A united front against racism must be built to fortify civil rights in the United States, Loretta Ross and Nkenge Toure stressed during the final Ebony and Ivory event Saturday afternoon.

"It's clear that there needs to be a united front against racism. There seem to be, at least in my mind, a new racist movement coming about in America," said Ross, director of Women of Color Programs for the National Organization for Women.

Oppression against people of color -- whom she defined as non-Caucasians -- has taken new forms in this movement, Ross said, offering efforts to establish English as the national language as an example.

"It manifests itself in how our taken-for-granted civil rights and human rights are being eroded on a daily basis," she said.

"We can have a common understanding and perception that racism has not gone anywhere -- that it has just gone underground just to be reborn again," she said.

In order to build a united front against racism, people must learn to look at the sub-issues and concerns that tie into that front, said Toure, co-founder of the International Council of African Women.

During the discussion, Ross offered several strategies for anti-racism movements.

"We tend to rail against whatever is oppressing us with unfocused, undirected anger," Ross said. "But if we don't have the strategies to go with that anger all we end up doing is internalizing that anger within ourselves."

Using the most beneficial modes of organization and understanding the distinction between racism and prejudice is important to strategy, she said.

Forming movements against sexism and poverty are part of anti-racism strategies, Ross said.

To unify against racism it is essential to also combat sexual oppression as it relates to equal opportunity for black women within the anti-racism movement, to physical abuse, to job and street harassment and to health issues concerned with reproductive rights and AIDS, Nkenge said.

"For people of color, the major debate around abortion is a question of whether or not our people have equal access to it," Ross added.