Hurricane Katrina thrust racial disparities into the spotlight, and top civil-rights leaders, outraged over the disaster, are heading to Washington.
The occasion is the 10th anniversary of Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March, a long-planned event that is shaping up as a stage for black America to respond to the devastation in New Orleans.
“Because Katrina put it out there, no one can play the pretend game anymore that there isn’t poverty and inequality in this country,” said Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League and a former New Orleans mayor. “The Millions More Movement – Katrina gives it added significance.”
Though Farrakhan has long stirred controversy – lately he has speculated that New Orleans’ levees were bombed to destroy black neighborhoods – his event will unite a wide array of prominent social-justice advocates.
The guest list for Saturday’s event includes members of Congress, hip-hop artists, civil-rights activists, media pundits, academics and business leaders.
Muslim and Christian religious figures will also participate.
“The need to save our people – it’s so much bigger than the personality or the baggage that has been heaped on Louis Farrakhan or others,” Farrakhan said. “Katrina has focused this agenda.”
At the 1995 rally, Farrakhan was “a facilitator,” said Ronald Walters, a political scientist at the University of Maryland. Most people had “a range of other reasons why they came, and I would venture to say that’s pretty much his role this time around.”
The day-long gathering is scheduled to begin at dawn with a public memorial service for those who died in the hurricane, followed by music, prayer, dancing and dozens of speeches.
Event spokeswoman Linda Boyd said the goal is to build on the themes of 1995, which focused on urging black men to take responsibility for improving their families and communities, creating a movement that gets people to act for change locally and nationally.
Images of chaos and death as Katrina’s floodwaters engulfed black neighborhoods shocked many Americans: poor New Orleans residents, many black, begging for rescue; corpses on the street; looting. Prominent opinion-makers from the president on down suddenly talked about poverty and racial inequality.
Dianne Pinderhughes, a political scientist who focuses on race issues at the University of Illinois, said that in recent years the nation’s generally conservative political climate has sidelined many of those discussions.
