Last Updated: May 31, 2000
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One of three winning stories by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that
won the Jesse Laventhol prize for deadline writing in 1998.
Banners fluttered, voices boomed and unity thrived yesterday afternoon
in Market Square as about 50 speakers denounced racism and preached tolerance
during a tranquil anti-Ku Klux Klan rally that drew about 3,000 people.
Contrasted with the charged atmosphere on Grant Street where the Klan
rallied, and that on Cherry Way and Fourth Avenue, where a scuffle broke
out and tensions ran high, Market Square was the picture of serenity and
as festive as a country fair.
There were blacks, whites, Puerto Ricans, Sikhs, Muslims and Jews standing
side by side. Priests dressed in collars stood watching the panorama unfold
along with families, white bikers and spikey-haired punks.
A group of young black men with faces partially covered by black bandannas
who joined the rally toward the end identified themselves as gang members,
said Barney Oursler, a rally organizer.
Peppered by a spring drizzle for much of the four-hour gathering, the
diverse crowd of all ages, races and ethnicities cheered, held signs aloft,
clapped and yelled anti-racist slogans as speaker after speaker ascended
to a stage in the square’s northwest corner, drawing roars of approval
from the crowd.
"Hate and bigotry does not create one job," said Lou Gerard, secretary
treasurer of the United Steelworkers of America.
"If what they stood for wasn’t so serious, they’d be humorous," said
Allegheny County Commissioner Bob Cranmer, who called the Klan a "last
gasp."
"They are dead, but racism and hatred aren’t," Cranmer said.
"The message today is to reject the message of that crowd up on Grant
Street," said Congressman William Coyne, D-Oakland. "They are spewers of
hate, bigotry, intolerance. That’s their heritage, all they know."
A banner strung behind the stage read "Not in Our Town" - the slogan
of the Pittsburgh Coalition to Counter Hate Groups - and it was accompanied
by others with messages such as "Peace," "Rx: Justice," "Don’t Hate, Relate,"
and "In the Dark We All Look the Same."
From Mayor Murphy to local politicians, clergy members to academics,
special interest activists to community leaders, each of the speakers stepped
beneath a white canopy and fed the hungry crowd with words that galvanized.
Their speeches lasted several minutes and ranged from messages of tolerance
to political rhetoric.
They challenged the crowd, and themselves, to not be satisfied with
speaking out against racism only during the rally, but to carry on the
struggle in the future.
"What you say here today, you have to take it into tomorrow and the
next tomorrow and the next tomorrow, and don’t forget, because the Klan
won’t," said Lavera Brown, one of the rally’s organizers. City police blocked
off all entrances to Market Square and kept an eye on the crowd, stepping
in only a few times to calm down a drunk man and stave off a beggar from
harassing Murphy as he went to speak.
"The hard part is to change this city," said Murphy, guarded by two
plainclothes police officers. "The boardrooms and the political power structure,
the universities and the employers."
Then Murphy asked everyone in the crowd to say hello to a stranger standing
nearby. Everyone did, black and white people shaking hands, greeting one
another and breaking out into broad smiles.
There were other politicians in the crowd, including City Council President
Jim Ferlo and council members Sala Udin and Valerie McDonald.
Chancellor Mark Nordenberg of the University of Pittsburgh was there,
as was Tim Stevens, president of the local branch of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People.
But easily recognizable names and faces were only a component of the
crowd. >From the Hill District, the North Side, Penn Hills and neighborhoods
throughout Pittsburgh and beyond, demonstrators and everyday people straggled
into Market Square.
About 2 p.m. a white man with long hair and a black man with a colorful
knit cap climbed up on a pair of planters near the stage and hoisted a
banner that read, "New Kensington, Pa./Give Peace a Chance."
"He’s a white biker. I’m a black Muslim. I didn’t like whites and he
didn’t like blacks, and we grew to love each other in two years," said
Charles Turner, 47. "My car broke down," he said, starting to explain how
the two met.
"I took him home," said his friend, Gary Walker, 32, finishing the sentence.
One of the last - and most dynamic - speakers was Carnell Womack, spokesman
for the Campus Coalition for Peace and Justice.
"We want, as an organized body, to demand that this Klan mentality be
wiped out from our city!" Womack thundered.
"White sheets only do not a Klan member make!" Womack shouted. "They
can lurk in the shadows of respectability, and in the name of public safety,
destroy the fabric of community life!"
