By Rita McInerney and Gretchen Keiser

People marching under the banner of the Southeast Center for Justice began to gather in Cumming at 10 a.m. last Saturday at the far end of a shopping center. Across the street, convoys of National Guardsmen, Georgia state police and GBI agents were assembling. Down at the other end of the center, amid Confederate flags of all sizes, a white-hooded Klansman was surrounded by reporters and cameramen, young men in jungle camouflage garb, young men and women in jeans, T-shirts and plaid jackets.

Father Gerry Conroy, Glenmary priest who heads the Center in Atlanta, called for the attention of the group, a gathering of priests and sisters and lay people from metropolitan Atlanta and north Georgia, and began to speak about the discipline of non-violent protest. Any of the men, women and young people listening intently were marching in a demonstration for the first time. He spoke of the significance of the action they were about to take as Christians, the need to love those who were about to curse and jeer them, about the need to walk silently, to keep in the line, to heed the marshals, and not to carry anything that could be used as a weapon. He pointed out that the large white banner of the Center had been mounted on large cardboard posts rather than wooden ones.

Strengthened by prayers, the group marched silently across the road and down to the large Lanier Village Plaza where the march was organizing. Yet none were prepared for the outpouring of hatred in the obscenities and insults shouted out by the group of 50 or so youths and middle-aged men and women standing above them on an embankment.

Jim Leeds, there with his wife, Sally, and several other parishioners from St. Thomas Aquinas, said the hatred he witnessed at that moment brought tears to his eyes. But then, he said, two girls who had been watching from the embankment came down and asked the marchers if they could join them.

He said he came to Forsyth County to march because "it was a case where what happened the week before, in my mind, just could not be tolerated. I just felt you have to do things from the heart. To me it was just a small handful of whites whose whole life revolves around hatred and I just wanted to stand up and say, "They don't represent me."

His words were echoed by others, many of whom said they had never been involved in a march before. Mimi D'Entremont, a high school student from Habersham County and a parishioner at St. Mark's in Clarkesville, said she decided to come to the march when she found out some of her friends were on the other side of the issue. "My best friend's Mom told her if I went, she'd never let me see her again. But my best friend agrees with me," she said. "I think all people are created equal and that people who are trying to put others down are just trying to make themselves feel more secure about their situation. It's very unfair."

The beliefs of the marchers, some 15,000 to 20,000 strong from throughout Georgia and around the country, were reinforced by the military presence of the National Guard, who stood at some points shoulder to shoulder as the marchers proceeded in silence into the heart of Cumming for speeches at the courthouse. Counter-demonstrators were cordoned off and held at bay by the security forces, but an atmosphere of tension hung over the line as the march began several hours late and did not end until nearly dark.

Among those caught in the unexpectedly massive outpouring of people was Auxiliary Bishop Emerson Moore of New York, who ended up walking in the midst of thousands of marchers, black and white, rather than in the front ranks of officials. Accompanied by Rhonwyn Rogers and Sherry Williams from the archdiocesan Office for Black Catholics, Bishop Moore took the change in stride, Mrs. Williams said, when the trio ended up driving to Cumming after a special bus for leaders had already left downtown Atlanta.

When they returned at the end of the march, one of the tires on the car had been slashed, Ms. Williams said, and several reporters from Ohio ended up changing the tire to get them back on the road. Despite some tense moments when a truck draped with a Confederate flag pulled up and sat behind them, the bishop "took it all in good spirits," Ms. Williams said. "He was so eager to be a part of the situation."

As for herself, the St. Anthony's parishioner said encountering the racial epithets was "an awakening" for her, but she felt compelled to be there "whatever the consequences" in order to make a statement by her presence.

Mrs. Rogers, director of the Office for Black Catholics, said she had "anticipated more confrontation" and found the conflicts "neutralized" by the massive police presence. She was heartened by the numbers of people "waving and cheering" as they drove into the county. "They were all white and they were, in their own way, greeting us to the town," she observed.

Three sisters, Handmaids of the Sacred Heart working in north Georgia, rode up from Atlanta on a bus with people, black and white, who had traveled from Missouri, Ohio, and Louisiana. Students from Spelman and Morehouse College were also on the bus that left Atlanta at 11:15 a.m. and did not reach Cumming until 2:45 p.m.

