In her first public appearance in New York since her story of rape, abduction and hatred opened deep racial divisions a decade ago, a confident and defiant Tawana Brawley told a roaring audience of supporters last night the same thing she did then: that she had told the truth.
Her repeated insistence that ''I am not a liar'' came despite a 1988 grand jury report that determined that Ms. Brawley had concocted the story that a group of white men in Dutchess County, including a man with a badge, had kidnapped and raped her and scrawled racial epithets on her naked body. The case, and later the grand jury findings, polarized New York and the country along racial lines.
''We didn't cause any ruckus,'' Ms. Brawley said yesterday. ''It was already there. We just woke it up.''
What was missing last night during her appearance at Bethany Baptist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, was any voice contesting her account. Supported by the grand jury report, critics called the Brawley case a horrible hoax orchestrated by her advisers.
Those same advisers -- her longtime lawyer, Alton Maddox Jr., and C. Vernon Mason and the Rev. Al Sharpton -- are facing opening arguments today in a defamation lawsuit brought by Steven A. Pagones, a former Dutchess County assistant district attorney, whom the three had identified as one of her assailants. Neither Mr. Sharpton nor Mr. Mason attended the rally, which was organized by Mr. Maddox.
But what energized the overwhelmingly black audience, which frequently yelled, ''We love Tawana,'' was Ms. Brawley's return to New York. Some in the audience of about 800 said they had come to hear Ms. Brawley's story from her own mouth, but she did not offer any specifics, any new details to prove her accusations true.
Ms. Brawley, 25, was a different person from the mute, impassive teen-ager of a decade ago. Dressed in a smart brown suit, she confidently hushed the shouting crowd. ''If I had read everything I heard said about me in the last 10 years,'' she said, ''I would think it was a hoax, too. But it happened to me, and I'm not a liar. I'm not crazy.''
Answering past accusations by critics, she continued: ''My father never abused me. I never used drugs in my life. I don't drink, and I'm old enough to. In fact, I'm old now.''
Ms. Brawley often expressed hostility at the media and the legal system, which she said was dominated by whites. The same hostility was mirrored by many people in the audience, who jeered at the media in general, and white reporters and white photographers in particular.
At one point, gazing out into the audience, Ms. Brawley said, ''I love every single black face, brown face out there.'' She did not mention the whites in the audience.
Before Ms. Brawley arrived, several local ministers and others attempted to stir the crowd, mentioning the racially charged slaying of Yousef Hawkins in Bensonhurst in 1989 and the more recent case of Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant allegedly tortured by police officers in a Brooklyn station house. Mr. Hawkins's father was in the audience.
Throughout her comments, Ms. Brawley seemed in total control of herself and the room. Saying that ''now it is my turn to fight,'' she attempted to explain her silence as a teen-ager.
''I was afraid before,'' she said. ''I was afraid because I was ignorant.''
She claimed that ''what happened to me happens to hundreds of thousands of women every day.''
Motioning to the photographers and reporters who crowded into the balcony and the front pews of the church, she accused the media and government officials of lying about her accusations. ''For 10 years,'' she said, ''they were lying to you. You should feel that the hoax was pulled on you.'' The crowd then jumped to its feet as Ms. Brawley was escorted from the altar of the church. She spoke for about 20 minutes.
Ms. Brawley offered a glimpse of her life since leaving New York nine years ago and eventually settling in suburban Washington, where she works as an administrative assistant at a hospital and goes by a different last name.
Even now, she said, people pointed at her on Washington's streets, saying, ''That's her.'' She claimed that the Central Intelligence Agency had followed her at times. She offered a story of being stopped at gunpoint by law enforcement officials at Newark Airport, but gave few details.
Speaking before Ms. Brawley appeared, Mr. Maddox exhorted the audience. He said he was eager to testify and eager to give his opening statements at the defamation trial in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., today. ''Our ability to win in Dutchess County depends on our degree of unity,'' he told the audience. ''If we are united as a people, the truth is on our side and no force on the face of the earth can beat us.''
Mr. Sharpton's absence appears to be another signal that he is trying to put some distance between himself and Mr. Maddox and Mr. Mason. In the wake of his strong mayoral run, Mr. Sharpton has tried to present himself as a less confrontational, less racially divisive politician.
While Mr. Mason's lawyer, Stephen C. Jackson, spoke briefly on his behalf at the rally, no one spoke for Mr. Sharpton.
Earlier in the day, Ms. Brawley's appearance at the rally was the focus of conversation at the Poughkeepsie courthouse where the defamation lawsuit is being heard and where Ms. Brawley emerged unexpectedly yesterday as a possible participant in the proceedings.
A lawyer for Mr. Pagones said that his client would waive all of the monetary damages Ms. Brawley might be ordered to pay him if she agreed to testify at the trial.
''We want her to tell her story under oath, rather than to the press,'' the lawyer, William E. Stanton, told Justice S. Barrett Hickman of State Supreme Court.
But Ms. Brawley said last night at the rally that she would not accept the offer to testify against Mr. Maddox. ''He's been my attorney for the past 10 years and hopefully he always will be my attorney.''
Ms. Brawley was originally a fourth defendant in Mr. Pagones's lawsuit, but she repeatedly refused to answer subpoenas or respond to the suit in any other way, and thus lost the case by default in 1991. It was ruled that the amount of damages she owed Mr. Pagones would be determined later, during the trial of the other three defendants.
The defense team, meanwhile, gave conflicting signals on the likelihood that they would now encourage Ms. Brawley's cooperation. While Mr. Jackson, a lawyer for Mr. Mason, and Michael A. Hardy, a lawyer for Mr. Sharpton, both said that Ms. Brawley's testimony could help their cases, they said that Mr. Maddox maintained the closest relationship with her and would have to solicit her help.
Mr. Jackson said that Mr. Mason, who is to be the first witness called by Mr. Stanton, would come to court today for the first time since the proceedings began more than two weeks ago. Mr. Hardy said it was possible that Mr. Sharpton, who has also been absent, would come too.
Some people who filled Bethany Baptist last night said they hoped the public rally could sway opinion in the defamation case. Others said they came to hear another chapter in the Tawana Brawley story.
''This is another important piece,'' said Harry W. Scott Jr., 50, a lawyer who lives nearby. ''This is the best I can get to finding out what really happened, to hear what she has to say.''
Milton Wells, 40, a postal employee, said he came to support Mr. Sharpton. Before Ms. Brawley appeared, Mr. Wells said he hoped she might provide evidence that could exonerate Mr. Sharpton. ''If what she says can implicate Pagones as a person who raped her in '87, and if she can prove that, then it would have to have an effect,'' he said.
Collette Wright, 39, said nothing could sway her belief that Ms. Brawley told the truth 10 years ago. ''If Tawana Brawley was to get up and turn and say it was a hoax, I'd say she was lying. We know what happened to her.''
As Ms. Wright spoke before the rally, a woman monitoring the aisles walked up and cut her off. ''There are certain things people aren't allowed to talk about,'' said the woman, who refused to give her name. Others walking the aisle admonished people in the congregation who spoke to white reporters.
Ms. Brawley also frequently spoke of the media. ''They write that it didn't happen, that it's a hoax,'' Ms. Brawley said of the media. ''Then why are they here? Why are you listening to a liar, if I lie? They know something happened, and they know who did it.''
