Participants danced in the middle of the stadium to contemporary African music, provided by the ANC. Other demonstrators who had gathered at the beginning of the march included people representing the National Black Environmental Justice, the South African Communist Party, the Al- Aqsa Foundation and a large contingent of Palestinians in support of Iraq. Many wore T-shirts that read, "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white."

"We are gathering in support of this UN World Conference against Racism," said ANC spokesman Mtholephi Mthimkhuhu. "We are gathering to say that racism must be eradicated in our society."

Racism, Mthimkhuhu said, still "haunts" South Africans, even though the official government is democratic. "Racism is still alive," he said. "Today we are calling on all peoples of the world, from different walks of life, irrespective of race, color or creed to join hands with us for fighting for the total eradication of racism."

The memorandum that will be handed to the delegates at WCAR at the culmination of the march calls for them to work for a non-racial, non-sexist world as well as for resolution in the Middle East. Mthimkhuhu said that the ANC condemns the "carnage" afflicted on the Palestinians as well as all violence in the Middle East and calls on Israel to sit with the Palestinians and address their issues "at the round table."

When asked if Israelis would be welcome at the march, Mthimkhuhu told Conference News Daily, "Because we are promoting peace, because we are promoting the termination of violence in the Middle East, if they can join us here, we can, for that reason, welcome them. We're not against them."

"We're against Israel," Simo Gumade, of the South African Communist Party, said. "And we're against the racism in South Africa." When asked how Communism could be better than a democratic society, Gumade said, "Socialism is achievable because it works in Cuba and we can achieve it as well." According to the back of his T-shirt, the South African Communist Party is working to, "Consolidate working class power for the eradication for the eradication of poverty."

Not too far from him, and surrounded by men in black suits as well as men and women wearing, "UN Stop Killing Iraqi Children" T-shirts, sat Sheikh Ebrahim Gabriels, President of the Muslim Judicial Council of the Al-Aqsa Foundation of South Africa.

As people danced around him, Gabriels said that he came with a 670-person delegation from Cape Town, "To raise our voices concerning the racism issue. We are terribly upset that the United States of America has the audacity to say that Zionism does not equal racism. While we know and everybody knows that it is the worst form of racism."

"If this is a conference against racism," he said, "then how is it possible that the conference can continue without discussing the worse form of racism taking place in the world?"

There were nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) there that were focused on environmental justice rather than peace in the Middle East.

"We come from the US, we're concerned with environmental justice and we're from the southern western states of the US and the northern states of Mexico," said Robby Rodriguez. "We're marching to demand that the governments and the corporations stop contaminating our communities and start cleaning up the communities that they contaminated."

Next to him, wearing an ANC flag in her hat while dancing to the music, was Cecil Fields of the National Black Environmental Justice Network, a US-based network.

"It's a network of black and white environmental justice organizations around the United States," said Fields, an attorney from Dallas, Texas. "We're here to work on getting issues of environmental justice and environmental racism to the conference agenda."

And labor rights, which are not unfamiliar in these WCAR protests, were also represented. Jenice L. View, Executive Director or the Just Transition Alliance, said, "We're bringing together frontline workers who are dealing with the toxics of pollutants on a daily basis in the production facilities and in the fence line communities that are effected by those pollutants."

When asked if her organization's presence automatically meant that she agreed with everyone's cause, she said, "We're concerned with environmental racism."

Even the Durban Department of Transportation supported the march, supplying participants with a T-shirt that read, "Asiphephe" which means, "Let us be safe." The shirt was a reminder of the zero tolerance law against drunk driving. The back of the shirt said it plainly: "Obey the Rules or Pay the Price."