-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 14, 1996
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

Chattanooga, Tenn.: Protest hits racist arsons

By Dianne Mathiowetz in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Responding to a call for a demonstration against church burnings and other racist arsons in the South, 200 anti-racist activists converged in Chattanooga, Tenn. Nov. 2.

Fourteen students from Marlboro College in Vermont drove all night to participate in the first march against the wave of racist arsons. Others came from Chicago, Orangeburg, S.C., Atlanta and the Chattanooga area.

A rally featured two African American leaders who have personally had their homes burnt to the ground in arson fires in the last year.

One is Ralph Williams, a city bus driver who had exposed the racist and discriminatory practices of the local transit authority. The second is Rev. Baker, a community leader in the fight against school consolidation who had won a referendum on the issue.

- END -

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@wwpublish.com. For subscription info send message to: ww-info@wwpublish.com. Web: http://www.workers.org)

Copyright © 1996 workers.org