Campaign vs. Chase Bank kicks off

Atty. Vanessa Fluker

The People Before Banks Coalition held a volunteers meeting Nov. 20 at the Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit. The coalition is organizing a mass leafleting campaign demanding that Chase Bank impose a two-year moratorium on home foreclosures and that the financial institution stop bankrolling R.J. Reynolds Co., which is denying rights and decent working conditions to migrant farmworkers in North Carolina’s tobacco fields.

This coalition grew up around the U.S. Social Forum in June when more than a thousand people marched on Chase Bank in Detroit.

Participants at the Nov. 20 meeting included attorney Vanessa Fluker of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition; the Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellerman, pastor of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church; labor writer and activist Steve Babson; and the Rev. Ed Rowe, pastor of Central United Methodist Church.

The coalition will leaflet dozens of Chase Bank locations on Dec. 3 to encourage customers to withdraw their funds if the bank doesn’t agree to a moratorium on foreclosures and justice for migrant farmworkers.

— Report and photo by Abayomi Azikiwe