For now, words of fire and hope were the best the National African American Leadership Summit had to offer when the three-day conference ended today with promises of more and bigger meetings.
But many of the dozens of prominent blacks who had gathered here from across the country said they had never expected to produce much more than talk -- something they said was a crucial first step for so diverse a group, ranging from black Masons and dentists, to black sorority sisters, civil rights leaders and businessmen, to Louis Farrakhan.
Throughout the conference, the participants said that just bringing such a group together in one room was a victory. Conrad Worrill, a black nationalist scholar from Chicago, said today that the discussions, held in private, had been candid and sometimes tense.
"But you haven't seen any ambulances," he joked. "No one called the police."
August Session Planned
The conference was organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. At the closing news conference today, the organization's executive director, the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis, said the next session would be held in late August.
"We've just taken a recess," he said. "The summit is not over with. We now have to go report to our people. There's a yearning, an outcry, for unity. There's a yearning, an outcry, that justice be done."
Mr. Chavis, who had been sharply criticized for inviting Mr. Farrakhan, said the conference had received numerous threats. Today, with the fiery Nation of Islam leader standing nearby, Mr. Chavis said, "Never again will we allow an external force to attempt to dictate who we can meet with."
"We have locked arms," he said. "And our circle will not be broken."
At that, the conference's other participants clapped and filled the room with "That's right! Say it!"
Three-Panel Approach
In keeping with an agreement by participants, Mr. Chavis was the sole spokesman for the conference. He said it would divide into three committees for the next meeting, to be held in Baltimore during the third week in August. One panel will deal with economic development, another with youth and community empowerment, and the third with moral and spiritual renewal.
"They will be preparing the next stage," he said.
Mr. Chavis said the participants at this conference had numbered about 100, but the N.A.A.C.P. declined to provide a complete listing of them. Asked about this at the news conference, Mr. Chavis heatedly replied: "It's not your responsibility to verify who our leaders are; it's our responsibility to verify who our leaders are."
Mr. Chavis said that for various reasons, some leading blacks, although invited, did not attend this conference, and several participants said the absentees had been afraid of being associated with Mr. Farrakhan. As with those who did attend, spokesmen for the conference would not identify the absentees. Mr. Chavis said they and others would be encouraged to attend the next session. "We're going to reach out," he said. "We're going to broaden this summit."
Mr. Chavis also said that the Government and politicians in general had to be held accountable for despair and decay in big-city neighborhoods and rural America alike but that "we are assuming the responsibility for the improvement of the quality of life of the African-American community."
Before the next conference, he said, "we are going to meet with all sectors of society to further identify where we need to apply the heat."
"No longer," he said, "can any party take our votes for granted." The Rev. Jesse Jackson and Representative Kweisi Mfume of Baltimore, head of the Congressional Black Caucus, attended the meeting, but both left today before the final news conference. Mr. Mfume had to hurry back to Washington for a House vote.
Ten months ago Mr. Mfume pushed for a similar gathering of black leadership and was widely criticized because he too sought to invite Mr. Farrakhan. Today Mr. Mfume said the conference had been a positive step. "It will pull the rug out from under a lot of naysayers everywhere," he said.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the Brooklyn civil rights advocate, also attended the meeting, as did Dr. Leonard Jeffries, the City College black-studies professor condemned by Jewish organizations for remarks widely deemed anti-Semitic.
Mr. Sharpton said the conference had produced more symbols than substance: No ambitious strategies for economic development, educational reform, health care or crime control were announced.
"But this meeting could still be the watershed for defining black leadership," Mr. Sharpton said. "We got to know each other. That is very important, crucial. We clarifed that we could work together on certain general points."
