MILLION WOMAN MARCH ATTENDANCE UNCERTAIN.

Byline: Larry Copeland and Dan LeDuc Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

The Million Woman March, scheduled for Saturday in Philadelphia, is not the talk of African-American Atlanta.

There is little conversation in Atlanta about the event in hair salons and supermarket aisles, in bowling alleys and nightclubs - as there was two years ago in the days before the Million Man March in Washington.

March mania has not swept Internet chat rooms or Sunday morning church services as it did then. A rally intended to drum up student support last week at the Atlanta University Center - a complex of five historically African-American institutions - drew scant attendance.

``I haven't seen the enthusiasm that people felt for the first march,'' said Jacqueline Howard-Matthews, head of the African women's studies department at Clark Atlanta University. ``I don't see as much excitement behind it. I don't hear as many women talking about it.''

But in the South and elsewhere, organizers talk of growing support for the march and say they have no way to predict the turnout.

Organizers in Chicago, for instance, say they hope as many as 35,000 women will be traveling by bus, plane, train and car from Illinois to Philadelphia by the end of the week. Most will have to get there on their own; only about 50 buses have been chartered.

About a dozen buses from Chicago are being christened with the names of famous women such as Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells and Betty Shabazz. They will be ``universities on wheels,'' said Terri Hill, the Illinois chairwoman of the march, with educational programs on the women each is named for and other materials, including videotapes, on the background of the organization of the march.

``There's no way we'll reach (the original goal of) 65,000, but at the beginning I wouldn't have said 30 would show up,'' Hill said. ``The only really accurate count will be once the march is over.''

Illinois organizers are even recruiting women in jail. Coordinators will distribute red armbands to marchers with the names of incarcerated women written on them.

``As the sisters get on the bus, they'll actually be bringing a sister behind bars with them,'' Hill said. And the marchers will be asked to write to the jailed women to tell them about the march.

Shirley Warren, the Ohio coordinator, expects more than 1,000 women to come from her state; about a dozen buses have been chartered.