Family Values Celebrated at Black Reunion : Culture: Event at Exposition Park explores the diversity and successes of the home unit.

The families pouring into Exposition Park on Saturday morning for the 6th Annual Western Regional Black Family Reunion Celebration underscored a point made repeatedly during the event--which organizers predicted would draw more than a half-million people over its weekend-long run:

No single family portrait can capture the rich diversity of the black family in America.

In her welcoming comments, Dorothy I. Height, who created the event and heads the sponsoring National Council of Negro Women, challenged those who believe that the family must conform to a particular image.

“Whoever is your family is your family,” Height said. “We’re not going to draw a picture and say unless you’re like this, you’re not a family.”

But it was Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) who expressed most directly what many saw as the timely subtext of the event: “Dan Quayle . . . you want to know something about family values? Take a look! Take a look at our family and at our family values!”

And there they were.

Where just three months ago National Guard troops squatted behind sandbags, black families of every description streamed along the sidewalks and over the lawns, arriving, many said, to express post-riot unity, and to share the sense that the city is beginning to heal.

As they sprawled on a quilt near where black leaders, including Mayor Tom Bradley and Police Chief Willie L. Williams, greeted the growing crowd, the Jacocks’ family of Panorama City presented a family portrait of the sort Norman Rockwell might paint: A father, a mother, an 8-year-old son, and daughters 4 and 6 in matching dresses.

Stan Jacocks is a probation officer. His work puts him in contact with young people of all colors.

He tells young--often absentee--fathers in his caseload what he feels himself: “We’ve all had thoughts about doing something crazy. If you have a close family, that’s really together, that will stop you.”

The mothers, children and grandchildren of the Jackson-Hooper family of Nickerson Gardens presented a less traditional portrait--no fathers were present--as they pushed strollers and pulled a red wagon into the park.

But as Brenda Jackson bragged about her twin 18-year-old daughters, she left little doubt that they too are a successful family.

“My family, we’re all together; we help each other out,” she said.

“We hear about the demise of the black family, but that’s not how we view it,” said Barbara Marva, director of the Black Women’s Forum, which sponsored a reunion-related youth leadership conference Friday.

“Grandmothers have always raised children in our community. I raised my nephew. . . . My little sister brought home her best friend in seventh grade. She stayed with us for six years. We always had strays at our house.”

And if those are not strong family values, Marva said, she does not know what are.

“The whole Black Family Reunion is about family values. Always has been. We’ve had a family values booth here for six years.”

Kids in matched, wildly oversized, Afro-centric clothing, their faces freshly painted by clowns, toddled across the lawns trailing balloons. Families swarmed around the tented pavilions that stretched across the park, participating in programs on health, children, spirituality, and teen-agers and young adults.

At one of several book booths, parents browsed through “Clean Your Room, Harvey Moon!” “Black Scientists of America,” and dozens of other black-oriented children’s books.

Other booths sold red, green, yellow and black Afro-centric clothing and jewelry, and everything imaginable with an “X” on it.

While most of the pavilions aimed at hearts and minds, the stomach was hardly forgotten. People could be seen eating Cajun sausage, Louisiana catfish, peach cobbler, sweet potato pie and cuisine from Africa and the Caribbean.

While some families set up their barbecues, music ranging from reggae to gospel filled the air.

Retired nurse Alice Edwards of Watts offered what seemed to be a universal observation, saying that the media focus too much attention on the negative aspects of black family life.

But she also knows there are problems.

“We lose so many black men to drugs and gangs. I hope this will help to pull people together.”

In fact, the theme of this sixth annual gathering--”Leave No One Behind”--was reflected throughout the park.

For instance, as the celebration’s parade of bands, drill teams and community organizations wound past the booths and through the trees, yet another sort of family was in there dancing and chanting.

This group all wore purple T-shirts emblazoned with the name of their South-Central-based drug treatment program--Uhuru, which means “freedom” in Swahili.

“I’m a witness!” said Yolanda Nettles, stepping forward with her 2-year-old son in her arms.

Nettles, a mother of three, has been clean for two years, and her kids, once in the foster care of their grandmother, are living with her again.

Later, members of Uhuru were among those clamoring for autographs of the surprise star of the opening ceremony, Police Chief Williams.

Backstage, Williams said he worried that the term “family values” has become a code word in the presidential campaign, directed at minority groups. Although this is his first reunion in Los Angeles, he said he attended all five gatherings in Philadelphia.

On stage, Williams triggered an almost euphoric response from the growing crowd by saying: “It’s nice to join my new family here in Los Angeles.”

The sense of change those remarks reflected was not lost on Danny Bakewell, president of the Brotherhood Crusade.

“I have now seen everything,” he whooped. “. . . The day I most thought I would never see was the day the chief of police of Los Angeles would stand here and say: ‘Hello brothers and sisters.’ ”