Some 1,100 people came to Shriver Hall on the Homewood campus Wednesday night to hear Kweisi Mfume, the first guest lecturer of the 1998 Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium, "Who Are We? A Question of National Identity," whose topic was "Multiculturalism in America: A Melting Pot?"

Mfume, chairman of the NAACP, asked the audience as they explore the beliefs and issues that bind a nation of Americans together to keep in mind recent events--such as the burning of black churches, separatists like Timothy McVeigh, the backlash against immigrants and affirmative action and the deepening divisions between the haves and have-nots--that continue to tear those bonds apart.

"We're losing as a nation our ability to be tolerant--in terms of one's religion, in terms of one's preferences and in terms of one's gender," he said. "We've created in many respects an ugly little part of America that still loves too little and hates too much."