Big-City Blacks Join in Push for Prayer in School

By Mark Walsh

The movement to restore prayer to the public schools, a cause long associated with conservative Christians, the Republican Party, and small-town residents, appears to be gaining new ground among African-Americans and white liberals in urban areas.

Many city residents say that allowing students to recite prayers each day would help restore a moral foundation to the public schools, something they say is badly needed in an era when school violence has become commonplace.

"We have guns in school. We have drugs in school. We have violence in school. Why can't we have prayer?'' said Marion S. Barry Jr., a member of the District of Columbia city council and former Mayor who is sponsoring a bill that would allow voluntary, nonsectarian student-led prayer...