[imc-st.louis] Fwd: Recall Slay -Two Days of Action

[Fitzdon at aol.com]

January 22, 2008



Civil Rights Movement Gets Real



St. Louis Mayor Booed Off MLK Platform

By DON FITZ and ZAKI BARUTI

As the mayor approached the MLK Day podium the boos were so loud that the 
moderator stepped up to ask the crowd to let him speak. Over 500 people began 
chanting "Slay Must Go!" as dozens waved signs saying "End Racial Division - 
Recall Francis Slay." No one could tell if there was actually sound coming out of 
the mayor's lips.

Most of the audience felt it disgraced the memory of Martin Luther King for 
the mayor to be in the room. A few days before the annual rally Rev. Douglass 
Parham, Chair of the Concerned Clergy for the Betterment of St. Louis, 
requested that the officers of the MLK Day Committee uninvite the mayor due to his 
series of abuses against the Black community.

For over 10 years the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression (CAPCR) 
has attempted to stem the tide of racial profiling, beatings and murder of 
black youth by St. Louis cops. St. Louisans are continuously reminded of the 
issue, especially following the airing of footage shot from a news helicopter of 
cops chasing an unarmed black driver, dragging him out of his car and 
repeatedly hitting and kicking him.

After enormous effort working with the Board of Aldermen, CAPCR prepared 
legislation for a Civilian Oversight Board that passed with the votes of all Black 
Aldermen and several white ones. But the mayor vetoed the bill in 2006, bas
ically saying that nothing would be done about police violence against Black 
residents. This pushed CAPCR members to be on the frontlines of booing the mayor.

Like many politicians across the US, Francis Slay has made it clear that he 
wants to gut services for the poor, low income and ethnic minorities. In St. 
Louis this is most vivid in the attack on public education.

Francis Slay prepared a 2003 takeover of the School Board by assembling a 
slate of four candidates who spent over $400,000 for an election that usually 
runs less than $5000. The new Board majority immediately began closing schools, 
laying off support staff, privatizing the cafeteria and grounds keeping and 
convincing AFT Local 420 that it intended to bust the union. Changed bus routes 
forced many kids to walk in the dark. 

As Slay's School Board worked to dismantle public education and replace it 
with charter schools, its meetings became near-riotous shouting matches. The 
Board squandered $5,000,000 paying the management team of Alvarez and Marsal to 
sink the schools 26 achievement points below accreditation levels. 

A coalition of teachers, parents and students fought back by fielding 
candidates who won every School Board election between 2004 and 2007. Outraged that 
his plan to jettison public education was being slowed, Slay worked to have the 
school system decertified and the elected board replaced by a board appointed 
politicians in Summer 2007. Teachers, parents and students came together 
again to boo the mayor.

Reflecting another trend among urban business and political elites, Francis 
Slay became a champion of eminent domain. During the last five years, low 
income housing has been clear cut from entire tracts of St. Louis. It has been 
replaced by much more expensive single family homes and condos. Small businesses 
have similarly been taken away as their land passes to developers who will 
enjoy huge tax breaks. Many of the boos the mayor received on MLK Day were from 
members of the Citizens Coalition to Fight Eminent Domain Abuse.

The other side of the St. Louis housing crisis is the crowding of Black 
families into dilapidated houses with peeling lead paint and lead dust which 
poisons children. The Green Party of St. Louis organized efforts to find out where 
the Slay political machine is spending childhood lead poisoning prevention 
money. 

Throughout 2006, City government dodged questions from the Greens. So the 
Green Party petitioned for a full audit of City finances. Distrustful of how Slay 
government handles money, thousands signed. In July 2007, the State Auditor 
certified that there were significant signatures and that an audit would begin 
in 2008.

The spark that pushed the Black community into demanding a recall of Slay was 
the October 2007 demotion of Fire Chief Sherman George. The Black community 
sees George as a man of great integrity and character who worked himself up to 
become head of the Fire Department. George would not make promotions because 
he felt they would be based on unfair tests and would not result in positions 
going to the best qualified fire fighters. 

