Hundreds of Baltimoreans cheered and challenged the nation's black leaders last night during an NAACP-sponsored "town hall meeting" at Dunbar High School.

It was the first chance during the three-day National African-American Leadership Summit for the leaders -- the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., Minister Louis Farrakhan, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Rep. Kweisi Mfume among others -- to exchange views directly with the people of Baltimore.

Minister Farrakhan, leader of the black separatist Nation of Islam, received the largest ovations from the 1,000 people who packed the Dunbar school theater in East Baltimore.

He called the summit a "family matter" and said: "I am a member of my family." He urged the audience to become members of the NAACP, as he is. He also said he plans to lead 1 million black men in a march on Washington next year.

Princeton philosopher Cornel West said it is "the hunger and the thirst of the masses of people that leadership is responding to."

However, the leaders did most of the talking during the televised event, and audience members shouted several times for a chance to speak.

Zattura Sims-El, who runs an entrepreneurship program for Dunbar students, won an off-the-cuff invitation to participate in the summitfrom Dr. Chavis, the NAACP executive director, when she urged the leaders not just to identify problems but to solve them. She said blacks must take control of school systems that she said are run by "the slave masters."

In response, Minister Farrakhan won an ovation when he said: "We are not being educated; we are being trained to serve the system." He said churches should supplement black children's education.

The meeting followed a day of closed summit sessions at the headquarters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Northwest Baltimore.

Dr. Chavis termed yesterday's sessions "productive" and "a good start."

Mr. Jackson and Mr. Mfume made their first appearances of the summit, which began Sunday, and joined Dr. Chavis and Minister Farrakhan there in a show of unity.

"Millions of African-Americans want to hear something from the summit, and I want to say to our community it's a victory for us to be together," Dr. Chavis told reporters. "We're determined to stay together."

The summit concludes this afternoon with a final session that is open to the press.

About 75 black invitees took part in two closed sessions yesterday. Participants ranged from leaders of a national sorority, a Masonic order and the black dentists association to NAACP youth leaders, advocates of Afrocentric education and black nationalists. Dr. Chavis offered few details about the closed-door meetings. "We are not at the results stage," Dr. Chavis said.

Earlier yesterday, many of the summit participants had joined Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke for breakfast on the 27th floor of the World Trade Center.

While Jewish activists outside protested Minister Farrakhan's presence because of the Nation of Islam's record of anti-Semitic statements, the black leaders defended their right to have included the minister at the summit.

If Israelis and Palestinians can talk, and black South Africans and white Afrikaners can talk, Mr. Jackson said, then black Americans of differing philosophies should be able to engage in dialogue.

"This is the operative way of creating progress in the new world order -- talk it out instead of fight it out," the leader of the National Rainbow Coalition said. "All we're asking is that the game be played by one set of rules."

All the leaders except Minister Farrakhan, who remained seated at a table near the podium, addressed the breakfast gathering, and there were embraces all around. Mayor Schmoke hugged the Rev. Al Sharpton, the New York activist who arrived with Mr. Jackson.

"We're here to be pro-African-American, not anti-Jewish, anti-white or anti-anybody else," Mr. Schmoke said in an interview. He said the city did not pay for the breakfast, although it did provide for free use of the Top of the World observation area overlooking the Inner Harbor.

Minister Farrakhan, who spoke at Sunday afternoon's opening session and galvanized a rally at Bethel A.M.E. Church that evening, has adopted a largely conciliatory tone, at one point asking churchgoers: "If my rhetoric is too strident, who better to correct me than my brothers?"

Mr. Schmoke said he sometimes disagrees with Minister Farrakhan but added: "I don't think any of us should be telling Minister Farrakhan what to say or what not to say."

The mayor, a life member of the NAACP, praised Dr. Chavis for calling the summit. "Dr. Chavis is really on the horns of a dilemma," he said, "because on one hand there are people who say the NAACP is not relevant to the needs of the black community in the 1990s. On the other hand, when he tries to turn to the pressing needs of the community and reaches out to those he believes can help solve some of the problems, he is criticized for that.

"I think what he's doing is trying to strike an appropriate balance which does not discard the historic position of the NAACP but tries to direct it to address some of the needs of the 1990s," Mr. Schmoke said.

Asked how Minister Farrakhan helps him address those needs, the mayor said the black separatist speaks to some blacks' "nationalist sentiment" and to the desire for black economic empowerment.

Mr. Mfume, a Baltimore Democrat who is chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told the breakfast gathering: "We reserve the right to be different. God calls us to understand and to find ways to build on our similarities" -- to which Minister Farrakhan said softly, "Yes."

Mr. Jackson said there was "no contradiction" between black leaders seeking unity while trying to build coalitions with members of other ethnic groups.

A small group of protesters marched to the World Trade Center to denounce the presence of Minister Farrakhan at the breakfast held by the mayor under the auspices of the NAACP. The group also protested the city's having contracted with NOI Security Inc., which is owned by Nation of Islam members, to provide security at several public housing projects.

"It is tragic that the NAACP, a private organization, has embraced a racist," shouted Rabbi Avi Weiss, national president of the New York-based Coalition for Jewish Concerns. "But it is infinitely worse for the government of the city of Baltimore to funnel millions of dollars to the Nation of Islam."

"Shame on Schmoke," the protesters shouted from behind yellow police tape, as about 20 police officers and a dozen members of the Nation of Islam stood on the plaza outside the World Trade Center.

When he arrived for the breakfast, Mr. Jackson walked over to the protesters and shook hands with many of them.

"It's an unfortunate distraction," Mr. Jackson said later of the protest. He said he shook hands because "even with disagreement, there must not be hostility."

Security has been tight at the conference because of unspecified "vile threats" that Dr. Chavis said had been received.