gtk configure fails to find pango

[Ben Weintraub <orinjus yahoo com>]

I am having a problem getting gtk+ (2.0.1) to compile.  The configure script seems to be having some trouble involving pango, which I compiled and installed without any problems.  I've checked the prefixes many times and edited my /etc/ld.so.conf to include the dir with pango libs in it.  ld seems to find the library fine:
# ld -lpango-1.0
ld: warning: cannot find entry symbol _start; not setting start address

I assume this means it finds that library, because it is not printing an error about not finding it.  However when I try this with the file that seems to be causing the problem (libpangoxft) it gives these errors.
# ld -lpangoxft-1.0
ld: warning: cannot find entry symbol _start; not setting start address
/usr/local/lib/libpangoxft-1.0.so: undefined reference to `FT_Get_Next_Char'
/usr/local/lib/libpangoxft-1.0.so: undefined reference to `FT_Get_First_Char'

I think this has to do with the freetype library (just an idea, I'm pretty new), which I have also recently installed (version 2.0.9).  

Here are the relevant lines from config.log:
...snip...
configure:16315: checking for pango_context_new in -lpango-1.0
configure:16348: gcc -o conftest -g -O2 -Wall   -I/usr/gnome/include/glib-2.0 -I
/usr/gnome/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/local/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/X11R6/incl
ude -I/usr/include/freetype2     conftest.c -lpango-1.0   -L/usr/gnome/lib -L/us
r/local/lib -lpangox-1.0 -lpangoxft-1.0 -lpango-1.0 -lgobject-2.0 -lgmodule-2.0 
-ldl -lglib-2.0     >&5
/usr/local/lib/libpangoxft-1.0.so: undefined reference to `FT_Get_Next_Char'
/usr/local/lib/libpangoxft-1.0.so: undefined reference to `FT_Get_First_Char'
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
configure:16351: $? = 1
configure: failed program was:
#line 16323 "configure"
#include "confdefs.h"
...snip...
configure:16368: result: no
configure:16373: error:
*** Can't link to Pango. Pango is required to build
*** GTK+. For more information see http://www.pango.org
...snip...

specs:
kernel 2.4.18, Slackware 8.0, XFree 4.1

Thanks in advance,
Ben Weintraub