LETTER: The Million Man March: Farrakhan's words offer renewal

From Mr William Sceats

Sir: John Carlin states that "Thirty-two years on, segregation has gone, blacks occupy positions of office around the land; a black man could be elected president of the United States next year." But as the OJ Simpson verdict demonstrates, Martin Luther King's hope for "judgement not by the colour of their skin but the content of their character" has proven an unrealised dream for the majority of black America.

In March 1995, I happened upon a bar in Alabama that still bore the legend, "No coloureds". The occupants saw nothing wrong with such a sign and, when questioned, proceeded to air their views on racial issues.

Such racial hatred, as demonstrated by the example of Detective Mark Fuhrman, has made much of black America feel the need to voice its disquiet. If the catalyst for such a display of solidarity has to be the anti-Semitic Farrakhan, then that is perhaps a fair price to pay to demonstrate how many American blacks feel that King's 1963 Civil Rights march on Washington has yet, away from the legislated confines of Capitol Hill, to fully permeate to American society as a whole.

Yours sincerely,

William Sceats

Edinburgh