Sunday, January 22, 2006

Evo Morales Inaugurated as President of Bolivia


BOLIVIA
Originally uploaded by viva_la_reina.
Socialist leader Evo Morales has been officially inaugurated as the president of South America's poorest nation. The first indigenous leader of this nation since the colonial era, his party, the Movement Toward Socialism, is advancing the leftward political trend in Latin America. President Morales, center, is seen being blessed by Aymara priests during a ceremony at Tiwanaku, a pre-Inca archaeological site located 37 miles west of the capital La Paz on January 21, 2006.
Bolivia's 1st Indian President Inaugurated

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:02 p.m. ET

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- Evo Morales, Bolivia's first Indian president, took office on Sunday with a promise to lift his nation's struggling indigenous majority out of centuries of poverty and discrimination.

Morales, a former leader of Bolivia's coca growers and a fierce critic of U.S. policies, raised a fist in a leftist salute as he swore to uphold the constitution. ''I wish to tell you, my Indian brothers, that the 500-year indigenous and popular campaign of resistance has not been in vain,'' Morales said.

The 46-year-old son of a peasant farmer, Morales vowed that his socialist government would reshape Bolivia. He criticized free-market economic prescriptions supported by the U.S. and international donors, saying they had failed to end chronic poverty. ''The neoliberal economic model has run out,'' said Morales, an Aymara Indian. Thousands of Aymara and Quechua and other Indians attended, many wearing the varied styles of hats imposed on them when Bolivia was a Spanish colony hundreds of years ago.

They stood alongside miners, students and leftist sympathizers waving Cuban and Venezuelan flags on the cobblestone plaza outside the colonial-era Congress building. ''Power is in the hands of the Bolivian people for the first time,'' said Walter Villarro, among 2,000 miners who turned out dressed in their trademark helmets and black leather jackets.

Morales compared decades of discrimination against Indians to apartheid, saying ''Bolivia seems like South Africa'' as he recounted how, decades ago, Indians were barred from entering the plaza. He said he planned to bring Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves under more state control, and call a constitutional assembly to answer Indian demands for a greater share of power at all levels of society, he said.

But he said his government would rule ''with all and for all'' and would not seek revenge for past injustices. He also reiterated promises to respect and protect private property. Part of a broader Latin American tilt to the left, Morales has left many guessing whether he will maintain free-market policies or take a more radical path.

Morales met Saturday with Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, and was to talk Monday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a vociferous critic of the Bush administration. ''I would like to thank the representative of the United States, Mr. Shannon, for his visit,'' Morales said. ''He visited me in my humble home to express his wishes to strengthen diplomatic relations.''

Morales said his leftist Movement Toward Socialism would be independent, avoiding outside influences. He has said his government would welcome warm relations with the U.S. but he vowed Sunday to not ''submit'' to any outside powers. Morales has said he wants to reverse U.S.-backed eradication of Bolivian coca plants, the raw material for cocaine, but crack down on the international cartels that traffic the drug. Poor Bolivians traditionally chew coca to combat hunger and the effects of altitude.

Shannon has said increased cultivation could provide an opening for traffickers to expand.

Morales said Sunday he was inviting Washington to join in ''an alliance, an agreement on an effective fight against drug trafficking.'' But he said would accept no conditions that constitute ''an excuse by the government of the United States to dominate or subjugate our people.'' The inauguration was attended by 11 national leaders, including Chavez and left-leaning presidents Nestor Kirchner of Argentina, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Ricardo Lagos of Chile.

''Chavez! Chavez!'' the crowd shouted as the Venezuelan, whom Morales has said he admires, strode past blowing kisses. ''Starting with the government of the United States and concluding with the government of Fidel Castro, we have international support,'' Morales said. Castro sent Cuba's vice president to the ceremony. Mobbed by supporters as entered the building, Morales wore an open-necked, button-down shirt and a dark jacket in keeping with his informal style.

