A Million Reasons for Hopes and Fears : Assembly: For better or worse, the Washington march is expected to heighten feelings of racial differences.

As thousands of buses carrying African American men converged on the nation’s capital Sunday, supporters and critics of the “Million Man March” agreed that it will sharpen racial feelings--for better or for worse--across the country.

Coming on the heels of the O.J. Simpson verdicts and other racially polarizing events, the march has simultaneously raised hopes and fears about what it will accomplish after the participants have gone home.

According to many political activists and community leaders, few people who behold the historic assembly of black men on the Mall today will be able to avoid the realities of the race problem in America.

“The compelling interest is the disgraceful condition of the black community,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson said Sunday on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “Dr. [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] called it 32 years ago ‘the shameful condition.’ The No. 1 growth industry in urban America is jails. . . . Today, one-third of [black males] age 20 to 29 [are] trapped in the jail industrial complex.”

Meanwhile, the black community’s economic standing and social opportunity are depressed, he said.

Amplifying awareness of that dilemma is one stated goal of the march. But whether the constructive message can break free of a sense of racial confrontation remains unclear.

For many march supporters, who hark back to the spirit of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech during the 1963 March on Washington, the daylong activities offer a chance to transcend the controversy over the march’s chief sponsor, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and pump new life into the flagging spirits of black men.

They feel the sheer spectacle of so many black men gathering together will refocus their attention and energies on dealing with the problems of unemployment, poverty, drugs, crime and family disintegration that disproportionately hinder this group of Americans.

“It’s the most significant thing for African Americans in our recent history,” said Cobbie Harris, professor and chairman of Afro-American Studies at San Jose State University. “It shows we’re not as disorganized and helpless as people thought. This march is about turning failure around.”

However, others worry that the march’s effort to use huge crowds to bring the capital to a halt, broadcast coast to coast and seen by white viewers and media analysts, may combine with strident rhetoric from march leaders to further inflame racial resentment.

Those feelings were vividly exposed during the Simpson trial and could worsen if the Washington gathering is perceived as a threat, and as further reason for whites to pull back behind racial lines.

“I fear this polarization may result in the general sense of hardening of white attitudes and a turning away from a shared sense of responsibility in dealing with racial issues,” said Randall Kennedy, a Harvard University law professor and black social commentator.

Coming so soon after scenes of blacks exulting over the acquittal of Simpson, he said, the march “can only portend a backlash of antagonism among white people.”

Kennedy and others, including even some supporters of the march, said they are concerned that Farrakhan’s prominent role will increase the chances of negative repercussions, even though many of those attending the march do not endorse his controversial separatist views.

Kennedy said he would not be participating in the rally because he does not believe that Farrakhan and former NAACP Executive Director Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., a co-organizer, are taking appropriate routes for improving relations across race lines.

“White people are going to say they’re through with the black cause after this march takes place,” Kennedy said. “The likely response for many black Americans will be: ‘I don’t care what white people think.’ That’s a part of the message of the ‘Million Man March.’ This is dangerous because, as the country hardens and marches further to the right, blacks will be all the more isolated, protesting without a voice in the process.”

But others insist that the positive will outweigh the negative, citing, as one example, public discussion about the condition of black men.

Mario M. Cuomo, the former New York governor who now hosts a national talk-radio show, said the march has dominated discussion on his broadcast recently and drawn a larger than normal response from black listeners.

“I am convinced that now is a time when the nation is paying attention, and we should all take advantage of the opportunity to move in a positive direction,” Cuomo said in an interview after a broadcast. “I said on the show we should be having a ‘Million Person’ march that would include everyone, including whites and blacks, men and women. People responded very positively to that suggestion.”

Some hope was also voiced about making a strong impression on the ascendant power in the nation’s capital: the Republican Congress.

David Bositis, senior policy analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black-oriented think tank in Washington, said many blacks fear that leading Republicans are hostile to them and not interested in their problems.

“Next year could easily be the most important election in America in 50 years,” he said, adding that one component of the march is to register black voters. “This march should be seen as a challenge to [House Speaker] Newt Gingrich because he has led this country in a new direction, and now the participants in this march want to start seeing black America go in a new direction.”