The paper strongly supported the local civil rights movement, for which it often featured successes and highlighted the challenges facing blacks in Omaha.

Many longtime members of the church have said they will miss Dr. Proctor's low-key approach to problems facing blacks and what they have called his "quiet activism."

He in turn has trouble facing impoverished blacks both real and fictional.

The rationale for buying this property was that it would help address a long-standing problem facing blacks - racial discrimination in housing.

Like many black leaders, Mr. Marsh considers economic progress to be the biggest problem now facing blacks, not just in Richmond but elsewhere in the country.

But because her writing did not focus on the obstacles facing blacks in a white society, she was sometimes accused of being insensitive to racism.

But he said the 81-year-old group realized the need for black organizations to address problems facing blacks.

"Today the most formidable ideological barrier facing blacks," Mr. D'Souza says, "is not racism but antiracism."

But as Mr. Wilkins noted, there are more urgent problems facing blacks in America than the burning of churches.

Winning elective office has not brought blacks sufficient power, representatives from around the nation said over the weekend as they grappled with solutions to the social problems facing blacks.