THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Tuesday, January 17, 1995              TAG: 9501170323
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: RICHMOND                           LENGTH: Short :   41 lines

WILDER TO BLACKS: DON'T ACCENT DIFFERENCES EX-GOVERNOR CITES DEFEATIST ATTITUDES AND FOCUS ON RACE.

Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder urged black Americans to seek common ground with a pluralistic society during a rally Monday in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

``I hope that we could learn one thing,'' Wilder told about 1,500 people at the Arthur Ashe Center. ``That is, we all are Americans - not hyphenated Americans.''

Wilder challenged the black community to ward off defeatist attitudes and preoccupation with race, and be more concerned with what it does than what it's called.

``I'm told we are to be called African-Americans,'' Wilder said. But has anyone ever heard Americans of German descent refer to themselves as German-Americans? he asked.

``There's nothing wrong with being black and proud like James Brown in the '60s, but these are the '90s,'' Wilder said.

He sounded a return to values that aided black Americans in the past, including strong teachers who imparted in him that ``we were equal to the best, superior to the rest'' and could achieve anything. ``Don't have our youngsters pigeonholed, cornered, by those who would suggest they are different.'' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS

At a rally in Richmond, former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder praised values

that helped black Americans in the past. He himself had teachers who

taught him that ``we were equal to the best, superior to the

rest.''

by CNB