Black History Parade Marches : Back After Lapse : Culture: Organizer said two years of failure made him determined to prove community can and will support its own.

After the county’s Black History Parade failed to materialize for the past two years, Chuck Mosely grew tired of hearing that the black community couldn’t generate enough enthusiasm for its own event.

“I got involved in this because of the media. They were my impetus,” said Mosely, one of the organizers of the parade marking Black History month that will be held here Saturday morning.

“Last year, all I heard was that the black community couldn’t foster enough support to hold a parade. I thought that was a fallacy and decided to work to prove that it was possible.”

Mosely and two other African American business owners from Orange County, Ernesta Wright and Ray Brently, vowed there would be no repeat of the problems that plagued the 1992 and 1993 parades, which fizzled because of lack of funds and organization.

“Money and organizational problems were the result of a lack of unity within the African American community,” Mosely said, echoing the parade theme “Building Unity Within the Community.”

Mosely, Wright and Brently took the reins from the Orange County Black Historical Commission. forming the M.W.B. Foundation, which uses the first letter in each member’s last name. Their first order of business was to build a network within the African American community, which numbers just 55,000, or about 2% of the county’s population.

“We knew when we started out the community would be apathetic because of what happened to the last two parades,” Mosely said.

So last March, the group began sending out flyers to the county’s African American households, asking for financial support and listing upcoming fund-raisers.

It worked: The foundation raised about $35,000 and, by January, its mailing list had grown from a few hundred to more than 3,000.

The foundation held five fund-raisers between last March and this January, including an art show in July, a community bazaar in September, a celebrity basketball game in October and a dance benefit in January.

The parade will begin at 10 a.m. and is expected to last 90 minutes. It will start at the intersection of Broadway and 15th Street, and end near Santa Ana Stadium, where the cultural fair will be held until 5 p.m.

The parade promises to be the largest in its 12-year history, Wright said. Organizers expect about 5,000 spectators.

Larry Carroll, an NBC correspondent in Los Angeles, will serve as grand marshal. Local African American businesses, six high school bands, two floats, five high school ROTC drill units, numerous city officials, equestrians and clowns will also participate.