The Million Man March

On 16th October 1995 hundreds of thousands of African American men marched on Washington D.C. in an attempt to put black issues back on the government agenda and to present a positive image of black men. Aquila Powell – 23 at the time – was one of the few women who attended the march. She was working for the National Coalition on Black Voter Participation and trying to encourage attendees to register to vote. She talks to Ben Carter about her recollections of that day.(Photo:The Million Man March, Credit:TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images)

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Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest, the disastrous D-Day rehearsal, and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.