Factions Fight For Million Men

By: Paul F. CuadrosLocal organizers of last October's historic Million Man March are divided over efforts by their top leaders to form a national network, arguing that consolidation may stifle the grassroots momentum that made the march so hugely successful.

The Rev. Benjamin E. Chavis Jr. and Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan want to place the 300 local organizing committees that helped plan and execute the march under an umbrella group called the National African American Leadership Summit.

The Leadership Summit will focus on national economic development, education, politics and the justice system, Chavis told The Chicago Reporter. Chavis formed the Summit in June 1994 when he was still executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Some of Chicago's 11-member local committees support the Summit, including No Dope Express and Fernwood Methodist United Church.

"Now that the march is over, where should the energy of these local organizing committees be structurally placed?" asked Conrad W. Worrill, president of the National Black United Front. Worrill, a professor at Northeastern Illinois University, supports placing the local committees under the Summit.

But others say Chavis is creating an unnecessary hierarchy that will stifle good works at the local level.

"We don't need a top-down national structure that creates a bureaucracy," said Eddie Read, president of Chicago Black United Communities. "We need hands-on, grassroots entities that are able to perform and coalesce."

Come Together
On Feb. 25, Chavis stood before thousands of Nation of Islam followers gathered for Savior's Day in Chicago, pumped his fist in the air and led a thunderous chorus of "long live the spirit of the Million Man March!"

The Summit will keep that spirit alive, said Chavis, who is directing the effort.

He plans to create a staff of attorneys who will represent clients in public interest litigation.

Summit leaders also will meet with African and Caribbean ambassadors to develop a joint development fund for capital projects. Plans are under way to sponsor a national black political convention in 1996, to be held in a city with a black mayor.

But the organization's main purpose will be to establish an African American Economic Development Trust to "recapture, develop, nurture, expand, invest, defend and protect the economic wealth of the African American community," according to the Summit's strategic plan.

Local members would contribute to the trust, which will use African American credit unions, churches and black-owned banks to help raise money.

"If other people want to make donations to the trust, they can do that," said Willie Wilson, a local businessman who is chairman of the Summit's economic development committee. Wilson said that anyone in the African American community with an economic development plan could apply to the trust for a loan.

Details about the structure of the trust still are being developed, he said. The Summit itself is supported by donations from black businessmen, the local committee members and private individuals, Wilson said.

But questions loom over the management of the trust by the Summit's board of directors. A Feb. 24 meeting in Chicago was clouded by calls for an accounting of the money raised for the march, questions about outstanding debts and Chavis' call for more contributions from the local committees.

Chavis was ousted as executive director of the NAACP in August 1994 after it was revealed he paid more than $300,000 of the organization's money to settle a sexual discrimination claim against him.

"There are a lot of questions that people have, the main one being, 'Where is the money?’" said Niamo Mu'id, a spokeswoman for the National Black United Fund, a march organizer based in Newark. "When is this public accounting going to take place, if at all?"

Mu'id's organization proposed managing the Summit's development fund, but was turned down. The group has more than 20 years' experience participating in charitable campaigns for companies such as AT&T, Lucent Technologies, IBM, Prudential Healthcare Co. and Nike Inc.

"We're concerned because the kind of expertise we felt we have was suitable to the needs of the project," Mu'id said.

Grassroots Spirit
As Chavis begins to raise money for his national organization, black men continue to gather at community meetings, in churches and around dinner tables.

The march's call to action inspired men such as Jeffery Kidd, 24, of south suburban Dolton, to begin tutoring the children of a friend, acting as a big brother and mentor.

"I've watched them grow up," he said. "They're not my family, but they're my kids regardless."

And Tom Hosia-Hozier, 56, patrols the neighborhood around St. Peter's Canisius Church at 5057 W. North Ave., for the Brother/Hood, a new group tied to the Northeast Austin Organization. Armed with citizens band radios, Hosia-Hozier and other men make sure kids get to school safely.

"It has all been volunteers," he said. "The guys all went to the march. We all want to stop the killing and get kids in the schools."

It's that kind of fervor that Read said he wants to maintain. "We don't need some fancy bureaucratic structure that doesn't drive a proactive agenda," he said. "I'm not suggesting that's what [the Summit] is, I'm saying I will fight against that."

Kidd echoes that sentiment. "We don't have to have an organization and have lots of meetings and things," he said. "We can do something now."