Affirmative
action march set in Detroit Affirmative
action march set in Detroit
Demonstration is to precede one in Washington
February 12, 2003
BY M.L. ELRICK FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Civil and women's rights activists plan to march with religious and labor leaders to the federal courthouse in downtown Detroit March 1 to demonstrate local support for affirmative action. The Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit Branch NAACP, said Tuesday that the new Coalition to Defend Equal Opportunity is organizing the march.
The event will start with an 11 a.m. rally at Michigan and Trumbull before proceeding to the U.S. District Courthouse on Lafayette at Washington Boulevard. Anthony said organizers want to galvanize support for affirmative action and organize Michiganders interested in joining an April 1 march to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
The Washington rally is being held on the day the high court is scheduled to hear arguments in cases involving the University of Michigan's race-conscious admissions policies. Standing in front of the Spirit of Detroit statue on a bitterly cold morning, Anthony attacked President George W. Bush for announcing on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday last month his opposition to U-M's policies. "His lifestyle and presidency was won on affirmative action," Anthony said of Bush, calling the president a subpar student who gained entry to Yale University on the strength of his family name and connections to the university.
"Race should be a consideration," Anthony said of college admissions, equating diversity with opportunity. "Affirmative action is not a black issue. Affirmative action is an American issue," he said. Anyone who says otherwise, Anthony said, "is like the devil standing in the pulpit of a church saying, 'I'm going to show you how to get into heaven,' when he ain't been doing nothing but raising hell on Earth." Agnes Aleobua, a U-M senior who intervened in the legal challenges on the university's behalf, said racism is the issue.
"This is our generation's version of the back of the bus," she said. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick joined the news conference and said he would participate in the March 1 rally and March to Defend Equal Opportunity, along with other local and national political leaders. "This is an economic issue for our country," he said. "The only way this country can stay strong is if diversity is a factor."
Contact M.L. ELRICK at 313-223-3327 or elrick@freepress.com.
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