Shopkeepers mingled with senators, lawyers touched fists with linemen, and women marched alongside husbands, brothers and fathers during the Million Man March Coalition's amble through Court Street yesterday.

And hundreds more flocked inside the St. Paul Centennial Hall, where they listened to six speeches and vowed to work toward healing, reconciliation and solutions to the problems of violence and drugs on the Island.

The event was a much smaller version of the Million Man March in Washington called by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Organisers were claiming as many as 1.5 million people took part.

In Bermuda, a light drizzle forced the marchers -- including BIU president Mr.

Ottiwell Simmons, UBP Senator Larry Scott and PLP Shadow Human Affairs Minister Dr. Ewart Brown -- to Centennial Hall instead of the original North Village Community Club field venue.

Thirty minutes before the marchers set off yesterday afternoon, a small group of men stood in the parking lot outside Place's Place on Dundonald Street beating drums, shaking hands and conversing.

By the time the march began, more than 100 people had gathered and stood shoulder to shoulder under umbrellas as the rain came down.

But the showers did not deter the marchers -- including about 20 women -- who wound their way chanting to a drumbeat, from Dundonald Street onto Court Street and into the hall.

While some preferred to sit, many more stood in the doorways and in the centre of the room as Mrs. Ellen Douglas, of Hope Homes, Dr. Brown, Mr. Daren Herbert, Mr. Corin Smith, Mr. Jackie Durham and Million March Coalition of Bermuda member Mr. Rolfe Commissiong, addressed the audience.

Mrs. Douglas, who was first to speak, said that although she saw herself as a liberated woman, she owed her existence and her strength to black men.

"Self love is love of one,'' she said. "Unless you love yourself you cannot love me, a black woman.

"I am anxious to adore you. I am anxious to be proud of you and to respect you but I am waiting and today is the day.'' While Mrs. Douglas spoke of the need for black men to love themselves first, Dr. Brown said it was important for men to understand that they had a right to talk about their pain and discomfort and a right to do something about it.

"We need to write some new history for ourselves,'' Dr. Brown said. "As you know winners write history that's why they call it His-story...which is sometimes taught to us as history.'' Dr. Brown said the criticism that the Million Man March has received in the newspapers and on television was not surprising.

"Have you ever noticed, my friends, that whenever black people decide to come together in any sort of collective action, it creates fear in the minds of people? "...they don't believe we are worth nothing. We have to stop believing we are worth nothing.'' Meanwhile, Mr. Herbert said his definition of masculinity incorporated a feeling of control over one's life, but he did not feel that way at present.

"Today I am here to try and take charge and I want you to help me and I want to try to help you as best as I can...I am here because I am serious and that is not just for today but for tomorrow and the day after that.

"I am tired of being a victim. I need help.'' Mr. Smith, who spoke on behalf of the Electoral Annexation Committee, a group formed to educate black Bermudians on issues relating to Independence, sovereignty and statehood, said the idea of black male solidarity was an idea whose time had come.

"But this obvious trend will be of no value to those of us who are afraid,'' he said. "Not of white bigotry, but of (ourselves) and of each other.

"You see each one of us, whether by choice or by accident, has accepted that there is a price to be paid for identifying with our black heritage.

"However, up until today, our community has chosen to pay this burden in the discredited currencies of self-pity, collective guilt and outright denial.'' Mr. Commissiong, who helped to organise the march and was the last to speak, said:"I am happy that Bermudians are coming out and are conscious of what is going on.

"We had become a people who were more concerned about life styles than about having lives...and we lost sight of the spiritual nature of our being...we cannot afford business as usual anymore.''