Students Mark Birth Date of King : Civil rights: U.N. criticized for setting war deadline on same day. Many fear that blacks will die in disproportionate numbers in Mideast conflict.

Sounds of peace and celebration were in the air Wednesday as USC students marked the birth of civil rights activist Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

So was the smell of war and of despair.

Blacks on the Los Angeles campus said the international crisis in the Persian Gulf and the domestic crisis on the streets of their neighborhoods threaten to dim King’s dream of nonviolence and harmony.

They said black American soldiers now in Saudi Arabia are likely to die in disproportionate numbers in the fight with Iraq. Within this country, black males are 10 times more likely to die violently than their white counterparts.

Many black students and university staff members condemned the U.N. decision to set Jan. 15--the date of King’s 1929 birth--as the deadline for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait or face war.

“The use of that date as that deadline is offensive,” said freshman Synee Pearson, 18, of Harbor City.

“It’s a slap in the face of a great man who espoused universal peace,” said Barbara Bramwell-Hutchinson, a campus administrator who helped plan the annual King birthday celebration.

Said Bryan Oakley, a 21-year-old senior from Pittsburgh, Pa.: “Martin Luther King almost must be turning over in his grave.”

Oakley, a part-time rap singer, joined jazz musicians and the Crenshaw High School Elite Choir in the tribute to King, who was assassinated in 1968. A noontime campus crowd of about 300 flashed the “V” peace sign as Oakley sang of peace and of racism.

“I want to shed a light on problems of the community,” he said later of his songs. “But I don’t want people to give up.”

There was a feeling of resignation, however.

Many privately took note of the fact that blacks constitute nearly 21% of the nation’s fighting force in the Persian Gulf, while making up about 12% of the population.

Furthermore, recent statistics from governmental agencies, health organizations and other groups indicate that one of every four young black men is in jail, in prison, on probation or on parole.

“I look at it like it’s genocide. The black man is either in gangs or on drugs or in the military,” said Colette Stewart, a 31-year-old senior from Los Angeles. “I’m pessimistic.”

Although many young blacks are employed or in school, many others are not, she said. “The rest are just killing themselves in drugs, violence or war . . . I feel that every step that he (King) took for us to advance, we’ve taken another step backward.”

Standing at the back of the crowd, graduate student Mark Jones, 32, of San Francisco turned to gaze at a knot of students on the opposite side of the campus mall. They were standing around tables set up to seek recruits for ski trips, spring break excursions to Club Med resorts and membership in the USC Republican Club.

“If more people over there were standing over here, maybe we wouldn’t be over there ,” Jones said, gesturing eastward toward the Persian Gulf.

The rally ended with a short march to a small King monument in a nearby campus plaza. When marchers arrived to place flowers on the marker, they were startled to find law student Robert Madok, 27, dozing with his head against its pedestal.

Madok’s peaceful nap ended when the crowd began singing. Their song: “We Shall Overcome.”