Until very recently, the Million Man March in Washington D.C. on October 16 was barely mentioned by the mainstream news media, let alone by political leaders. The call to march had come from the single most unpopular public figure in the country. How, then, to explain the enormous groundswell of interest and enthusiasm for the march from black America? In an interview with PNS executive editor Sandy Close, Professor Cobie Harris, chair of Afro-American Studies at San Jose State University, shared his perspectives on the march.

Q: How important is the Million Man March for the black community?

A: It's the most significant thing for African Americans in our recent history. Despite a "white out" by the media, it's happening -- all as a result of word of mouth in the community. It shows we're not as disorganized and helpless as people thought. The fact that we're responding to a call by the most unpopular public figure in the country -- the only American citizen to be unanimously condemned by the U.S. Senate -- also suggests we're becoming more desperate, more alienated from the mainstream.

Q: How does it differ from the 1963 civil rights march?

A: The march in '63 emphasized rights and liberty -- the idiom of America. It was a march for the entire U.S. This march is for us -- a call for the brothers by the brothers. The emphasis is on responsibility, self reliance, introspection. It's not about "can we all get along?" The imprint here is that white folks haven't sanctioned this march. With the O.J. verdict, whites are very nervous. Their comfort zone is shrinking at our arrogance.

Q: Why is it being held in Washington?

A: Marching on Washington has always been a big thing for us -- it's an assault on the citadel of injustice, the source of white power ... as in "the fish rots from the head down." But that's only at the symbolic level. The march in 1963 was about politics. This is about society. This is really an act of self cleansing -- black men defining a new moral purpose for our lives.

Q: Why is the focus on black males, not all African Americans?

A: Because the men are the most besieged sector of the population. Focusing on them has been uplifting to them. It's given them a sense of dignity and a new paradigm. It's the paradigm of both Booker T. Washington and the Black Muslims -- whatever we can't do for ourselves we won't get.

Q: How are young men responding?

A: This is a generation at war -- that's what the kids are in, a war. But they haven't been allowed to fight back in an organized fashion. This generation of African Americans is the freest in our history, but it's also the most dangerous, free but alienated. What's the war? You got to turn it inward -- make a war against yourself. As in a jihad.

Q: How do black women feel about the march?

A: If the man and the woman can't get along, there's no social structure. The sisters know the march is to reconnect the whole community. Some sisters have organized a movement back East to bring women to the prisons to socialize black men, to marry them while they're in prison, to know the women will have a husband when the men get out.

Q: Will Minister Louis Farrakhan become America's premier black leader as a result of the march?

A: Farrakhan is like Moses -- he can't take us to the promised land. This march may be about as far as he can go. After all, he came up in the tradition of Elijah Muhammad -- anti-accomodationist. He accused Malcolm of betraying Elijah Muhammad, he accused Wallace Dean Muhammad of betraying his father. So he can't move away from that now without destroying his credibility.

Q: So where will the new black leadership come from?

A: Black Americans are a very diverse community -- it's hard to lead us. There's no center. Even in the heyday of black power, there were dozens of different black organizations. But we all knew how we wanted to vote. We're the most homogenous voting bloc in the U.S. The news media and the civil rights establishment may try to define a set of goals for the march. But the subtext is that each of us knows why we're going, what we're going for.

As to the traditional black leaders. Whites have always looked to them to be the bridges to diversity. But programs like affirmative action bought off many black intellectual leaders, detached them from the community, turned them into heads without bodies. The establishment clearly preferred a disorganized, violent base to an organized, radicalized base that could make demands. Now the leadership has a stronger nationalist element in it. Depending on collaboration with the liberal, do-gooder whites hasn't worked as a strategy for addressing the problems of America's black poor. We're moving to a different paradigm.

Q: What's the downside?

A: A commentator on NPR called the march "a swamp of hate." It's indicative of a new McCarthyite element out there -- in the news media and government. There's a sense that the powers-that-be are watching who's going, monitoring all the groups, making up a new "black" list.

Q: How do you see the future?

A: The best metaphor for black America is jazz -- improvisation. Remember Jesse Jackson in 1984, announcing he was running for the presidency without any money, creating the Rainbow Coalition out of nothing, and scaring the hell out of white America. Today you have this huge proportion of black men in the penal system, yet there's going to be a million men on the march. Rising from great depths to great heights. We're a people capable of greatness and when we fail it's with tragic consequences. This march is about turning that failure around.