Los Angeles ? Leaders of the Minuteman Project began a cross-country tour Wednesday to seek support for tighter border security, launching a caravan to the nation’s capital from a heavily black neighborhood where many residents shouted at the civilian patrol group to go home.

Minuteman leaders started the trip from a park in a black neighborhood as part of a push to attract more blacks as members.

“If we are going to be giving preference to anybody … preference should go to the American-African community that has suffered more than anybody,” Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist told a crowd of 40 supporters that included about 10 blacks.

But the event soon provoked screaming matches about whether immigrants were taking jobs from blacks or should be embraced as fellow minorities looking for a better life.

Gilchrist had to yell over a dozen mostly black protesters who chanted “Minutemen go home!” and “KKK go home!”

Gilchrist repeatedly stopped his speech to address the protesters, telling them: “Ours is not a racial cause. It’s a rule-of-law cause.”

When the chants and arguments persisted, Gilchrist stepped up his rhetoric. “Minutemen, stand your ground,” he said. “Do not fire unless fired upon. And if it’s a war he wants, then let it begin here.”

Organizers hoped the trip would help counter marches staged Monday by more than 1 million people demanding amnesty for illegal immigrants.

The caravan is scheduled to stop in President Bush’s vacation haven of Crawford, Texas, as well as Phoenix; Albuquerque, N.M.; Abilene, Texas; Little Rock, Ark.; Memphis and Nashville, Tenn.; Montgomery and Birmingham, Ala.; Atlanta; Greensboro, N.C.; and Richmond, Va.