Whether or not Isiah Thomas should have been fired Wednesday as coach of the Indiana Pacers is not the issue, community activist Amos Brown said Friday.

But the perception, Brown said, is that Pacers president of basketball operations Larry Bird had no intention of giving Thomas a chance to coach the final season of his four-year contract.

Brown said the buzz in the black community concerning the dismissal is decidedly negative.

"There's disappointment and anger about this," said Brown, the director of strategic research for four local radio stations and a columnist for the Indianapolis Recorder. "Isiah was a symbol because he was the Pacers' first black coach, and until he's no longer the first, there will be some pain and hurt there."

Thomas' teams were successful in the regular season, compiling a 131-115 overall record. But they lost in the first round of the playoffs all three years.

"My concern is that the African-American community will look at the Thomas firing as a signal that blacks are, once again, the last to be hired, and the first to be fired," Pacers fan Mark Madison said.

Said fan Jerri Fleming: "I think everybody should protest, because I knew as soon as Larry Bird came back he was bringing Rick Carlisle back here. This was probably in the works for a long time."

Bird reiterated Friday that the decision to fire Thomas wasn't made until recently and that it wasn't an easy one.

"Hey, everybody's got an opinion and as long as it doesn't get personal, I don't mind," he said. "I've been through all this before.

"You like to have everybody with you and understand what you're trying to do. But my job right now is to prove that I made the right move and that we're going to do good things. And we are going to do good things here."