Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 18, 1990 TAG: 9003182419
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium
The two Philadelphia-based mediators, Frank Tyler Jr. and Henry C. Mitchum, have visited the city about half a dozen times in recent weeks to test the race-relations climate for the holiday weekend.
Mitchum, who first visited Virginia Beach the day after last year's Labor Day weekend ended, said the pair's main thrust will be helping to keep communication lines open among all the local groups preparing for this year.
The annual celebration, unofficially called Greekfest, attracted about 100,000 black young people. It ended after some revelers looted businesses and battled riot police.
Mitchum, who is white, and Tyler are among 55 such specialists employed by the government's Community Relations Service, established as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
"These guys assist communities where racial conflicts have occurred," said Mark L. Chadwin, former president of the Urban League of Hampton Roads, who met with the pair last fall. "They were listening to what we were doing and what had happened and why."
In recent months, Mitchum and Tyler have focused on monitoring crowds and protests, Mitchum said, including a small Ku Klux Klan march in Ephrata, Pa., and unrest that resulted from a police shooting of two black men in Miami.
Mayor Meyera Oberndorf said she has met with the mediators about four times.
"They came to chat to remind me they were available to talk with businesses, civic groups and church groups," she said.
The Justice Department advisers said they may help planners and the city's newly hired public relations team set up a rumor control telephone line, which would be publicized during Labor Day weekend.
Mitchum and Taylor also might help establish a crowd monitoring system that would use local volunteers to spot trouble before it ignites.
"Say there's a group of young people in an area with a boom box" radio, Mitchum said.
"Rather than police going over telling them they're going to get locked up, maybe the alternative is if someone goes over there and says, `Maybe you should move over there or turn it down,' something that's amenable to everyone."
by CNB