As U.S. mayors meet
People's Congress plans speakout of workers and poor
By Kris
Hamel
Detroit
Downtown at the glass-and-steel Renaissance Center,
preparations are being made for the annual meeting of the U.S.
Conference of Mayors. The city government is also using the
June 22 through 26 conference to kick off celebrations of
Detroit's 300th anniversary.
But in the neighborhoods, a different kind of preparation is
going on. Activists have been busy getting out the word about
an all-day, alternative People's Congress to be held on
Saturday, June 23, at the United Church of Christ. It will be
close enough to the Ren Cen for a 12 noon march and rally to
the site of the mayors' meeting.
The theme of the People's Congress is: "Rebuild the cities
for the people, not the corporations and rich! Stop police
brutality!"
Youths and environmental activists, African American
community leaders, union and grassroots organizers and others
have come together in a Coalition for the People's Congress to
put forward a "people's agenda" addressing the devastating
problems facing oppressed workers in major cities like
Detroit.
Organizers say the People's Congress will develop its own
program for the cities, a program for all the workers,
unemployed and poor that will contrast with "the Bush/big
business program of more giveaways to the rich and more money
for the Pentagon war machine."
Bush will hear about this personally when he attends the
mayors' conference on Monday, June 25. The People's Congress
and others will be outside picketing.
A program for workers and poor
The People's Congress will discuss a program of what to do
to stop police brutality and murders; end racist profiling,
disenfranchisement and voting rights abuses; end hate crimes
against people of color, women, and lesbian, gay, bi and trans
people; and win domestic partner benefits.
It will also focus on how to stop plant closings and
layoffs; roll back gasoline and utility prices; stop union
busting and attacks on undocumented workers; and provide equal,
quality education for all without privatization or
vouchers.
It will show that the cities could be rebuilt if there were
a moratorium on "debt" payments--Detroit pays $100 million a
year to the banks--and if the $300-billion Pentagon budget were
used instead for jobs, housing, health care and low-cost public
transportation.
The People's Congress and demonstration will be structured
so that workers and the poor can be heard. Activists and
concerned people are invited to bring their issues and
struggles before the entire body and bring their demands to the
noontime demonstration outside the mayors' conference
luncheon.
What's in a name?
As the spotlight is turned on history, it turns out that
many Detroit streets are named after slave owners. So the
demonstration will stop at Jefferson and Beaubien for a
symbolic renaming of both streets.
Activists have submitted a petition to the Detroit City
Council asking that streets named for slave owners be
temporarily renamed during the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and
that a commission be set up to make the name changes permanent.
They have also called for a public hearing.
At the Saturday demonstration Cass Avenue--named for a slave
owner who ran for U.S. president in 1848--will be renamed Paul
Robeson Avenue. Woodward Avenue--named for a slavery-upholding
Detroit judge--will be called Coleman A. Young Avenue after the
city's first African American mayor. Ida B. Wells will replace
Jefferson; Washington Blvd. will become John Brown Blvd. The
name of playwright Lorraine Hansberry will take the place of
Abbott; and so on.
The largest Detroit slave owners, William Macomb and his
brother Alexander Macomb, have a street in Detroit as well as
Macomb County. W.E.B. DuBois Street would replace Macomb
Street.
The activists say in their petition to the City Council,
"The taking of [new name] nominations from city residents would
engage our community in learning the real history of our city
and its heroes, and that should be what the 300th anniversary
of Detroit is all about."
The Saturday People's Congress will run from 9 a.m. to 5
p.m. The Monday anti-Bush demonstration will gather on East
Jefferson Avenue at Beaubien at 9:00 a.m.
For more information, call the Coalition for a People's
Congress at (313) 831-0750.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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