By Ann Gerhart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 28, 2001; Page C01

News of the carnage of Sept. 11 swept through the Second Congressional District of Illinois just as swiftly as anywhere, and in the immediate aftermath, says Democratic Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., his black and white constituents reacted the same.

"Initially, there was shock, and that turned to outrage, and then African Americans took it to the next level. They urged caution," says Jackson, "caution in our rhetoric and in the infinite amount of resources we would pledge to our response. Now, they are asking difficult and complicated questions. The non-African Americans are still stuck at outrage."

Yesterday, some of those difficult and complicated questions and a few strident answers came spilling out at the Congressional Black Caucus town hall meeting in the D.C. Convention Center. Blacks are among those Americans who have propelled President Bush to high approval ratings, but in this room people were eager to be part of a deeper discussion over just how the nation should fight back.

Expert after expert spoke of quick and merciless layoffs in the hundreds of thousands, of fears over discrimination and racial profiling, of unease over broader wiretapping and government monitoring of civilians, of worthy domestic agendas set aside for years, of worries for the children of soldiers gone to war.

"We can wave the flag, just as long and hard as anyone else, but by all means, we also can ask the tough questions," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who in two weeks overhauled the town hall meeting from its intended subject of electoral reform. "We went off to war, and we fought, just to come back and be on the back of the truck."

That paradox ran through yesterday's dialogue. African Americans have long sought to reconcile their battle, from slavery to citizenship, with their willingness to go off to war in defense of their country -- a nation where the fight at home often seemed as urgent.

Before he described the kind of military operation necessary to battle terrorism, Julius Becton, a retired Army general and former superintendent of District schools, reminded the audience that he had fought in two wars "in segregated units."

The caucus's 38 Democratic members like to think of themselves as the conscience of Congress, and yesterday's audience of some 200 is a sturdy part of the largest black middle class in American history. The panelists of intellectuals and former high-ranking government officials represent the highest levels of African American achievement. Yet many echoed concerns similar to those voiced in some impoverished communities.

Prior to Sept. 11, said psychiatrist Carlotta Miles, many Americans saw their nation as omnipotent and invincible, but "minorities have dealt with homegrown terrorism that is as much a part of America as apple pie. Emmett Till, Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, the four little girls blown up in church. It has always been here."

"I have agonized and agonized," said Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor, U.N. ambassador and longtime congressman, "and I have come to see these terrorists as the Middle Eastern Ku Klux Klan. They don't represent Islam anymore than the KKK represented Christianity."

That most inflammatory word, pacifism, never floated through the room. But among many of those present, there seemed little resolve for bloodshed. When retired military intelligence expert Robert Harding, quoting retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, used the soldier's cold directives urging "killing" and "overwhelming violence," the women in their Delta Sigma Theta sorority red suits stiffened and looked disapproving.

Young said he was "very pleased" to have Colin Powell as secretary of state. "He's not likely to put people in harm's way," said Young, adding he was encouraged by how quickly the administration had backed away from its rhetoric about "the crusades and 'Infinite Justice.' "

Others were more insistent about restraint and the need for the United States to search its own soul.

"While I won't be as bold as Malcolm [X] in suggesting the chickens are coming home to roost," said William Ellis, a terrorism expert for the Congressional Research Service, "the United States is not altogether innocent in this," and the audience murmured, "That's right. That's right." He made mention of "predatory business practices" overseas and suggested the United States might "turn the other cheek."

"I challenge you," said Ellis, "that the way out of a bloodthirsty feud is to say . . . 'It stops here.' "

Ola Hill, a businesswoman from Upper Marlboro, said she had come to the meeting because "I think about the '60s and how they arbitrarily wiretapped people" in the civil rights movement and "about the opportunities for discrimination, which is just another form of racial profiling." She worries she might lose her job developing government business for computer systems at NCR.

Many of the panelists shared her concerns.

Eric Holder, deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, suggested that legislators mulling bills that would broaden law enforcement's powers ask, "Are these things we would support if not in crisis?" He also said he is disturbed about unlimited detention of suspects and witnesses without judicial review.

"We cannot trade our civil liberties in the short term to fight this enemy," Holder said.

On the economic front, speakers said, the news is grim and getting grimmer. The 110,000 jobs lost in the airline industry will soon be doubled by ripple effects in the hotel and tourism and entertainment industries, predicted AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, who called for sweeping government investment in hospitals and schools to bolster the economy, and expanded and extended unemployment benefits for those laid off.

"Maids and janitors and baggage handlers. We are seen as the most expendable of workers," said economist Margaret Sims. "But these are our jobs. They paid the mortgage and bought the groceries and our children's clothes." She predicts that much-heralded welfare reform will founder now that the economy has been rocked.

And what of that balanced federal budget and its fat surplus? asked Lamont Evans, from Atlanta.

"Gone," said Thompson. "And it's gone in the pursuit of terrorists."

He said it remains to be seen what political will may build for "furthering the deficit to support critical issues for the people."

In this forum of dissent from a part of the political population that wants to be heard above the blaring horns of patriotism, there was a note of resilience as well.

Said Thompson:

"We as a people have always been long-suffering, but we also are overcomers.

"We have much to teach the nation and the world about rising up from the ashes."