If anyone knows the man who roller-skated from Chicago to the Eastern Seaboard to attend the 1963 March on Washington, please tell him Syd Finley is looking for him.

Finley, executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Chicago chapter, is also trying to get as many people as possible to trek to Washington, D.C., for this weekend's 30th anniversary celebration of the march.

Other gatherings have occurred over the years to commemorate the event, best-known for Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. But "this is the biggest in 30 years," said Finley, who was on the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial at the first march.

March organizers refused to say how many people are expected. About 250,000 attended the 20th anniversary march, about as many people who were at the original.

Finley said excitement over Saturday's planned march results from people's hope in a new administration "that appears concerned about the have-nots." The appeals to be made by marchers can be summed up by the anniversary's theme-"Jobs, Justice and Peace," Finley said.

The marchers intend to voice many concerns similar to those made in 1963, like voting rights and voter registration and fair housing enforcement, the NAACP said. Other more contemporary issues will be addressed too, such as health-care reform.

"There are things that slipped to the backburner that need to be given priority," Finley said.

The march is also planned to be a kind of torch-passing to a generation whose members were not even born in 1963, Finley said.

The Chicago NAACP plans to provide buses for those interested in attending the march at a cost of $72 per person for a round-trip ticket, the civil-rights group said. The group is taking reservations at 312-363-8600. Buses will depart at 5 p.m. Friday from the NAACP's offices at 7 E. 63rd St. and leave Washington on the return trip Sunday morning.

"There's a certain amount of fun and camaraderie you get on a bus," said Finley, who added that people can get there however they please, or if they cannot attend, pay for someone else to go.

One person Finley hopes to see is a man whose last name he recalls as Smith. Smith, a black man who was denied a spot in the all-white sport of roller derby in the 1960s, skated to the first march after Finley invited him to do so.

At the march, Smith was a minor celebrity, acknowledged by both King and Roy Wilkins, then the NAACP's leader. Finley lost track of Smith years ago at about the time Smith was a novelty at a local restaurant, a roller-skating waiter, he said.