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Farrakhan's problem is that both his rhetoric and his following were developed at the expense of more traditional black church leaders, whom he has called "lying hypocrites." These, along with orthodox American Muslims, who bear him no love, are the very people whose huge followings he needs to fill out the march's ranks. The ministers, perhaps more than their flock members, take issue with Farrakhan's derogation of other ethnic groups, his demotion of black women to a secondary position and his sometime disdain for Christianity itself. Many see the march as a power grab, noting that until Chavis belatedly came on board, it was an all-Muslim enterprise. Said the Rev. Bennett Smith Sr., president of the 2.5 million-member Progressive National Baptist Convention: "If you are going to invite me to ride on your airplane, don't send me a ticket after the plane takes off." The Rev. Henry J. Lyons, of the 8.2 million-member National Baptist Convention, informed his group that to march would be "a violation of the Word of God." Last Tuesday Farrakhan struck an eleventh-hour deal with 20 influential Protestant ministers. They wouldn't endorse the march, but most agreed to stop criticizing it.
It is beginning to look as though that may be encouragement enough for individual pastors and congregants. The Rev. Cecil Murray, minister at Los Angeles' renowned First A.M.E. Church, says he is planning to send a contingent of "several hundred," some of whom may take advantage of a special $299 round-trip plane fare arranged by march organizers. The Rev. Timothy McDonald III, a march supporter and minister at Atlanta's First Iconium Baptist Church, estimates that 50 churches in his area will participate. Travel agents report that flights from Chicago to D.C. on Oct. 15 and 16 are jammed tight. District of Columbia police have agonized publicly over the possibility of dealing with 10,000 buses full of marchers.
Terrence Moore, a forklift operator from Chicago's West Side, will not be going. "I want to work with everyone," he says. "I respect the Nation of Islam, but they just want to divide. There are a lot of black men without access to the good things in life, watching their kids do without, and facing a lot of anger. It's a cycle of rage, and talking about the years of captivity [as he feels the Nation does] just makes more fire for the rage. It's like pumping poison into people."
Mildred Johnson, a retired bookkeeper and a parishioner at St. Sabina's Catholic Church on the South Side, is proud that her husband Odessa is going to the march. She has seen her 31-year-old son search unsuccessfully for work. She has watched the new Cook County jail go up: "a masterpiece; there's not a school in the county that can compare." Black people, she says, "are always in a grieving state; we've been tranquilized by injustice." She is hoping that Farrakhan's march will wake them up. She doesn't care that he won't let her march too.
--Reported by Ann Blackman/Washington, Tom Curry and Richard N. Ostling/New York and James L. Graff/Chicago