Members of a state multiethnic group moved on several fronts this week to organize opposition to the genocide Darfurians face from government-sponsored militias in Sudan.

Meeting Feb. 14 in the crowded conference room of the American Jewish Committee’s Millburn office, representatives from 10 religious, cultural, civic, and educational groups vowed to press for maximum participation in “Million Voices for Darfur,” an April 30 march and rally in Washington, D.C.

The group also planned to involve elementary, high school, and college students in their expanding efforts.

The Washington event will include an interfaith service, a rally at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and a march to the Washington monument.

It will “urge President Bush to support a stronger multinational force to protect the citizens of Darfur,” who are being raped, slaughtered, and driven from their homes by the hundreds of thousands, said Alana Cooper, associate director of the Anti-Defamation League’s NJ region.

Although the president and former Secretary of State Colin Powell have declared the situation to be genocide, members of the coalition, known as New Jersey Responds to the Crisis in Darfur, say they are “alarmed” to note an apparent weakening of the White House position to halt the atrocities.

“We want to make sure we get as many residents of Jersey to attend as we can, and in this group make that a priority for us,” said Cooper.

The event will take place a few days after Yom Hashoa, the day set aside for remembrance of the Nazi Holocaust, which this year falls on April 25. “I’m going to recommend that we make Darfur a piece of it here in New Jersey,” said Paul Winkler, chair of the state’s Commission on Holocaust Education, who host the official state observance of Yom Hashoa at the State House in Trenton, also on April 30. “Not everyone can make the trip to Washington.”

Combining present concerns over African ethnic cleansing with continuing emphasis on the genocide of World War II, Winkler urged fellow committee members to recruit rally-goers from college campuses and high schools.

“There are definitely things happening in the schools,” said Winkler, citing various student organizing efforts and observances at Kean University and Stockton College, Ramapo University, and Mercer County Community College.

Seeking to enlist even younger American students, Blanche Foster, chair of the Newark-based Darfur Rehabilitation Project, is coordinating a collection in NJ schools of school supplies that will be shipped to refugee camps through an effort run by the Church World Service.

“Through an international alliance of organizations from the United States, Europe, and Sudan, we are helping 325,000 families directly, in addition to hospitals and help centers, rehabilitating 16 schools, and providing teacher training for instructors at refugees camps in Darfur and Chad,” she said.

Cooper said the ADL would dedicate its annual multicultural Passover seder to the crisis in Darfur, some time in April prior to the start of the holiday on April 12.

Also attending the meeting were Susan Shapiro, associate director of the AJC’s Metro NJ chapter, and Robert Manley of the International Public Policy Institute, a board member of the Darfur Rehabilitation Project.

Noting that the Community Relations Committee of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey was instrumental in organizing the NJ coalition, CRC director Lori Price Abrams said she was “very excited at this point. This has evolved into a program that will have a broad reach into the public schools, with a tool kit that teachers will be able to incorporate into lessons about genocide.”

Taking note of the “Day of Conscience,” Joyce Reilly of Drew University’s Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study told the group her campus devoted Feb. 7 to publicizing the situation in Darfur.

“The students were inspired” said Blanche Foster of the Darfur Rehabilitation Project. “They said ‘we had to get together and do something.’”