I, TOO, SING AMERICA.

By Richard Lacayo

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes. But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow I'll sit at the table When company comes Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen" Then.

Besides, they'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed,--

I, too, am America. --Langston Hughes

SOMETIMES IT TAKES a riot to make America think long and hard about itself. Sometimes it takes a flood.

They poured into Washington last week by the hundreds of thousands, black men of all ages, of every standing and occupation and from every part of the country. For more than seven hours they gathered for the stated purpose of pledging themselves to self-reliance and respect for women. But there was more to it than that. By the simple fact of their numbers, by the sheer power of the headcounts and the wide-angle copter shots that still couldn't capture the whole crowd, they were there to remind Americans that even in a time of conservatism and backlash, the business of racism and inequality will not be ignored. The National Park Service initially estimated that the Million Man March drew 400,000 demonstrators to the National Mall, then later conceded the count may have been higher. March organizers say it was more like a million and promise they will go to court to prove it. Whatever the number, it was more than enough to qualify as a critical mass.

Critical for blacks and whites alike. "I think this may have been the largest family-values rally in the history of America," says Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League. "The proof will be whether it translates into action back home.'' The action will have to be smart and sustained to make any difference to the intertwined predicaments of prejudice and the lagging economic performance of blacks. Those facts are complicated now as never before by the economic squeeze on people of all races in America. It makes many whites more impatient with black demands and provides an opening for demagogues of every stripe. But just two weeks after the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial, the march was another reminder that race is the inescapable complication of American life. "The Million Man March altered the landscape," says Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Henry Cisneros. "Americans know that things are profoundly wrong. The question now is where do we go from here?''

For the black men who were there, it was also a moment of profound psychological vindication. In the most heated political and policy debates of recent years, black men have seen themselves cast, sometimes openly, sometimes with a wink and a nod, as the welfare freeloader, the affirmative-action hire, the low end of the bell curve, Willie Horton. Even worse than the stereotypes sometimes are the facts. For black men the average life expectancy is 65, eight years less than for white males. For young black men, the major cause of death is murder. Nearly 1 in every 3 black men between 20 and 29 years of age is behind bars, on probation or on parole.

For a day last week, all that was swept aside by the picture of black males urgently but peacefully demonstrating, in all senses of the word, their strength and capability. It was a mood that even Louis Farrakhan couldn't spoil. For the Nation of Islam leader who organized the march, its chief purpose may have been to simply prove that he was the man who could make it happen; he would then capitalize on the prominence he hoped it would confer. For most of those who attended, however, the main point was comradeship, pride and rededication to a few core values. The march was also a partial antidote to what may be a creeping sense of despair among African Americans. In a TIME/CNN poll conducted last week, 56% of blacks questioned did not think discrimination against them would ever diminish. Only 27% of whites felt that way. While 65% of whites thought that race relations would eventually improve, only 44% of blacks agreed.

Unlike most large Washington demonstrations, this one lacked any specific legislative goals. Those will be set, Farrakhan insists, at a black-leadership summit next month. He plans to launch a nationwide voter-registration drive to make African Americans into what he calls "a third political power," uncommitted to either of the two major parties. But this is an age of budget cutting and hostility toward big government. And it follows three decades of federal programs that seemed to grow at about the same pace as the pathologies of the ghetto. Given that political and conceptual double vise, what agenda would be both achievable and effective?

In the Clinton Administration, senior officials have been urging the President to lay out a detailed urban strategy soon. TIME has learned that White House economic adviser Laura Tyson sent a confidential memo last week to all Cabinet Secretaries and top White House advisers, directing them to submit by Oct. 23 a brief summary of one policy they think would improve the economic conditions of people living in poor urban areas. In Congress, six members asked the President to appoint a commission on race relations, an idea to which the White House has responded coolly for now.

That may be because it smacks of deja vu. What the proposal inevitably brought to mind was the 1968 Kerner Commission, probably the most famous government panel after the Warren Commission. Formed to examine why riots had hit more than a dozen American cities in the mid-1960s, it famously prophesied the world we verge on: "Our Nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal.''

Twenty-seven years after Kerner, many of the problems it identified are as bad or worse. Before World War II, just 5% of blacks were in the middle class. Today the figure is closer to 60%. But the same years have seen a disappearance of the well-paid manufacturing jobs that pulled blue-collar workers, black and white alike, into prosperity. Good jobs now require skills that schools in poor neighborhoods do an ever more dismal job of teaching. And the white fear of a black underclass fosters the kind of racism that constantly puts even the black middle class on the defensive.

Most conservatives think it's a mistake to use government dollars as a to measure of commitment in fighting race-based inequality. The fate of South Central Los Angeles is the latest example. Of the $770 million in government money that went there in the wake of the 1992 riots, $300 million paid for riot-related overtime for police and National Guard troops. Most of $280 million in private funds has been devoted to building 32 supermarkets that help local people who otherwise pay higher prices at small shops. But as for the jobs they create, not many families get out of poverty on a cashier's paycheck.

Even if social-policy thinkers had bigger and better ideas of what government might do, the fiscally conservative G.O.P. majorities in Congress and in many statehouses around the country don't want to hear them. "No programs are going to happen," says California Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat whose district is in South Central Los Angeles. Jack Kemp, who served as HUD Secretary under George Bush, says, "I don't see a single thing coming out of Congress that is specifically targeted to our No. 1 issue, which is creating more jobs and opportunities and access to capital and credit for minority men and women."

The fashionable formula these days is modestly priced government help that lets private enterprise flourish in poor neighborhoods. Waters wants loan-guarantee programs that encourage banks to lend in poor communities. "People in our community have little stores,'' says Waters. "We need to multiply that thousands of times over." Kemp wants to eliminate the capital-gains tax for businesses that locate in urban-enterprise zones, where government offers tax breaks and other incentives to bring employers to poor neighborhoods. The Republican budget passed last week by the Senate Finance Committee contains $245 billion worth of tax breaks targeted largely to middle- and upper-class Americans. As Kemp grimly notes, "It does not include a single thing for urban America."

The nonprofit Urban Institute recently examined 51 programs aimed at boosting achievement among black youths. Its conclusion? The best results come from long-term programs with intensive (that usually means expensive) services that guide a child into adulthood. Richard Majors, co-author of the study, says; "Our research shows that young men who go through mentor programs and manhood-training programs have higher self-esteem and grade-point averages and are less likely to drop out of school."

There used to be another name for those programs: parents. And so family breakdown feeds poverty, which feeds more family breakdown. To interrupt that diabolical cycle, devoted fathers are crucial. That's one part of the equation that federal programs have neglected. But even the most devoted dads can't get jobs where there are none or start a business where there's no start-up capital-problems that conservatives pay lip service to at best. "You can't solve these problems on individual transformation alone,'' warns Harvard University professor and author Cornel West.

That fact would not have come as news last week to the marchers on the Mall. Many of them knew what it means to try against superior odds. Yet knowing that, many would also know that individual transformation has a power that cannot, should not, be denied. Dr. Darryl L. Fortson, a family practitioner from Gary, Indiana, looked over the crowd with admiration. "The task is unifying black men and atoning for the violence and the disrespect we have shown each other,'' he said. "And the disrespect we have shown our women. If we keep focused on that, then something very good and great will come of this."

--Reported by Sam Allis/Boston, Ann Blackman/Washington, William Dowell/New York and Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles

With reporting by SAM ALLIS/BOSTON, ANN BLACKMAN/WASHINGTON, WILLIAM DOWELL/NEW YORK AND JEANNE MCDOWELL/LOS ANGELES