by Eric Ture Muhammad

WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com)�Tens of thousands gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial Aug. 26, on the 37th anniversary of the March on Washington in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have A Dream" speech. Participants came to protest widespread police brutality and racial profiling at what organizers called the "Redeem the Dream" March.

Martin Luther King III and the Rev. Al Sharpton made the call for the march to challenge racial profiling and police abuses, and demand that the Clinton administration meet the problem head on.

Police across the nation unfairly suspect and stop Black motorists more frequently than white drivers, said Mr. King, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the organization his father once headed.

"A Black man can walk over the bridge today," Mr. King said, referring to a march earlier this year in which he and President Clinton participated, "but he cannot drive over the bridge without being stopped." In March, Mr. Clinton joined marchers who commemorated the 1965 confrontation on the Edmund Pettus Bridge outside Montgomery between civil rights marchers led by Dr. King, and Alabama state troopers when they attempted to enter the state capital at the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery March.

"The day my father dreamed about is not today," Mr. King continued. "The day my father dreamed about has not yet been realized in our lending institutions, nor in our employment offices, nor even in our nations� courtrooms," he said.

"We want an executive order that bars federal funds from any local or state law enforcement agency that has a pattern of police brutality or racial profiling," the Rev. Sharpton, president of the New York-based National Action Network said to the cheering crowd.

"Racial profiling is modern language of racial segregation," explained Rev. Sharpton.

Times have not changed as much as people like to think, said Kweisi Mfume, of the NAACP. "Jim Crow Sr. may be dead, but Jim Crow Jr. is still alive and well. We�re tired of walking while Black, getting arrested for breathing while Black and living while Black. We want equal justice," said Mr. Mfume.

Activists say the call at the march for President Clinton to issue an executive order outlawing racial profiling�the practice of stopping and questioning people on the basis of race�is good, but more action is needed.

The march was a good vehicle to promote the issue of "Racial Profiling and Police Abuse� on a national scale, agrees Larry Hamm, director of The People�s Organization For Progress, who brought two busloads from Orange, N.J., to D.C. But, he added, his main topic of discussion has been post-march follow-up. He believes local demonstrations with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets are needed.

"Police misconduct is an issue that must be consistently raised in the community," adds Margaret Fung, executive director of the Asian American Legal Defense Fund, located in Manhattan.

Pressure on local politicians before and after the national elections is vital, she noted. "We also need to let people know that police misconduct is an issue we are all facing," she said.

Ms. Fung argues that the federal government will address the issues presented at the march when all victims of police misconduct are linked together. "Asian victims, Latino victims, white victims, Arabs and Blacks," she said. "We must become one voice."

Agreeing with Ms. Fung is Nkechi Taifa, director of Howard University�s Law Department�s Equal Justice Program. "We need to educate, agitate and organize," she said. This time organizers made sure that policy measures would follow the march, Ms. Taifa told The Final Call.

Ms. Taifa participated in the "Redeem The Dream" Organizer and Policy Institute, which met at Howard University on June 25, 26. The institute was sponsored by Ron Daniels, director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, located in New York City. "We gathered experts from across the nation. One seminar was just for lawyers, who helped fashion our response to legislation," she said.

There were two bills discussed: "Traffic Stops Statistics Act," sponsored by Michigan Congressman John Conyers, which passed the House, but not the Senate. "The bill will have to go back to the House, and start all over again," she lamented.

The second bill is H.R. 3981, "The Law Enforcement Trial and Integrity Act 2000," which seeks to address the issues of police accountability on a wider scale. Instead of dealing with one aspect of profiling, this bill covers a wide spectrum, Ms. Taifi said. It provides 12 steps on how to deal with police misconduct as a prosecutorial tool.

The bill also demands a study of deaths while in custody and asks for protection for police officers when they become whistle-blowers.

"If federal laws are to work, we need protection for officers who are willing to come forward. There should be a witness protection program for officers who are whistle-blowers, because in some cases their lives are threatened. That deters any officer from stepping forward with information," commented De Lacy D. Davis of Black Cops Against Police Brutality, in East Orange, N.J. He is a 14 year veteran on the force.

