Racial strife prompts April protest march

The Associated Press Leaders of the Nation of Islam said Monday they will continue to organize a march of several thousand people through a racially torn neighborhood, despite concerns that it may rub open wounds. Critics fear the April 14 march through the city's Grays Ferry section will follow too closely on the heels of recent crimes that have fed tensions in the racially charged South Philadelphia neighborhood. ''I think that the people of this neighborhood, both African American and white, have gone through a very traumatic three weeks,'' said Kevin Vaughan, executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations. ''My concern is for their emotional state and for their opportunity to heal.'' Mayor Ed Rendell also asked the group to reconsider their march because of the number of planned participants. ''I think any march that brings a lot of outsiders into any neighborhood in the city of Philadelphia is one that we should approach very cautiously,'' Rendell said. Local Nation of Islam leader Rodney Mohammed said at least 5,000 black men will march through a predominantly white section of Grays Ferry in an effort to ease racial tensions. ''We want to end violence and injury to all residents of that community,'' Mohammed said. Marchers also want ''to express our intolerance in particular to this ugly development in hatred of blacks acted out by gangs of white men.'' The planned march follows the killing of Christopher Brinkman, 16, who was shot Friday during a holdup at the pharmacy where he worked. Friends, neighbors and family members attended his viewing Monday evening. Brinkman, the son of a Philadelphia police officer, is white. His two assailants are black. Police and others said the motive appeared to have been robbery, and that it was not racially motivated. Some residents said they fear it was partially an act of revenge for the beating of a black family last month. On February 22, Annette Williams told police that she, her son and nephew were beaten by a mob of about 20 white men who had just left a party at a nearby Catholic church hall. Police made only two arrests in the case, prompting Williams and other black residents to voice dismay over the investigation. Mohammed demanded a timely resolution to the police probe and has asked the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to prevent alcoholic events at the church in question. Community leaders have struggled for decades to overcome racial tensions in the working-class neighborhood. In November, the Human Relations Commission established a multiracial task force to foster communication after several occasions last summer when people shouted racial slurs at black residents and left behind racist graffiti, Vaughan said. Vaughan is now concerned a large-scale march in April would not be giving people in the neighborhood enough time to cool down after the latest crimes. ''A march is a big event it should involve everyone in the neighborhood,'' he said. ''It's hard to see how that communication would take place, given the events of the last few weeks.''