Slay and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch put a racial edge on the controversy. 
They accused George of balking because Black fire fighters were underrepresented 
in the promotion list. When George did not meet Slay's deadline for making 
promotions, he was demoted. City Hall passed over a Black firefighter who was 
most qualified to become fire chief and instead appointed Dennis Jenkerson, a 
white friend of the mayor, to the top job. 

The City's Department of Personnel had to change its rules to allow the 
mayor's friend to be eligible for the position. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch would 
not cover the story, which was reported by the Black-oriented St. Louis 
American. 

Rallies to support Sherman George simultaneously distributed petitions to 
recall Francis Slay as mayor. One of the first actions of the Movement to Recall 
the Mayor of St. Louis was a call for a boycott by asking organizations not to 
have conventions in the City as long as the deep racial divide continues. In 
December 2007 the National Society of Black Engineers said that St. Louis 
would risk losing its convention if the atmosphere did not improve. 

Stories of the racial crisis in St. Louis soon appeared in the New York Times
, Boston Globe and Associated Press. Fully a month after the story of the 
boycott broke and after it had been covered nationally, the St. Louis 
Post-Dispatch finally wrote about it.

If Francis Slay wants St. Louis to be his plantation, the St. Louis 
Post-Dispatch strives to be his overseer. Not only did it fail to cover issues related 
to Sherman George, the recall and the boycott, it refused to regularly cover 
Green Party efforts to audit the City. 

Yet the local press covered petition drives in much smaller municipalities in 
the area and the Post-Dispatch had regularly covered the audit petition drive 
of 1986. Its failure to provide responsible reporting meant that Greens lost 
potential petitioners and signers, thereby increasing the difficulty of their 
efforts. Greens would have liked to boo the Post-Dispatch as loudly as they 
did Slay.

Despite sparse reporting in the white press, mayor Slay's support is 
slipping. During the week before MLK Day, as black leaders were asking that he be 
uninvited, a group of business and political bigwigs arranged to discuss the 
crisis with several Black critics. Slay was not invited to its meetings. Former 
City Comptroller Virvus Jones, a critic who was at the meeting, told the St. 
Louis American, "The mayor wasn't in this room because some of the people in the 
room wouldn't meet with the mayor."

Meanwhile, current Comptroller Darlene Green, one of the most respected Black 
elected officials in St. Louis, announced that she welcomes the audit 
prompted by the Green Party. Minutes after Francis Slay was booed off the podium, 
Green was cheered as she announced her support for the continuing struggle of 
Black fire fighters in the City of St. Louis. These words were not insignificant 
since the comptroller sits on several committees with the mayor and 
coordinates regularly with his office.

Even Hillary Clinton seems to be distancing herself from Slay. Even though he 
was an early and vocal supported of Clinton, Francis Slay is noticeable by 
his absence from her campaign rallies.

There is an unambiguous effort to drive low income people, especially Black 
people, out of major cities across the US. This will increase incredible 
hardship as oil dries up and transportation costs skyrocket. 

St. Louis activists are well aware that local institutional racism reflects 
this ongoing nationwide effort to intensify the subjugation of people of color. 
They heard the moderator tell them to be quiet so the mayor could speak as 
she claimed that MLK Day was a time of peace instead of protest. She could not 
have been more wrong. Honoring the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King requires 
continuing the struggle against injustice.

Don Fitz was an organizer of the petition to audit St. Louis, produces Green 
Time TV and is Editor of Synthesis/Regeneration: A Magazine of Green Social 
Thought. 

Zaki Baruti is an organizer of the petition drive to recall Slay, Co-chair of 
the Coalition Against Police Crimes & Repression and President General of the 
Universal African Peoples Organization.

Don Fitz and Zaki Baruti are Co-coordinators of the Green Party of St. Louis. 


    
http://www.counterpunch.org/fitz01222008.html





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