Black Activists Urge Bush to Declare Cease-Fire : Dissent: Religious and civil rights leaders express outrage over war and threats they see to social programs.

Outraged by U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf and the threat that they say those actions pose to domestic social programs, a group of black religious and civil rights activists urged President Bush on Friday to declare a cease-fire in the war.

Their call came just hours after the Iraqi government made a condition-laden offer--which the U.S and its allies immediately rejected--to withdraw its troops from Kuwait and end the month-old conflict.

Iraqi President “Saddam Hussein’s proposal is not perfect . . . but it is a timely opportunity to call a moratorium on the crippling and killing in Iraq,” said the Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

He made his comments during the opening session of the National Emergency African-American Leadership Summit on the Persian Gulf War. The session, in which a recently formed coalition of black church officials and community activists gathered, had been called to bring together black anti-war activists in a strategy session aimed at mobilizing black opposition to the war.

While participants headed to New York prepared to demand an end to the fighting, news of the Iraqi overture spurred them to press more forcefully.

“We’re glad to hear that announcement (of Iraq’s offer) because it means, hopefully, that thousands of troops from our community will come home alive and not in body bags,” said the Rev. Calvin Butts. He is pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, this city’s oldest black Baptist congregation, which was host to the hastily called summit.

After the Bush Administration rejected the Iraqi offer--which the President called “a cruel hoax” because it contained so many conditions that the Americans and allies found unacceptable--many of the speakers at the session Friday expressed anger. That sentiment built to outrage when the anti-war activists learned that the military bombing campaign will continue.

“We are dismayed and shocked by the intransigence of the Bush Administration,” said the Rev. Benjamin Chavis, executive director of the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ.

Chavis, who assumed leadership of the daylong meeting, had served as a key organizer of the summit. Its participating religious and civil rights activists have been largely overshadowed in recent years by a new, emerging black leadership--elected officials such as New York Mayor David N. Dinkins, Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder and House Majority Whip William H. Gray III (D-Pa.), none of whom took part in the meeting.

Calling Friday’s gathering “historic,” Chavis asserted that it was the first time since the heyday of the civil rights movement that black religious, civil rights and labor activists had come together for a common cause: “We have spoken today with more unity (than) since the mid-1960s.”

But absent from the meeting were representatives of the nation’s largest, most prominent civil rights groups, such as the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, an outspoken critic of the war, and all but one member of the Congressional Black Caucus also did not participate. Rep. Major R. Owens (D-N.Y.), the lone black member of Congress in attendance, asserted that “we have a bloodthirsty sentiment in America, a Rambo credo driving this war.”

Stressing a point repeated often on Friday, John Hearst Adams, senior presiding bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, said summit participants are “deeply disturbed by the racial immorality” of U.S. foreign policy, which he said would send black Americans into combat in disproportionate numbers. He said summit participants are particularly offended that the Bush Administration is waging a war in the Middle East while not doing more to improve social conditions in America.

Summit participants agreed to actions beginning on April 4, the 23rd anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. They called then for a national day of fasting and prayer. On the next two days thereafter, the group called for demonstrations to protest what it said are the Bush Administration’s misplaced priorities.

Organizers said the protest would occur even if the hostilities have ended. Plans also include designating April 7 as “Peace On Earth Sunday,” when organizers said more than 65,000 black churches nationwide will conduct anti-war services.

THE RACIAL MIX OF GULF FORCES

Here is the racial makeup of the U.S. military services in the Persian Gulf as of mid-December, 1990. MARINES: Latino: 7.9% Black: 16.9% Other minority: 2.6% Total minority: 27.4% White: 72.6% AIR FORCE: Latino: 3.1% Black: 13.5% Other minority: 2.4% Total minority: 19.0% White: 81.0% ARMY: Latino: 4.2% Black: 29.8% Other minority: 1.5% Total minority: 35.5% White: 64.5% NAVY: Latino: 6.0% Black: 21.3% Other minority: 4.6% Total minority: 31.9% White: 68.1% U.S. POPULATION* AND MILITARY OVERALL RACIAL MAKEUP Latino: Overall U.S. population: 8.3% Overall military: 4.9% Black: Overall U.S. population: 12.1% Overall military: 23.0% Other minority: Overall U.S. population: 6.0% Overall military: 4.4% Total minority: Overall U.S. population: 26.4% Overall military: 32.3% White: Overall U.S. population: 81.9% Overall military: 67.7% *Totals are more than 100% because the U.S. Census Bureau lists Latinos as a sub-category of either black or white.

Source: Department of Defense; U.S. Census Bureau