by Askia Muhammad
White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON�President Bill Clinton, presidential candidate and Vice President Al Gore and his running mate Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), the Honorable Louis Farrakhan, several cabinet members, religious and corporate leaders, entertainers and other celebrities were among 4,000 who witnessed the coming of age of the Congressional Black Caucus at its 30th annual awards dinner here Sept. 16.

It was Mr. Clinton�s eighth consecutive address to the largest and most important annual gathering of Black politicians, business people and intellectuals in this country, and he thanked his most loyal Capitol Hill allies for their unflinching support during the darkest days when Republican House members impeached him and tried to remove him from office.

"When they took a torch to me and lit a fire, you brought the buckets and poured the water," he said. "Thank you! Thank you!"

In measured, sober tones the president referred to an amusing characterization that was made of him by author Toni Morrison who once called him the country�s "first Black president."

"I�d rather have that than the Nobel Prize," he said.

"Somewhere in the deep and lost threads of my own memory are the roots of understanding of what you have known. Somewhere there was a deep longing to share the faith of the people who have been left out and left behind, sometimes brutalized and too often forgotten," the president continued, echoing the sentiment expressed by then-CBC Chair Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) when she introduced him at the 1998 dinner. "African Americans are uniquely qualified to know unfairness when we see it," Rep. Waters said at that time.

Ironically, as Mr. Clinton sought to achieve common bond with the Black legislators, by his own longevity he had already become an "elder statesman" at the event. Only 12 of the 38 Black Democratic House members who make up the CBC were already in office when he was elected the 42nd U.S. president in 1992.

And just as Mr. Clinton has watched the faces of the CBC change over the years�growing mostly younger all the while�the organization itself and its week-long legislative conference has also changed. The CBC is more mature and has shed at last its "party image."

This year�s conference featured an expansive, energetic agenda that included more than 30 town hall meetings, issue forums, and braintrust sessions.

"We want to emphasize that this is our �Annual Legislative Conference,� not �Weekend,� " CBC Chairman James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told a restless audience of 5,000 at one reception. "This �conference� highlights the progressive agenda of the Congressional Black Caucus," CBC Foundation Chair Rep. Eva Clayton (D-N.C.) added.

That agenda includes fighting for: an accurate 2000 census count; diversity and fairness in the federal judicial system; environmental justice; an end to police brutality and misconduct; support for the dwindling number of Black farmers; justice for political prisoners and telling the unfinished story of human rights abuses in the U.S.; health; responsible fatherhood; child welfare; voter registration and electioneering; housing and home ownership; a larger role in shaping U.S. relations with Africa, the Caribbean and the world; and several different sessions about the proper uses of money, banking, technology, and "the digital divide" among Black constituents.

In its early days, this celebration was best known for being a place to "meet and greet," "to see, and to be seen." At that time the activities were confined to a few Friday workshops and a black-tie Saturday-night dinner that was followed by an all-night bacchanal of dozens of "after-parties," which lasted until dawn. The next day there would be a few private Sunday brunches for and by attendees. It was truly a CBC "weekend" and not a "legislative conference."

In those days the proceedings were also held at a downtown hotel. The CBC�s critics railed against the sheer opulence of the activities in a town which had a Black majority population with an infant mortality rate rivaling that of a poor Third World country. They also complained that the principal activity was held in a "white-owned" hotel and not at the Howard University Hotel, or on the campus of that historically-Black institution.
Since 1992 the opulence at CBC events has remained and the grinding poverty of the city�s now-dwindling Black population has remained, but most of the conference events have been moved to the politically correct Washington Convention Center in a city where the mayor and most city officials are Black.

"We will have fun. We want you to have fun," Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.), the conference chair told reporters. "Because when you have fun it pays for our internship program. It pays for our scholarship program. But we will also have a national dialogue about the issues that affect us."

As the dialogue and debate has continued among the CBC members, their constituents, cabinet officers and other federal officials, and with new players this year like AOL President Steve Case, for example, the meeting movement has spread among a half dozen other Black organizations which now also meet in Washington at the same time.

Both the National Political Congress of Black Women and the National Association of Black-Owned Broadcasters hold their annual fund-raising dinners in Washington that week. The National Newspaper Publishers Association�the Black Press of America�has a board meeting in Washington every year during the CBC week.

Also, the Black Women�s Agenda and both the Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta sororities hold leadership meetings here this time every year. The Society of Black Engineers also scheduled a formal meeting among its membership, while Black lawyers, doctors, accountants, pastors, and various other professional groups informally networked before and after issue forums, in hotel lobbies, and at countless industry-related receptions.

In addition, a Nation of Islam delegation, headed by Min. Farrakhan, and his wife Mother Khadijah Farrakhan participated in CBC conference activities all week, including both the awards banquets, and a Saturday-morning prayer breakfast.

"Because I love the preaching of Bishop T.D. Jakes," Min. Farrakhan told reporters when he was asked why he was at the prayer event. "I was greatly inspired by the beauty of his message and persona, and I believe him to be a man anointed of God for this time. That�s why I�m here," the Muslim leader said of Bishop Jakes, who was the keynote speaker. The Christian leader is also senior pastor of the 26,000-member Potter�s House Church in Dallas.

"Right now we are witnessing the steady erosion of family life in America," the Muslim leader said. "The cornerstone of family is marriage. Whenever 50 percent of those who marry are divorced, usually within the first three years of marriage, this is a sign of the decline of a civilization. So, unless we can strengthen marriage, strengthen family, the nation, no matter how wealthy, no matter how powerful, it is as weak as the family, as strong as the family.

"It would be wrong," Min. Farrakhan said, to compare the upcoming Million Family March on Oct. 16�the fifth anniversary of the Million Man March�with that momentous event, or with any of the marches the Million Man March spawned.

"That was a very unique moment in history. We�re not trying to compete with that. The men came together. Later, the women came together and the youth came together and all of that was good. But now, we must bring the family together and then, mobilize families, spiritually, morally, for political and economic change."

For his part Vice President Gore spoke twice to CBC members. First at a private, DNC-sponsored reception�after he had addressed 1,600 students at Howard University�and then again at the banquet (his fourth consecutive appearance) where he called for Black support for his presidential bid.

"I believe it�s time to take the next step in civil rights," Mr. Gore said at the banquet. "I believe it is time to end racial profiling in America, and that will be the first order of business of the Gore-Lieberman administration."

This year as CBC members said farewell to the Clinton era, they also closed the book on the first 130 years of representation by 105 different Black men and women in the House and the Senate. The CBC Foundation presented its Millennium Awards to former South African President Nelson Mandela, Federal Communications Commission Chair William Kennard, and to broadcasters Tom Joyner and Tavis Smiley.

(Eric Ture Muhammad contributed to this report.)