Napata

Saying that Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke is out of touch with Baltimore's poor and minorities, community activist Daki Napata said yesterday that he will challenge Mr. Schmoke in the Democratic primary in September."

AT LAST, a suspect has been identified in the notorious "Aryan Blood Brotherhood" letter that has been circulating throughout Baltimore the past two weeks. Folks have fingered one Rev. Daki Napata as the culprit. It's quite the pity they've got the wrong guy.Napata demonstrated in front of The Sun building last week, protesting the depiction of him as a man of no morals and low character. His Wednesday harangue ended shortly after noon. He trudged slowly up Calvert Street, his bullhorn slung over his shoulder as he turned left on Centre Street.

Saying that Kurt L. Schmoke lacks the fire and aggressiveness to be an effective mayor, longtime community activist the Rev. Daki Napata says that he is running for the city's top job.Napata, 39, made his announcement yesterday."

Just days before the city's mayoral primary, thousands of racist leaflets began appearing on the street corners of Baltimore exhorting white voters to support the candidacy of City Councilman Martin O'Malley to save the city from "Blacks and Jews."Attached to each handout is a letter signed by Robert L. Clay Sr., an African-American businessman who claims to have intercepted the hate-filled diatribe purportedly from a group calling itself the Aryan Blood Brotherhood."I'm not necessarily interested in tarnishing anyone's candidacy," said Clay, who paid to duplicate and distribute thousands of copies of the letter.

The Rev. Daki Napata, an outspoken minister who went before residents of Southeast Baltimore in St. Brigid's Church hall last night as an aggressive Democratic challenger in the race for City Council president -- blasting incumbent Mary Pat Clarke -- concluded by saying his campaign was over.He announced he would no longer campaign because, he said, he had been virtually ignored by the media and even by the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance to which he belonged."I grew up in this city believing democracy was real," he said.

AT LAST, a suspect has been identified in the notorious "Aryan Blood Brotherhood" letter that has been circulating throughout Baltimore the past two weeks. Folks have fingered one Rev. Daki Napata as the culprit. It's quite the pity they've got the wrong guy.Napata demonstrated in front of The Sun building last week, protesting the depiction of him as a man of no morals and low character. His Wednesday harangue ended shortly after noon. He trudged slowly up Calvert Street, his bullhorn slung over his shoulder as he turned left on Centre Street.

Saying he is disillusioned by the decision of two influential black minister groups to endorse incumbent Mary Pat Clarke, Daki Napata is abandoning his grass roots campaign for City Council president.Meanwhile, the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance and the Baptist Ministers Conference today announced they were also endorsing Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and comptroller candidate Mary W. Conaway in the Sept. 12 Democratic primary."We applaud the [candidates] whom we have endorsed for being accessible and accountable," said the Rev. Sidney Daniels, president of the alliance.

With less than $300 to spend on his campaign for City Council president, the Rev. Daki Napata can't rely on money to help him unseat incumbent Mary Pat Clarke.He can't even rely on the group that he has worked with for years, the city's Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, because they endorsed Mrs. Clarke.So Mr. Napata, a 39-year-old civic activist, is left to rely on his inspirations: like Muhammed Ali (then, Cassius Clay) who took on favored champion Sonny Liston in 1964; Nelson Mandela, who refused to give into the discrimination of apartheid; and the recently elected mayor of Denver, Wellington Webb, who had almost no money but walked hundreds of miles meeting people in a shocking upset victory.

Daki Napata, a Baptist minister and community activist, says he will fast until a blueprint to fight racism in the city is adopted."I'm committed to fast until that positive plan of action happens," Napata said yesterday, some 19 hours into a fast he began Tuesday. "Hopefully, this will happen Friday night."Tomorrow, city officials, representatives of various ethnic groups and the public will participate in the first summit on race relations in Baltimore. More than 1,300 people are expected at the morning and evening sessions at the Baltimore Convention Center.

Mayoral candidate Martin J. O'Malley said yesterday that his campaign paid $1,000 to a supporter of rival Lawrence A. Bell III who has acknowledged copying racist literature.O'Malley said he paid the Rev. Daki Napata of Union Baptist Church to help establish contact with city ministers as the mayoral candidates sought the endorsement of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, a powerful group of 200 mostly African-American pastors."Once we gave him the check, we never heard from him again," O'Malley said.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke has fired a West Baltimore minister, who acknowledged last week copying and distributing racist literature, for accepting pay from two rival mayoral campaigns. He announced the dismissal of the Rev. Daki Napata, a mayoral aide, in a news conference at City Hall after a mayoral forum on radio station WWIN yesterday. The Union Baptist Church minister was hired by the city in 1994. For the past three years, Napata has been on loan to the Empowerment Zone, a federally funded program created in 1995 to pour $100 million into hard-hit Baltimore city neighborhoods.

