African-Americans rally for self help in Washington

WASHINGTON - Thousands of African-Americans rallied on the National Mall on Saturday to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Million Man March and kick off a new effort to mobilize help for each other.

This year's march, known as the "Millions More Movement", was a stark contrast to 1995, when only black men were invited to participate to promote black self-reliance and responsibility. On Saturday, women and other minorities were invited, attended and spoke to the crowd.

"For a few years it was good for the men to come out for themselves - to atone - but now we need to come together," said Jamillia Lawrence, 35, of Atlantic City.

"This march, particularly, it was for families. It just came from a need. This is what the need is, to have more unity in our families," she said, citing gang violence and black children going astray, with no structure in their families.

Outspoken and controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who organized the 1995 event and has also been dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism, was supposed to address the crowd but was more than an hour late to appear on stage.

"We must begin to work together to lift our people out of the miserable and wretched condition in which we find ourselves," he said in a statement ahead of the rally.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, a former Democratic presidential candidate, on Saturday called for a change in course away from violence and for millions to fight against poverty, illiteracy and the kind of suffering that befell the poor in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"Don't imitate the violence, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Arabism, gay bashing," he told the crowd. "We need ... millions more to build a multi-racial coalition, we need not battle alone to fight poverty and greed and war."

The event appeared smaller than the Million Man March, with crowds dispersed between the US Capitol steps across to the grassy Mall. A decade ago hundreds of thousands stretched from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, although just how many actually attended that rally remains in dispute.

There has been renewed attention on race relations in recent weeks, after Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans and devastated the lower Ninth Ward, which was largely populated by blacks and the impoverished.

"We saw Katrina coming," Jackson said, blaming a barge that should not have been there for breaching the levees that flooded the Ninth Ward. "We're not victims, we're survivors," he said.

Crowds walked down a closed section of Constitution Avenue, where vendors hawked everything from CDs to meat pies, T-shirts and nail polish. Many wore T-shirts reading "I'm One in a Million."

The event also included musical performances, including one by hip-hop performer Wyclef Jean, who called on participants to "stand up" and call for US troops to come home. The money spent on the Iraq war should, he said, go to feed the poor.

- REUTERS