''We've been discriminated against for 500 years, but now we have Evo and a government that will represent us,'' said Zenoino Perez, an Aymara Indian who wore a leather cap adorned with feathers, played a reed flute and was accompanied to the inauguration by about a dozen people from his village.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Focused on Peace & Social Justice


Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Originally uploaded by D. Scott.
Detroit's MLK Day Commemoration attracted a large audience to the Central United Methodist Church on Jan. 16. Later a larger crowd marched through downtown Detroit. This was the third annual demonstration in honor of the late civil rights leader who was assassinated on April 4, 1968. This year's event was the most organized and politically relevant manifestation of the last three years when the Detroit MLK Day March was created.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

MLK Day March and Rally Continues Legacy of Civil Rights Leader

Social justice and peace is the focus of Detroit action

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor
Pan-African News Wire

DETROIT, Jan. 16, 2006 (PANW)--This year's annual Martin Luther King, Jr. day march and rally gathered at Central United Methodist Church under the banner of "Freedom From the Shackles of War, Racism & Poverty." 2006 represented the third consecutive year that a rally and march was organized in downtown Detroit. The event was started in 2004 by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) in order to continue the anti-war and economic justice legacy of the late civil rights leader who was killed on April 4, 1968 in Memphis where he was assisting the sanitation workers in a strike aimed at recognition of their collective bargaining rights.

Since 2004, the event has grown into a Detroit MLK Committee that encompasses over 40 co-sponsors, endorsers and supporters from throughout the southeast Michigan region. At this year's opening rally, Rev. Ed Rowe, Pastor of Central United Methodist Church, delivered the invocation noting the many organizations in the event program that people could join and do volunteer work.

"This march has to be a march of our lives not a march of our mouths." "If you are going to follow Dr. Martin Luther King you are going to break the silence on racism and the apathy of a nation, my God where is the rage," Rev. Rowe said. "If you are going to follow Dr. Martin Luther King you must break the silence of apathy. Remember the Riverside Church speech of Dr. King in New York: 'There comes a time where silence is betrayal' and this is it, not just Vietnam then but Iraq now and the middle-east, it is time to break the silence," Rowe continued.

Rowe then pointed out that when King "took up the issue of poverty, when he said that economic exploitation was a part of the civil rights movement that got him killed. So if you are going to merge, if you are going to be a civil rights activist, if you are going to speak today for Martin Luther King then you are merging the histories of militarism and the issues of poverty and the issues of racism in making them one," Rowe said.

2006 marked the 77th birthday of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. It was also the twentieth anniversary of the recognition of King's birthday as a federal holiday.

For the first time a 'Detroit MLK Spirit of Detroit Award' was presented by planning committee member Fran Rosinski to the Detroit City Council's President-Emeritus, Ms. Maryann Mahaffey. Ms. Mahaffey recently retired from over three decades of service on the legislative body for the city. The award was created by local artist Aaron Ochylski.

According to Rosinski: "We reached out to our artists in the community to create an original piece of art work which reflects the artist's vision of the Spirit of Detroit. This year's local artist, Aaron Ochylski, created this piece-- described by the artist as a compilation of diverse pieces of glass that form a unified whole. When you look inside there is a mosaic of mirrors--the viewer sees himself and becomes part of the experience of unity and diversity."

Voices from the community

A host of speakers representing labor, community and peace organizations delivered presentations on their respective struggles.

Jozette Dowdell of the Childcare Providers Union, that is seeking recognition through AFSCME and the UAW, spoke about how they are working on behalf of 34,000 workers in Wayne County.

"Dr. King fought for laws upholding equal rights and against segregation. As it stands today in 2006 we are still separated by that Eight Mile line. Childcare providers in Wayne County make $1.88 per hour. Childcare providers are not just childcare providers, we are parents, we are teachers, we're doctors, we're psychologist," Dowdell stated.

"I am asking you to understand that we are here joining with the UAW and AFSCME to form a union so we can have better wages, health insurance, workman's compensation and all of those same things that Dr. King and Rosa Parks stood for to begin with."

