Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9510030014
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GARY PHILLIPS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The leader of the Nation is Minister Louis Farrakhan. Partnered with the former national head of the NAACP, the Rev. Ben Chavis, the two have been crisscrossing the country's ghettos and inner cities building support and raising money for the march.
``The most dangerous Negro in America'' - that sobriquet may be on the lips of some extremists in reference to Farrakhan. But that appellation was first used for the socialist labor leader Asa Philip Randolph some 50 years ago.
Randolph was one of the main engines behind organizing the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the largest black-run and black-based union at its height from the late '30s to the early '50s. The Brotherhood was formed, like iron pylons propping up the black working class, in a crucible of big-business-sanctioned racism.
On Jan. 15, 1941, Randolph himself called for a March on Washington. He said he'd bring 100,000 to demonstrate in the capital that summer to demand an end to discrimination in government. As momentum grew, organizers were worried the white police force would react violently, particularly since Jim Crow was practiced in Washington in those days.
Less than a week before the march, the White House relented, and Executive Order 8802 was signed by Roosevelt banning discrimination in hiring of workers in defense industries and the government.
Randolph's goals were clear and were met - at least formally. But Farrakhan's and Chavis's objectives for their march are more ethereal, and therefore harder to quantify.
That's not to say the Million Man March doesn't have merit. The march has the potential to be a concrete response to the endless litany of right-wing attacks demonizing black men. Some of these assaults come in the form of debates in Washington over welfare, crime and affirmative action. Some come in the form of specious research sponsored by right-wing think tanks that end up in the mainstream in such books as ``The Bell Curve'' and ``End of Racism.''
In this racially heated climate, it's important for black men to demonstrate collective organizing. But change will not come from one day's march, and the Nation of Islam cannot build the long road we need to travel to empowerment.
The Nation is fettered by its internal chauvinism. It is, after all, billed as the Million Man March. Women, evidently, need not apply. When was the last time any woman in the Nation has had prominence?
What's more, the Nation's politics are race-based rather than ideologically driven. But narrow nationalism can only go so far in uniting people. To halt African-American dropout rates, to stem prison recidivism, to get others to register to vote and punch that ticket at the ballot box, yes, black people need to come together and set certain agendas.
But what we also need is a perspective aimed at creating alliances across racial and class lines that will truly bring black men, women and others into the next century as participants, and not spectators.
As Latinos, Asians and segments of the white populace are adversely affected by socioeconomic conditions, we must reach out and see that working together, we can advance together. It is long, arduous work. And in these times of hardening racial lines, the work is even more charged with peril.
A symbolic act like the Million Man March has its place. Such an event creates attention and buzz, but without follow-up, it can become one in a series of headline-generating venues with no substance. The road to universal equality and justice must be traveled every day.
Gary Phillips has a short story in an anthology of black mystery writers, ``Spooks, Spies and Private Eyes,'' due out this November.
- Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service
by CNB