They chose to travel by bus, Sister Marietta Jensen said, "to give us more of a sense of what others were feeling." Among the diverse group, they found unity and spirit, she said.

Sister Jensen said they were touched to see a woman standing outside her home along the march route with tears in her eyes as they walked to the courthouse square. It was as if she was saying, 'Why does this have to happen.'" Other people came out of their homes to wave to the marchers, one family waving and standing under a large American flag on their front porch. Yet others stood grimly, watching the marchers in silence, in apparent disagreement.

The atmosphere in Cumming during the week before the march was "very, very tense," according to Sister June Racicot, a Dominican who has lived and worked for 11 years in Forsyth County.

One of the sisters who runs The Place, a center for assistance, support and self-help among the rural poor in Forsyth County, Sister Racicot said, "I don't think the majority of people in the county feel the way those people do on the hill," referring to the counter-demonstrators who were loudly voicing their epithets.

Attempting to offer insight into the people opposing the marchers, she said many of the young men "don't finish school, they don't have education, they don't have much experience of the world." Often they marry young and then find it difficult to support their families, she said, "Think the only way they can prove their manhood is like this.”

The county is made up of a mixture of economic groups, including some who have recently moved in from the Atlanta area, she said. She said they had received an offer from the Southeast Center to host workshops in the county in the future to address the issue of racism in an ongoing way. Sister Racicot said she was aware of many emotions at work, including fear on the part of some and guild on the part of others that they had not moved forward in integrating the county.

A staff member at The Place, M. J. Orr, who has lived in Forsyth County for 16 years, said that she thought real change in the county, which has no black residents, would only come when those who live in the county seek change.

"Until we actively do something in this county, nothing will really change," she said. She also said that she thought a "spiritual renewal" was necessary for change of heart to take place, and that the churches needed to be in the forefront.

"When I was a teenager in DeKalb (County) facing integration, our church issued a statement saying anyone who came to worship would be seated," she said, adding that she wanted to see that kind of leadership coming from Forsyth County churches facing the need to fully integrate the county.

However, that sense appeared to have been awakened in many who came from elsewhere in Georgia and even outside the state, feeling that it was important for them as Christians to take part in the march.

Father Brent Bohan of Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Atlanta, one of more than 20 priests from the archdiocese who took part, said that he felt he had "an obligation to be here" personally and "as a priest." He said that he did not want people to think that "what happened last Saturday," when a small group of blacks and whites attempting to march peacefully were turned back by Klansmen and supporters, "is representative of what people in Atlanta or North Georgia" think. Blairsville pastor Father Bob Poandl, a Glenmary, said that he had never taken part in a march before but that he thought "at this point we have to be shown, that this is where we are as Church."

A similar number of sisters took part, and like the priests and parishioners, came from all over the state and from nearby states.

Some of those taking part came from parishes in Clarkesville, Blairsville and Cleveland in North Georgia, from Dahlonega, Buford and Douglasville, and from St. Thomas Aquinas, Alpharetta, Holy Family, Marietta, St. Jude's, Sandy Springs, the Cathedral of Christ the King, All Saints in Dunwoody, Corpus Christi in Stone Mountain, Sts. Peter and Paul in Decatur, Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Anthony's in Atlanta, and the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers.

Sister Fran Trochta, a Sister of Divine Providence, who came from Murphy, NC, was there because she "believes in what this stands for. I wanted people to see from the numbers that there is more love than hate."

Bonnie O'Hara of All Saints parish in Dunwoody said she and her husband, Jim, were living near Washington, DC, at the time of the civil rights march in 1963, but didn't participate. This time, she said, "I felt I couldn't go to Mass tomorrow if I didn't do this today."

The march, which had been called for by black civil rights leaders in Atlanta, was endorsed by Monsignor John McDonough, vicar general of the archdiocese. Writing to officials of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center, in the absence of Archbishop Thomas Donnellan, who was out of town, Monsignor McDonough also said, "The policy of the archdiocese in the area of racial discrimination is well-known: that all people should be able to live in equality with one another regardless of race or creed."

"The support of the archdiocese was behind the march," Monsignor McDonough said.