Rev. Mark A. Thompson has spent most of his life as a political, civil rights & human rights activist and organizer. He has been a part of every major social justice movement & event over the past 40 years, and a media broadcaster and commentator for over three decades. Rev. Mark A. Thompson was raised in Clark Memorial United Methodist Church, a Nashville sit-in movement headquarters, where the Rev. James Lawson held his nonviolent trainings, and where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. held his 1961 SCLC Annual Meeting.
He currently hosts Make It Plain (MIP), named among Best Civil Rights, Best Human Rights, Best Social Justice, and Best Broadcast Television Podcasts in 2021. Rev. Mark was honored at the 104th Annual NAACP Convention in 2013 “for 25 years of crusading journalism and outstanding leadership in furthering the work of civil and human rights.”
Rev. Mark has organized and emceed every anniversary of the March on Washington, the Million Man March, the annual commemoration of Bloody Sunday in Selma and the 2002 Millions for Reparations March. Along with Human Rights Watch, he organized the construction of the Reparations Garden on the White House Ellipse during Juneteenth 2022, and at the same time, co-published the song, “H.R. 40 (Reparations Now),” in conjunction with gospel group Common Hymnal.
Rev. Mark was inducted into Morehouse College’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers on April 13, 2023.
He is a Life Member of the NAACP, National Action Network, National Congress of Black Women and National Organization of Women. He is a member of the Senior Advisory Board for the Institute of Politics, Policy and History at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). And he is a member of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference for which he led a daily national Prayerdemic during the COVID pandemic. He is an active organizer for the Poor People’s Campaign, the Black Church Political Action Committee, Community First Solutions, Black Voters Matter and Until Freedom. After attending the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, he earned his Bachelor’s in Journalism from UDC, and his Masters in Divinity from Howard University.
Rev. Mark lives in New York, NY, and is the proud father of a daughter, Iftin, who has an MS in Transportation Engineering, and a son, Menra, who is a member of the Clark Atlanta Baseball Team, and an Honors Student.