WHEN LAST seen in the full flowering of his devotion to civic virtue, brotherhood and the democratic process, Robert Clay was getting into Del. Howard "Pete" Rawlings' face for his perceived crime of daring to endorse Martin O'Malley for mayor of Baltimore.As Rawlings strode across War Memorial Plaza early last month, that was Clay standing next to Julius Henson, who was then the key trouble-shooter (and creator) for Lawrence Bell. Henson was the one screaming at Rawlings. Clay was the one standing next to Henson, holding aloft the sign that said, "O'Malley is A Hypocrite."

Mayoral candidate Martin J. O'Malley said yesterday that his campaign paid $1,000 to a supporter of rival Lawrence A. Bell III who has acknowledged copying racist literature.O'Malley said he paid the Rev. Daki Napata of Union Baptist Church to help establish contact with city ministers as the mayoral candidates sought the endorsement of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, a powerful group of 200 mostly African-American pastors."Once we gave him the check, we never heard from him again," O'Malley said.

City ministers yesterday denied any knowledge of the creation and distribution of white supremacist literature a day after a fellow clergyman and supporter of mayoral candidate Lawrence A. Bell III acknowledged copying the material.The fliers, mailed out 11 days ago by a group claiming to be the "Aryan Blood Brotherhood," recounted in graphic, racist terms an "endorsement" of white mayoral candidate Martin J. O'Malley, who denounced it.The incident was the second flap in a month involving Bell supporters and O'Malley, who was the subject of another opposition mailing yesterday, this one by an anonymous group criticizing his work as a defense attorney.

Two campaign supporters of mayoral candidate and City Council President Lawrence A. Bell III acknowledged yesterday making 3,000 copies of white supremacist literature that was then handed out in Baltimore's African-American neighborhoods.The one-page letter, signed by a group calling itself the "Aryan Blood Brotherhood," was first mailed to voters about 10 days ago. It recounted in graphic, racist terms the brotherhood's "endorsement" of mayoral candidate Martin O'Malley, who denounced it.Robert Clay of Robert Clay Inc. and the Rev. Daki Napata of Union Baptist Church said they copied the letter Thursday at a Catonsville office supply store so Napata could distribute it as a way of prompting discussion about racism.

A leader of a broad coalition fighting state intervention at Frederick Douglass High School last night denounced a measure targeting the troubled Douglass and Patterson high schools in Baltimore as "mean-spirited arrogance."The Rev. Daki Napata, one of three co-chairs of the "Save Our School Douglass Coalition," charged that city school system officials had ignored coalition members' concern that the state measure left inadequate time to devise a plan to improve the school.Speaking before the city school board, Mr. Napata also said the state "academic bankruptcy" measure did not consider funding inequities that left poor schools with little money for improvements.

"Brother, are you crazy?"Daki Napata says he hears that question a lot these days. People can't believe that he would want to open a new church at Gold and Division streets in West Baltimore."It's a dangerous area, all right," Napata admits. "It's practically an open-air drug market. But that's where there's need for community, affirmation, interaction, regeneration. When people want to know if I'm crazy, I just tell them, 'If God is for us, who can be against us?' "A local activist for social, racial and peace issues and an assistant to the Rev. Vernon Dobson at Union Baptist Church, Napata will lead inaugural services at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Sunday at the church he has dubbed Minister Malcolm X New African Baptist Church.

Incumbent Mary Pat Clarke easily swept aside token opposition by community activist Daki Napata to win the Democratic nomination in the City Council president race.Clarke garnered 76,327 votes -- 90.41 percent of the 84,420 votes cast in the race. Meanwhile, Napata received a mere 8,093 votes.Clarke will run against Republican Anthony D. Cobb in the general election in November. Cobb ran without opposition and picked up 3,581 votes in yesterday's primary election.Clarke campaigned vigorously even though Napata lacked financing and a viable campaign organization.

MAYORDemocratic (vote for 1) . . . . . . . . . 438 of 438 precincts*Kurt L. Schmoke. . . . . . . . . . . . . 61,68 . . . .157.5%Clarence H. "Du" Burns. . . . . . . . . . 31,748 . . . . 29.6%William A. Swisher. . . . . . . . . . . . 10,482 . . . . .9.7%Gene L. Michaels. . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,065 . . . . .9%John B. Ascher . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 . . . . .9%Philip C. Dypsky. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657 . . . . .6%Sheila Hopkins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299 . . . . .2%Ronald W. Williams.

Incumbent Mary Pat Clarke easily swept aside token opposition by community activist Daki Napata to win the Democratic nomination in the City Council president race.Clarke garnered 76,327 votes -- 90.41 percent of the 84,420 votes cast in the race. Meanwhile, Napata received a mere 8,093 votes.Clarke will run against Republican Anthony D. Cobb in the general election in November. Cobb ran without opposition and picked up 3,581 votes in yesterday's primary election.Clarke campaigned vigorously even though Napata lacked financing and a viable campaign organization.