment Television — founded by Robert Johnson, which was powerful. People like Dick Gregory was there, walking through the crowd. Trying to find as many prominent faces who were there to tell the story.
ECKELS: When leaving the National Mall, what resonated with you?
JOHNSON: I truly felt a great sense of unity among Black men. I come back to the one word that sums it up. I felt empowered. I felt like I had an extension of my power throughout the United States, because now I knew that there were brothers of like-mindedness, like-commitment and like-appreciation for culture and history. That I was no longer working in a vacuum, and that there were men there for the ready if the right call came in from the right man. And to those who said there wasn't a million men there, I just say it was more people there than ever gathered anywhere in America in history. And I would say that the only person who could have called Black men together for that day, the only person who put out the call, and people would’ve responded, was Minister Louis Farrakhan. Despite what you think of his religion, his politics or whatever, Jesse Jackson couldn't have called that. Al Sharpton couldn't have called that. No one else in Black America could have called Black men together.
My only regret is that I wish there would have been a clearer stated goal or target or mission afterwards, like we're going to go out and register 10 million Black men, or we're going to adopt 100,000 Black kids, or we're going to do something that's measurable and tangible, other than just an atonement. But we showed that we could come together in peace and harmony, not a single incident, not a single arrest, not a single fight or conflict, and we had to support the beautiful sisters who showed up too.
A Men’s Power Summit will be held in Wichita on Thursday night.
