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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the April 24, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Atrocity in Chicago

Demand justice after assault on Black youth

By L. Paulsen in Chicago

On March 21, Lenard Clark, an African American eighth grader, was beaten nearly to death by a mob of white men in a public playground in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood. Clark was in a coma for a week and is still being treated at the Rehabilitation Institute.

Three Bridgeport residents have been charged with attempted murder of the 13-year-old. They have pleaded not guilty-although at least one admits he was present-and have been released on the comparatively low bails of $100,000 to $150,000. Just a few days later a bail of $6 million was imposed on a Black man in another publicized assault case.

In the wake of the attack on Clark, several groups and leaders in the African-American community-including the Rev. Al Sampson, the Guardian Angels, Chicago Black United Communities and Operation PUSH-have organized marches of up to 300 people into the Bridgeport area. Students of Holden and Armour elementary schools organized a speak-out.

The effect of mass action

Columnists in the corporate media are complaining that the marches into Bridgeport "unfairly attack the whole neighborhood." But anti-racists who live there say they need all the help they can get to face down the armed and well-connected racist cops and politicos.

Bridgeport, a working-class area, was virtually all white until the 1980s. It now has significant numbers of Asian and Latino residents but hardly any African Americans, although Black-majority neighborhoods lie all around it. By official statistics, Bridgeport has the second-highest rate of hate crimes of all Chicago neighborhoods.

For many years Bridgeport was the home of two mayors- Richard J. Daley and his son, Richard M. Daley-and is still an important Democratic Party organizing center in Chicago. Many white police and members of the political machine live in Bridgeport.

The Chicago police are notorious for racist murders, beatings, and torture. Among the precinct and ward workers of the old Democratic machine are racists as vocal as at any Klan meeting.

One of the accused is a grand-nephew of former Alderman Fred Roti. For many years, as a representative of the heart of Chicago's Loop, Roti was a key figure in the racist machine.

These police and political workers create a tone of aggressive racism in many Chicago neighborhoods. It is reported that police ignored accounts of a gang of whites who regularly harassed and beat African Americans. A Bridgeport resident who gave information to police about the attack has received death threats.

After the beating of the Clark youth, almost continuous marches forced Mayor Richard M. Daley and President Bill Clinton to publicly denounce racism. A program of "diversity training" has been planned for the public schools in Bridgeport.

But Daley never condemns the racist and murderous Chicago police or the rac ist elements in his own party organization. In fact, he is wasting millions of dollars of public money in a lawsuit whose purpose is to reduce the number of Blacks and Latinos in the City Council.

Furthermore, Daley has pursued an aggressive program of privatization and cutbacks in city government that has hurt neighborhoods with many city workers. And Clinton's brutal cutback policies have eliminated aid to thousands of people in Chicago, including hundreds in Bridgeport.

For Clinton and Daley, racist violence is a great asset if it keeps the working-class people of Bridgeport from uniting with other neighborhoods and nationalities to defend jobs and social services.

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