
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, September 11, 1995                   TAG: 9509110143
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

LEADERS PLAN MARCH ON D.C. FOR BLACK MEN

LOUIS FARRAKHAN is the architect of the Million Man March, and even those who distance themselves from him are rushing to embrace his idea.

Tens or even hundreds of thousands of black men will gather on the Mall Oct. 16 for what organizers envision as a solemn display of moral fortitude and political strength.

They are calling it the Million Man March. Although numbers are impossible to predict, there already are abundant signs that the event has struck a chord in the black community.

The march is the brainchild of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, whose stern calls for self-reliance and spiritual renewal resonate with many blacks, but whose rhetoric, widely criticized as anti-Semitic, repels many others.

Some who have kept Farrakhan at arm's length are embracing the march.

As conceived by Farrakhan, the march will highlight a day on which black men will ``straighten their backs'' and pledge themselves to a restoration of values.

He is asking black men across the country to stay off their jobs as part of an economic boycott. And he hopes that a mass of orderly, resolute black men in the nation's capital will stand in stark contrast to negative images that pervade popular culture.

But some political leaders are seeking to make the event more than that. With economic upheaval and crime taking a heavy toll on African Americans, and with a Republican-controlled Congress pursuing an agenda that many regard as hostile to civil rights, organizers hope the march will ignite a new political urgency.

Customarily cautious politicians such as Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and Philadelphia Mayor Edward G. Rendell, who is Jewish, have given their endorsement. Baptist preachers are organizing alongside Farrakhan's Muslim followers.

Some well-known rap musicians, including Public Enemy and Brand Nubians, have signed on.

Women, who have not been invited to march, but who are being asked for their support, are lining up to provide it. The National Council of Negro Women has given its endorsement, as has activist C. Delores Tucker, who has campaigned against the violence and sexism of the ``gangsta-rap'' culture.Indeed, several senior planners of the Million Man March are women.

The coalition has grown so broad that even Farrakhan's most ardent critics, including the Anti-Defamation League, have thus far taken a muted approach to the event.

Despite a thin organization and continuing reservations among some influential blacks, some who are familiar with the march say they believe it could draw more people than the storied 1963 March on Washington. That seminal event attracted 250,000, making it one of the larger demonstrations in the history of the civil-rights movement.

by CNB