Times Square on April 4
Protest against police brutality to call for workers'
rights
By Sharon Ayling
The Rev. Al Sharpton has initiated a call for a
major march in New York on April 4, the 30th anniversary of the
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
According to Sharpton's National Action Network in Harlem,
the call is gathering a lot of support from unions and civil
rights groups. A coalition to build the event is in
formation.
A major march demand will be an end to police brutality,
which has reached epidemic proportions in New York. The march
will also demand workers' rights.
Leaders of Workfairness, the workfare rights group, and Rev.
Sharpton met on Feb. 13 to discuss collaborating on the April 4
march.
The meeting's participants agreed to combine the issue of
police brutality with a demand for real jobs for workfare
workers and welfare recipients. They also discussed the
involvement of students and labor unions in the march.
Workfairness plans to mobilize its forces to build the
march.
Sharpton announced the march the same week a Brooklyn grand
jury cleared a white police officer in the shooting death of a
Black youth on Christmas Day last year.
William Whitfield was on his way to visit his mother for
Christmas dinner. He was shot by Officer Michael Davitt after
being chased into a supermarket. Davitt has fired his gun nine
times in action, more than any other New York cop.
"We are asking people from all across the country to come to
Times Square for the demonstration," Sharpton said in his call.
"Thousands will say 'no justice, no peace.' It's time to get up
and fight back."
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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