"Legislation is also needed that would give a police officer the death penalty for killing a civilian. The federal government can send agents into all Black organizations, why don�t they send agents into police departments to ferret out corruption? The government has yet to admit the depth of corruption that exists in police departments," he said.

Min. Benjamin F. Muhammad, director of the upcoming Oct. 16 Million Family March in Washington, described the Redeem The Dream March as a challenge to the government to address racial profiling and police abuse.

"Everyone is looking towards October 16, 2000, as a day of measurement, a day of accountability, a day of judgement, as to whether or not the demands of Aug. 26 were met. If there has not been a response by the day of the Million Family March, then instructions will be given on how to get the government to respond. The Redeem The Dream March is a yearning by the people for a movement to transform American society into a new society. The Million Family March will take that dissatisfaction and mold into a power base," said the Nation of Islam minister.

The summer march also set a tone of unity and the need for action.

"We didn�t come here to keep on dreaming but to make the dream a reality," said Min. Ishmael Muhammad, assistant to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, speaking at marchers. "If we wait on the government to give us the freedom and justice we deserve we�ll be here another 37 years later passing on to our children the nightmare of unfulfilled expectations. The government of America will never give us the justice we seek unless we come together as a force."

The beginnings of that force may be seen the myriad of organizations represented at the march�from major organizing by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and National Action Network to the Nation of Islam, NAACP, the New Black Panther Party and comedien Chris Tucker.

Other notable march speakers Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant who was brutalized in 1997 by New York police; the parents of Amadou Diallo who was killed in a swarm of 41 bullets as he reached for his wallet; Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League and noted attorney Johnny Cochran.

The Republican and Democratic presidential candidates spoke against police misconduct when contacted by The Final Call. Republican Geroge W. Bush, issued a statement, saying, "I oppose racial profiling, and I oppose discrimination. The federal government and the states must be vigilant in combating discrimination in all its forms, and must make every effort to ensure that law enforcement is fair and race neutral. As president and the nation�s chief law enforcement officer, I will insist on unbiased and evenhanded justice.

"Incidents of law enforcement misconduct, especially with racial overtones, are deeply disturbing and undermine confidence in the fairness of our justice system. While law enforcement oversight is primarily a state and local matter, I believe the federal government should bring swift and vigorous justice on those who break our federal civil rights laws," Mr. Bush said, adding that he also supports police officers in their efforts to protect the publics.

"The Department of Justice must also always respect justice. The vice president is outraged by reports of racial profiling and police brutality. He as assured the American people, that on the first day of a Gore presidency he would issue an executive order to ban that practice and the first Civil Rights bill introduced from a Gore White House would be a bill to make racial profiling illegal. He strongly feels that police brutality and racial profiling is unacceptable and unnecessary," said Devona Dolliole, deputy national spokesperson for the Gore-Liberman campaign.

Rev. Paul Jakes, a Chicago-based anti-police brutality activist, noted, "We must remember, under the Clinton-Gore administration, the cases of racial profiling and beatings involving law enforcement have been at an all time high. The hatred and bigotry in the court system is a reflection of the lack of attentiveness by the Clinton-Gore Justice Department�where U.S. Atty. General Janet Reno is the top cop."

"The executive order that Rev. Sharpton and march organizers called for is long overdue. Al Gore and George Bush must address this issue if they want to get any real assistance from the African American community. The message that was sent from the march was that Democratic and Republican candidates should not take the African American vote for granted. They cannot continue to ignore the legitimate desires and needs of our communities," said Atty Lewis Meyers, of Chicago and a former top NAACP official.

"Al Gore nor George Bush have addressed the Black agenda in America. It is also time for those Blacks who have endeared and enamored themselves to the Democratic Party to demand that their candidate speak forthrightly to African Americans about our problems. I am sick and tired of our community being put in the pocket with white politicians and only pulled out in times of expediency. We can�t fault the politicians, we must fault our own people for not demanding more. We must draw a line in the sand that we will not be disrespected abused by cosmetic, hypocritical politicians any longer," he said.