HILADELPHIA - Leaning against a storefront in a rickety side of town, Hameed Abdur-Raham, 53, an African-American and Vietnam War veteran, snaps his newspaper open as he thinks out loud about the two major presidential contenders.
Both are concerned with just the rich ... neither cares about issues affecting African-Americans ... will one vote really change anything?
''No, I think I might just not vote,'' Abdur-Raham says as he folds up his newspaper and dashes onto a city bus.
He could change his mind before Tuesday. But ambivalence such as his is widespread enough in this state, where the black vote could play a pivotal role in choosing the next president, that activists worry that their get-out-to-vote drive is hitting a wall of resistance.
On a bustling North Philadelphia street, where vendors are hawking baseball caps and kitchen pots, some African-Americans say they are tired of being hassled by organizers.
''I have already signed some paper saying I might vote, so don't come asking me again,'' says an elderly woman who won't give her name.
Not far away, the owner of a tiny outdoor flower stand points to his mother, Amanda Tuff, when asked if he will vote on Tuesday.
''Talk to her,'' he snaps. ''She votes.''
''Some tell us their vote won't count,'' says Thera Martin Connelly who has helped organize the NAACP's massive voting drive in Pennsylvania. ''We ask them to reconsider.''
The nationwide voting drives in Pennsylvania and 14 other battleground states like Missouri and Illinois are showing results. About 22,000 new black voters were added to the rolls in this state alone; a reported 200,000 new voters were registered across the nation. But registering voters isn't the same as having them vote, and organizers say they are battling indifference among black voters.
''Many black voters are disinterested. So, on Nov. 7 they will not vote,'' says Sandra Dungee Glenn, who heads the NAACP voter drive for this state.
One doesn't have to look far, though, in the City of Brotherly Love to find African-Americans who believe the black vote will not only help to put one man in the White House, but also affect their own prosperity.
Inside a posh, dimly lighted jazz club in the heart of downtown sit David Lipscomb, a computer specialist, and Bernard Johnson, a corporate head hunter. The two African-American men, dressed in business attire, are sipping cocktails and eating dinner as they discuss why there is no question they must go to the polls next week.
''I'm not stupid,'' says Lipscomb, 36. ''This new generation of blacks realizes that we need to vote because it is important to our future.''
''Look around,'' says Johnson, pointing to a stream of well-dressed black and white patrons entering the restaurant as a female singer crooned on stage. ''It's 150 people sitting here on a Monday night, and it's not even Friday. That's indicative of the economy.''
Johnson and Lipscomb, a father of two young girls, say they worry they could lose everything they have built in the past eight years - their careers and homes - if a Republican gets in office.
The good times are the reason many others, especialy people in lower-income areas, are not voting, says Curtis Thomas, a Pennsylvania state representative.
''The real battle is against complacency,'' Thomas says. ''Crisis has always driven our energy. They are suffering from amnesia, so we have to do something to bring'' them out of that amnesia.
Thomas, a Democrat, says many see the low unemployment rate and their friends buying big homes, and then they forget about the hard times the city experienced when a Republican was president.
So, he says he reminds them of time nearly a decade ago when three girls were killed in a local housing development. The crime rate was high and public housing was in shambles back then.
Gloria Crenshaw, a cashier at Big George's Restaurant, a busy soul food diner, says things are still not so great. Just outside the restaurant, there are homeless people, and the buildings are worn and old.
''I don't think we really have a say-so into what is going on. I think they have it all figured out anyways,'' she says. ''Regardless of what party ends up in the White House, it's going to end up the same way.''
Abur-Raheem, who was waiting at the bus stop, also believes neither contender is interested in helping those African-Americans who haven't benefited from the economic boom. So Abur-Raheem, like Crenshaw, believes there is no reason to waste a vote.
But, Glenn of the NAACP tries to show people like Crenshaw and Abur-Raheem that the daily issues in their lives are directly related to the president. She points to a local elementary school as an example. The school is 92 years old and has no library, gym, or cafeteria, but black children must go there.
''I say modernizing schools is directly related to who is sitting in the White House,'' she explains.
Glenn has taken her message across the city as part of the NAACP's multimillion-voter drive launched in the battleground states. Just last weekend, 563 foot soldiers - NAACP members, civic groups, black fraternities and sororities - knocked on doors and handed out hundreds of leaflets in 280 low-turnout precincts across the city. Last week, rallies and star-studded bus tours carried the get-out-to-vote message across the North and West Philadelphia.
Historically, African-Americans have understood the importance of voting, says David Ruffin, editor of Focus magazine, the public policy magazine of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. However, he says, more and more African-Americans are feeling alienated by both parties. While Democrats are moving further to the right, he says, Republicans have become outright hostile to African-American concerns.
To be sure, says Jack Nagel, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, the black vote in this state where 23 electoral votes are up for grabs, could be crucial on Election Day. The turnout of black voters, who make up about 10 percent of the registered voters in the state, could determine whether Al Gore or George W. Bush wins.
US Repesentative Chaka Fattah, a Democrat from Philadelphia, who is African-American, says black voters may not seem enthusiastic about the two candidates, but insists they will show up in droves come Election Day. He points to the elections of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, who were helped by large black turnouts.
''You don't have to have a bullhorn and music jumping on the back up of a pickup truck,'' he says. ''They understand.''
Amanda Tuff, 78, agrees. As she plucks at a handful of flowers from her son's stand, she shakes her head at the mere thought that anyone wouldn't vote. ''People are crazy if they don't vote,'' she says. ''Their vote counts. It counts an awful lot.''
