-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the July 17, 2003
issue of Workers World newspaper
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BENTON HARBOR MARCH TO PROTEST ARRESTS

By Jerry Goldberg
Detroit

A demonstration in Benton Harbor, Mich., on Saturday, July 12, will 
demand amnesty for four men who face criminal charges arising from the 
Black community's rebellion on June 16-17 after a police chase killed 
Black motorcyclist Terrance Shurn.

The protest will begin at 11 a.m. with a march from Benton Harbor City 
Hall along Main Street (I-94 Business West) and across the Benton 
Harbor/St. Joseph bridge to the Berrien County Courthouse in St. Joseph, 
for a rally at noon. Co-sponsors of the march and rally are the South 
west Michigan Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality, the Benton 
Harbor chapter of the Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizers 
(BANCO) and the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality. It is 
endorsed by two dozen social justice organizations and individuals from 
throughout Michigan, including Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, the Michigan 
Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice, President David Sole of 
UAW Local 2334-SCATA, and the International ANSWER coalition.

William Johnson, 27, of South Haven; Larry Doolittle, 47, of Benton 
Harbor; and Christopher Burke, 31, of Benton Town ship have been bound 
over for trial on charges stemming from the rebellion. The three are 
charged with rioting and assault with a dangerous weapon for failing to 
obey police orders to stop their cars. A fourth man--Joseph Dowd, 19, of 
Baroda--faces a preliminary hearing on July 8 on charges of assault with 
a dangerous weapon. He is accused of driving through several police 
lines.

The rioting charges carry a maximum sentence of 10 years; the vehicular 
assault charges are four-year felonies.

No charges have been brought against Benton Harbor Township Patrolman 
Wes Koza or Berrien County Sheriff's Deputy Dan Lundin, who are white. 
Their high-speed chase led to Shurn's death. Report edly, 40 
eyewitnesses saw Lundin kick Shurn as he lay on the ground and saw 
Lundin and Koza give each other high-fives when they realized he was 
dead.

This was the third police killing in three years in this small African 
American city of 12,000 in southwest Michigan.

SYSTEMATIC THEFT OF CITY'S RESOURCES

Recently, a study of poverty and racism in Berrien County, Michigan, was 
published by the S.W. Michigan Coalition Against Racism and Police 
Brutality and Benton Harbor BANCO. It was entitled, "Tale of two cities: 
Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Michigan."

It documented how, 37 years ago, the Black community of Benton Harbor 
rose up in rebellion against racism. After this, the white power 
structure essentially made a decision to initiate an economic embargo. 
This town, which had been the most prosperous in Berrien County, was 
devastated. Whirlpool Corp., the world's largest manufacturer of 
appliances, which is still headquartered in Benton Harbor and had been 
the major employer, shut down all its factories in the city. The study 
described what happened:

"Thousands of whites left the city, apparently no longer feeling safe 
and in control of Benton Harbor. This did not happen immediately, but 
over the years they have managed to bankrupt Benton Harbor and build up 
the economy of St. Joseph. How did they do this? By seizing control of 
the county government, then diverting incoming federal and state 
community and economic developments funds to St. Joseph, [inducing] high 
levels of unemployment in Benton Harbor. In addition, St. Joseph banks 
systematically engaged in bank redlining and denial of business credit 
and loans to Blacks in Benton Harbor, creating a shortage of multiple 
and single-family dwellings, housing improvements, or creating new 
buildings.

"Consider that there is only 2 percent unemployment in St. Joseph, while 
over 50 percent unemployment in Benton Harbor among youth and adults 
alike, many of whom have not had a job in years. Further, there has been 
a massive economic decline in basic industry which started in the 1970s, 
as well as a cutback in economic aid to Benton Harbor, orchestrated by 
Berrien County officials, which trapped the city in even deeper poverty. 
It is no exaggeration at all to say that St. Joseph and Berrien County 
officials stole the available federal and state funding, which 
impoverished the city of Benton Harbor to the stage where it is the 
poorest city in Berrien County and in the state of Michigan. They robbed 
the community of all wealth, the same as if they had used a gun for 
armed robbery. All of this made St. Joseph the dominant city in Berrien 
County, and one of the most affluent in that state, while Benton Harbor 
became a beggar city of thousands of ever younger Black people. This 
economic apartheid is a large factor in what led to the revolt of June 
17th."

This study pointed out that the Berrien County political and judicial 
apparatus was also moved to St. Joseph. It continued, "The court system, 
especially, is an openly white racist system, and it is they who judge 
over the Black people of Benton Harbor in all criminal offenses. Very 
few Black people are chosen for jury duty from Benton Harbor, because of 
widespread racial discrimination in the jury selection process. With the 
exception of one minor court judge, all the judges, prosecutors and 
public defenders are white. These are issues which have incited the 
residents of Benton Harbor for years, and they complain that they have 
no representatives on the bench, and are fined or sentenced to long 
years in prison by all-white juries."

The story of Benton Harbor, intensified by the city's small size, 
typifies the fate of most cities across the Midwest, from Detroit to 
Baltimore to Cleveland. They have been victimized by corporate 
deindustrialization, carried out in a systematic, racist fashion to 
weaken the power of oppressed workers, who had become the militant 
center of the entire working class struggle in the late 1960s and early 
1970s.

Today, the U.S. government is spending billions to carry out an illegal 
occupation of Iraq while funds for human needs are being slashed every 
day. Millions demonstrated against the war. The time has never been 
riper to unite this growing movement against war and militarism with the 
fight of the oppressed at home for social and economic justice. Such a 
united movement would demand money to rebuild our cities, not for war 
and occupation.

- END -

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