TO THE BEAT OF HIS DRUM

By ERIC POOLEY

FOR MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN the days leading up to the Million Man March on Washington were strewn with good omens, festooned with portents of success--beginning, of course, with the nifty bit of alliteration embedded in the event's name by Farrakhan himself. As the Oct. 16 march drew near, trains, planes and automobiles converged on the District, and officials planned for 11,000 buses--enough to hold half a million men--with 1,600 of them chartered in New York City alone. D.C. authorities ordered additional security for the Mall in front of the Capitol, where the speeches would take place, and scrambled to find enough water, parking spaces and portable toilets to accommodate the throng. People around the country were arguing about whether to attend the march, and organizers from Farrakhan's Nation of Islam were tight-lipped about who would be speaking and what would be said. The atmosphere was tense, hopeful and confused--just the way Farrakhan likes it to be.

In the swirl, one thing was clear: by speaking to the deepest needs of African Americans at a time when many other black leaders have been conspicuously silent, Farrakhan has injected himself into the very heart of the ongoing racial debate--and shows no signs of going away. Nightline's Ted Koppel--as close to an official augur as American culture has--captured the prevailing spirit when he acknowledged last week, a tad reluctantly, that Farrakhan "may have to be called one of the most influential leaders in black America."

An impresario of powerful, conflicting emotions, Farrakhan orchestrates pride and rage, love and hate, raising his revival tent on the twin poles of black self-reliance and white race baiting. If anyone was tempted to forget that, amid all the hopeful talk of healing and atonement--and plenty of moderate blacks who saw in the march a desperately needed chance for spiritual renewal clearly were tempted--Farrakhan made it impossible. In an interview released late last week he repeated some of his favorite calumnies against the Jews--"bloodsuckers," as he called them, who exploit blacks and "were involved in the slave trade." When asked if he himself would seek atonement for such remarks, Farrakhan escaped into double-talk. "I cannot atone for what the press has said that I said that I didn't say, nor can I atone for your failure to accept my explanation of what the press said that I said," he said. "But certainly I will lead atonement."

This was Farrakhan in his moderate mode. ("I want to say to the members of the Jewish community," he added last week, "let's sit down and talk.") Within the 25,000-member Nation of Islam, it is useful to remember, he is flanked by a cadre of militant black nationalists who get riled whenever he makes overtures to Jews. To placate those associates while courting the American mainstream, he lurches between hatred and near conciliation.

His remarks last week sent another shudder through a nation already coping--or more precisely, failing to cope--with the renewed divisions triggered by the Simpson verdict. And they added to the dilemma of black leaders who for weeks have been wrestling with the decision of whether to march. Representatives Gary Franks of Connecticut and Charles Rangel of New York, along with the leadership of the N.A.A.C.P., announced that they could not join Farrakhan no matter how laudable the event's goals, while some women's organizations raised objections to Farrakhan's exclusion of females. Said former Black Panther Angela Davis: "No march, movement or agenda that defines manhood in the narrowest terms and seeks to make women lesser partners...can be considered a positive step." Jesse Jackson, who may fear being eclipsed by Farrakhan, joined the march without hesitation, but others, from Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke to the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, offered exquisitely calibrated statements of support that distinguished the march from its organizer. "I don't accept hate-filled, antiwhite, anti-Semitic language coming from anybody," Schmoke said, but he would be marching "because I think it is an important event [that] will probably be seen as significant in the history of African Americans." Still others, such as mayors Marc Morial of New Orleans and Michael White of Cleveland, Ohio, simply chose to say nothing. Taken together, all this may have amounted to Farrakhan's clearest signal of success: he had forced every thinking black man in America to make a painstaking decision about his march. He was, finally, where he wanted to be--on everyone's mind, whether they liked it or not.

Does the black community's need for renewal outweigh Farrakhan's history of demagoguery and racial hatred? For many of the marchers, the answer was yes. In New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, men explaining to TIME why they would participate all chose the same metaphor: when your building is burning, they said, you don't worry about the pedigree of the fire fighters. In Washington last weekend, Donnie Scantlebury, 19, a college student from Houston, talked about "friends who died from suicides, fights, drugs. In any black neighborhood, everyone has seen friends killed or taken off to jail. I want people to see we can get together without fighting." In Brooklyn salesman Kirk McNeil, 29, was more matter-of-fact. "I expect the march to change my life," he said.

Multiplied by hundreds of thousands, such sentiments make for an extraordinary moment--an extraordinary responsibility--for Farrakhan and his fellow organizer, Benjamin Chavis. Chavis, former N.A.A.C.P. executive director, was stripped of that title last year for misuse of funds and allegations of sexual harassment. His connection to Farrakhan also troubled some members of the N.A.A.C.P. board. Now the two stand together at the center of the debate, drawing huge numbers to the march by describing it in the broadest possible terms. The Million Man March could be almost anything anyone wanted it to be, from a ritual of personal redemption to a confrontation with the white oppressor. On Donahue Farrakhan stressed that he wasn't "asking anyone to march under an Islamic banner. 'Whosoever will, let him come.' So if white men came...we would never say you are not welcome. This march is ecumenical...It has the right moral tone." Even so, said his chief of staff Leonard Muhammad, the event was a handy gauge of Farrakhan's popularity. All the marchers, he said, "are coming because they support Louis Farrakhan. He's become a major, major factor in this country."

It was a kind of Trojan-horse strategy, with the Million Man March as the horse and Farrakhan leaping from its belly, a leader with all eyes upon him delivering the most important speech of his career. If that idea upsets many Americans--of all colors--it also seems sadly fitting: a nation that cannot or will not deal with the issue of race risks letting the dialogue be managed by a demagogue. Like it or not, for now at least, Farrakhan is leading the way.

--With reporting by Ann Blackman and Ann M. Simmons/Washington, William Dowell/New York, and Sylvester Monroe/Los Angeles

With reporting by ANN BLACKMAN AND ANN M. SIMMONS/WASHINGTON, WILLIAM DOWELL/NEW YORK, AND SYLVESTER MONROE/LOS ANGELES