Black Families

MANY BLACK pastors and black conservative leaders loudly applauded when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist vowed to prod Congress to pass the federal marriage amendment that defines marriage as between a man and woman. They say they will do everything to help Mr. Frist get the amendment passed. They announced plans to mobilize black church groups and to stage rallies in San Francisco and Boston. They aren't simply bought and paid mouthpieces for Christian conservative groups. A Pew Research Poll taken immediately after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld same-sex marriages last year found that far more blacks than whites disagreed with the court's decision.

NEW ORLEANS - This city, which over the years has seen its share of corruption, did not get terribly worked up when word first leaked that investigators were looking into whether shady deals and cronyism had plagued the former mayor's administration. But everything changed last month when federal agents drew their guns and used a battering ram to burst into the French Quarter home of Jacques Morial - brother of former Mayor Marc H. Morial and a member of one of New Orleans' most prominent black families - searching for computer files and documents.

Robert B. Hill has earned a living and reputation by studying America's black families. Today, three decades after publishing the results of his first exhaustive examination, he is both optimistic and alarmed by what he sees. Hill is a social scientist and senior researcher for Westat, a large Rockville-based company that conducts research for government and businesses. He formerly was director of the Institute for Urban Research at what was then Morgan State College, as well as head of research for the National Urban League, the 93-year-old black-advocacy organization.

Connie Briscoe hopes to do for the literary world what Bill Cosby did for television. That is, realistically portray middle- to upper-middle-class African-American families, a demographic she feels is all too often ignored. Her latest effort, P.G. County (Doubleday, $24.95), which hit bookstores last week, is a dishy novel that exposes the secrets of five women living in a fictional Prince George's County community. It's filled with enough drama, betrayal and sex to fuel a season's worth of soap operas.

The Michael Kyles and the Bernie Macs live in the town of Wednesday Night Prime. Both families reside in large, fashionable homes and have adorable kids. Though they dwell on separate blocks, they are aware of each other, being the only black families in the community. Though all has been neighborly between them so far, the peaceful coexistence may end this fall, when the families will be forced to live next door to each other. Fox is moving The Bernie Mac Show, which premiered last season to critical and popular acclaim, to the Wednesday 8 p.m. slot against My Wife and Kids.

Carolann Morgan knows that 10 years ago, she would not have been able to make a success of her business. Today, her African-American art store, Carolann Art Gallery & Frame Shop, is thriving in Savoy Plaza shopping center on Liberty Road. Morgan attributes her success to the wave of black families that have moved in along the Liberty Road corridor from Randallstown to Lochearn during the past decade. "I know businesses that started back in the '80s and '90s, and they actually folded," Morgan said.

At a time when slavery was still legal in Maryland, two African-American families lived and owned land in Oella in western Baltimore County. "I just found that amazing," said Louis S. Diggs, a self-made genealogist and historian who has spent nearly a decade studying and writing about African-American communities in the county. The presence of free blacks in Oella is one of the findings in Diggs' latest book, Surviving in America, which traces the roots of African-Americans in the Patapsco Valley.

THE NATION was transformed 25 years ago. For the first time, most of the nation stopped. For eight consecutive nights, regular activity ceased and millions took a look at the most taboo of subjects in American history - slavery - with the airing of the television miniseries Roots. From that episodic event, the story of an American family took hold in the hearts and minds of a nation, and 25 years later its impact is still felt. The telling of the story of a humble family from the West African village of Juffure more than 240 years ago began a new era of discussion, self-reflection, family study, ethnic identity and American culture.

One week after Anne Arundel County prosecutors announced a stepped-up effort to handle suspected hate crimes, the letters "KKK" were found spray-painted yesterday on the garage of an Edgewater home about to be sold to a black family. It is the fifth suspected hate crime in as many weeks in and around the state capital, and it led the would-be buyers to back away from yesterday's scheduled settlement on the house. County police were searching the Woodland Beach neighborhood around the home at 1822 Potomac Road yesterday and were investigating the vandalism as a suspected hate crime.