HUNDRED-MAN RALLY ATTRACTS VARIED CROWD AT SIKESTON

SIKESTON -- Things looked grim when the Hundred-Man Rally started early Saturday morning.

About 20 black men stood around Lincoln School where their fathers and some of them once attended the separate but allegedly equal facility. The old gymnasium was cold, but the men smiled warmly and shook hands with their brothers.

"When we get about 80 more, we'll start," Michael Harris said wryly, glancing at the small group.

The rally started with a prayer, and the people came. Black men, young and old, well off and poverty stricken, filed into the building a few at a time to hear a message of responsibility and self-esteem.

Maybe there wasn't a full 100 men, but it was close. Those who attended said the number wasn't the point. Homer Jackson, a teacher and coach with Sikeston Public Schools, said the important thing was that Sikeston's black men made a connection.

It was similar to the Million Man March Jackson attended in Washington just last month, he said. Maybe there weren't a million men there, but a goal was set, and people came together. It started with a few men and grew to hundreds of thousands.

Sikeston's event started with Louis Wiggins. The educator operates a special tutoring program and attends meetings about Operation Weed and Seed, a federal program to weed out drugs and gangs and seed in social programs.

When Wiggins looked around at the last meeting, he saw very few black community leaders. The program was meant to help Sunset, a predominately black neighborhood in Sikeston, but whites outnumbered blacks at the meeting.

"I stood up and said maybe there should be a meeting of the black men first before we move on with this," Wiggins said. "The leader of the meeting said, `Great. You get it together.'"

In just over two weeks, Wiggins coordinated eight speakers on a variety of topics -- brotherly love, responsibility, education, business and others.

They included the Rev. Billy Williamson, a former unemployed I.V. drug user who learned responsibility and now has a secular job in addition to serving the church. He said he once hung out on the infamous corner -- the intersection of Luther and Osage streets -- doing drugs and blaming whites for his sad condition.

Williamson said it was time for black men to take responsibility despite prejudice and other factors working against them.

"The Bible says the man is supposed to be the head, but it's women who are leading," he said. "Even in the church, men are in the pulpit, but women fill the pews. The black men between 18 and 35 are in the penitentiary or in the grave."

And Fred Johnson, head basketball coach at Sikeston High School, reprimanded some black parents for failing to take an interest in their children. The only time he sees them is after he mails out a warning notice, he said.

"We practice for an hour and 45 minutes or two hours and then have study hall for an hour," Johnson said. "Then the parents think it's my responsibility to get their kids home, or they say, `He doesn't have time for study hall.' Those kids are at risk, but when it comes time for study hall, I look around and they're gone."

Additional speakers included businessmen Hugh Collins and Clem Johnson, the Revs. Joe Nabors and Anthony Green, Americorps Coordinator Michael Harris and political activist Martin Baker.

The solution, they all agreed, is for black men to work together, helping each other with their families and businesses and working to build up the community.