Ann Arbor, Mich., anti-racists fight cops' charges
By Jerry Goldberg
Detroit
In a serious attack on the anti-racist and anti-fascist
movement, police recently arrested 20 people on charges related
to a demonstration against the Ku Klux Klan that took place
last May in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Half those arrested face felony charges. Sixteen more
warrants have been issued against anti-racist activists.
The cops were taken off guard in May when 500 anti-racists
came out to confront the Klan and their protectors in blue.
This strong turnout was especially significant since the cops
and city officials had spent the previous year trying to scare
anti-racist demonstrators away from the site of the fascist
rally. The government sought to avoid the kind of rebellion
that had occurred the last time the Klan had come to Ann
Arbor.
Pacifist elements cooperated with the city government in
scheduling a "unity" rally at a site far from where the Klan
had been given a permit to spew racist epithets. But on the day
the Klan appeared, the "unity" rally was vastly outnumbered by
militant youths who did all they could to shut the fascists
down, confronting the Klan's police defenders in the
process.
The police were unprepared for this strong showing of
anti-racist militants. They made almost no arrests that
day.
But in the months after the demonstration, the Ann Arbor and
Michigan state police launched a witch hunt directed at those
involved in the anti-Klan demonstration. When anti-racist
activists went to Kalamazoo to confront the KKK there, they
were met with an overwhelming police presence.
The police were carrying notebooks with pictures of
anti-racists targeted for arrest for the Ann Arbor
demonstration. Anyone carrying a banner or passing out a
newspaper or leaflet was confronted by fascist cops, most of
whom had their badges turned over so they couldn't be
identified.
Some of those facing charges for the Ann Arbor anti-KKK
demonstration have been charged with felony riot. Riot is
defined as any four people gathered together in a demonstration
that results in militant action. Most of those arrested belong
to the organizations Anti-Racist Action and NWROC.
A political counter-offensive is being launched to counter
these arrests of anti-racist activists whose only crime was to
confront the fascist KKK. Over 2,500 people have signed a
statement calling for the charges to be dropped.
Significantly, at a recent Ann Arbor City Council meeting,
Tom Saffold, a leader in the Ann Arbor pacifist movement,
called on the police to drop the charges. His statement went a
long way toward bridging the gap within the progressive
movement that the state apparatus has sought to cultivate.
Ann Arbor is also the site of a significant battle in the
struggle to defend affirmative action. The University of
Michigan has been targeted by the right-wing, neo-fascist
Center for Individual Rights in lawsuits to overturn
affirmative action at the state university. Students have been
organizing for over a year to stop this attack on affirmative
action.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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