"To me his final speech that he gave when speaking with the garbage workers in Memphis when he said stay together, stick together until every demand is met. We ain't going to let nobody turn us around. That is how the childcare providers feel," Dowdell concluded. Atty. Jerry Goldberg, who has worked with the Delphi employees calling themselves 'Soldiers of Solidarity,' spoke to the audience. This rank-and-file committee protested recently outside the International Auto Show held at Cobo Conference Center in downtown Detroit.

Goldberg said that the committee came together to "fight against this latest attack on working people. As we all know Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated while he was supporting sanitation workers in Memphis and he always spoke of the connection between the struggle of all working people and all oppressed people. His last act was to organize a poor peoples' march on Washington, to bring together the struggle for social and economic justice."

Goldberg pointed out how the Delphi auto parts company is using the bankruptcy courts to impose a 63% wage cut. "To take away workers' pensions that they have worked for twenty, twenty-five years of their lives, to steal them by getting a judge to sign away these pensions."

"To take away health benefits and most important to take away jobs, tens of thousands of jobs that are so needed in this economy. The use bankruptcy has become a weapon of the rich and powerful. No different than the use of the military, the use of scabs, the use of the National Guard. It is a new weapon of choice, a little more sophisticated, but it is nothing more than a weapon of repression to take away hard fought rights of workers," Goldberg emphasized.

Other speakers at the rally included Arnie Steiber of the Veterans for Peace organization who discussed his personal journey from being drafted into the Vietnam war to a consciousness of being anti-war and pro-peace. This organization has been a leading voice in the current American military occupation of Iraq.

Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality discussed the plight of the homeless in the city. He said that the homeless were only displaced workers. He also called upon the rally participants to not forget Eric Williams, a homeless man who was gunned down by the State Police last year.

His assailant, Jay Morningstar, was recently acquitted of all charges in connection with the killing despite the fact that the shooting was witnessed by many people including two Detroit police officers.

City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson was present and spoke briefly on the legacy of Dr. King. Other dignitaries were present including State Senator Martha Scott and Ms. Brenda Jones, who was recently elected to the Detroit City Council. Darnell White of the NAACP Youth also spoke on the role of young people in the civil rights movement today.

Music was provided by the Courtis School Choir under the direction of Sandra Hines and James Hewlitt. In introducing the Choir Sandra Hines stated that "the dream is still alive and here it is, this is our future." Hines said that "if you really want to honor Dr. King this is what you can do: work with the children. Don't talk about it, work with them for real. Because the children are our future."

Gov. Jenifer Granholm arrived at the rally and addressed the crowd reflecting on her understanding of the legacy of Martin Luther King. "We have a responsibility to celebrate the strength of unity and strong love together," Granholm said. "It is important that we exhibit strong daily acts of love."

Granholm also suggested that people act as mentors for children. She mentioned that she is doing this for two young girls and that if she could do it as Governor, then there was no excuse for others. The Governor also expressed opposition to the anti- affirmative action proposal that may appear on the November ballot in the state of Michigan. "If we send a message to the world that we are not welcoming to diversity, that is a terrible, terrible message," she said.

Granholm emphasized that affirmative action programs should be presented as a moral issue, an historical issue and a question of competition.

Later a video presentation produced by MLK Planning Committee member John Donabedian was screened. The piece consisted of newsreel footage of Dr. King and the civil rights movement utilizing the soundtrack from the latest Stevie Wonder CD entitled "A Time to Love." March thru downtown After 1:30 p.m. the march began on Woodward avenue. Dozens of signs reading "Money for Our City, Not for War" and "Bring the Troops Home Now" were carried by the demonstrators.

According to the "South End" newspaper from Wayne State University, over 1,000 people marched in the demonstration. A Drumline was provided by the Ann Arbor Trail Middle School Marching Band. Marchers chanted "No Justice, No Peace: US Out of the Middle-East," and other slogans. After arriving back at Central United Methodist Church, the audience was entertained by the Mosaic Youth Theater of Detroit. Later students read essays in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Art works from the youth were also presented.

Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor's Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizers (BANCO) spoke on the historic struggle in this southwest Michigan city. Pinkney was indicted last year on four felony charges after leading a successful recall campaign against a city commissioner in Benton Harbor.

Benton Harbor was the scene of three days of rebellion during the summer of 2003 in the aftermath of the death of a young African-American man who was being illegally chased by the County police. Pinkney is seeking support for his defense on what has been described as an attempted frame-up for vote fraud and vote tampering.

The Detroit MLK Day march and rally was co-sponsored, endorsed and supported by numerous organizations including: the International Workers of the World, the Michigan Citizen Newspaper, Sacred Heart Church, St. John's Episcopal Church, UAW Local 22, UAW Region 1A, the Central United Methodist Church, the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI), the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the First Unitarian Universalist Church, the Palestine Office of Michigan, the Metropolitan Academy of Detroit, the US-Cuba Labor Exchange, the Veterans for Peace, the International Action Center, the Interfaith Committee on Workers Issues, the Detroit Area Peace and Justice Network, the Committee for the Political Resurrection of Detroit (CPR), the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Finding Alternatives to Military Enlistment, the Detroit Green Party, Dr. Gloria House of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, the Detroit Urban League, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) Advocates for Informed Nonviolent Social Change and other organizations.

For more information on the Detroit MLK Committee just log on to the following URL: http://www.mecawi.org or e-mail: mlkdetroit@comcast.net.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Detroit MLK Day March & Rally Convenes on Mon. January 16


MLK jr.
Originally uploaded by Hawk Eyes.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is photographed here participating in the Selma to Montgomery March for voting rights in March of 1965. This campaign led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, it was King's position in opposition to the American war against Vietnam, advanced in April of 1967, that intensified the US Government's determination to bring about his liquidation one year later in 1968. Photographed right behind King is James Forman, who was then executive secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
For Immediate Release

Media Advisory

Event: Dr. Martin Luther King Day Freedom March, Jan. 16
Central United Methodist Church, Noon Rally
Woodward Ave. at Adams, Downtown
March Thru Downtown Beginning at 1:00 p.m.
Contact: The Detroit MLK Committee
5922 Second Ave., Detroit, MI 48202
Tel. (313) 680-5508
E-mail: mlkdetroit@comcast.net
URL: http://www.mecawi.org

Annual MLK Day Freedom March & Rally to be Held Monday January 16 Beginning at Noon at the Central United Methodist Church

This year's annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march and rally will be an historic event. The theme for 2006 is "Freedom From the Shackles of War, Racism & Poverty." 2006 will be a monumental year as it relates to the struggles for peace and social justice. With the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the growing socio-economic crisis in the country, people of conscious need outlets to express their determination to see fundamental changes in our lifetimes.

The march and rally on January 16 will provide such an opportunity to connect with other progressive people and to build networks aimed at fostering change. The growing budget deficit in Detroit, the attacks on the standard of living of working people by the corporate structures, the efforts to outlaw affirmative action in Michigan and the total neglect of hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters displaced from New Orleans and the Gulf region, illustrates clearly the necessity of the majority of the population to take control of their own destinies.

On Monday, January 16 at Noon, the MLK Day annual march and rally will convene at the Central United Methodist Church. This year's event is co-sponsored, endorsed and supported by a number of organizations such as: the Central United Methodist Church, the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, the First Unitarian Universalist Church, Healing Support Network, the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights, the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice, the Michigan Citizen newspaper, the UAW Local 22, the UAW Region 1A, the Veterans for Peace, the International Workers of the World, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Detroit Urban League, the Detroit City Council, the Office of the Ombudsman in Detroit, the US-Cuba Labor Exchange, the Palestine Office of Michigan, Amnesty International, Group 78-Detroit and many others. Please join us in building this important event.

This is the third consecutive year that a demonstration has been organized to specifically honor the peace and social justice legacy of Dr. King in downtown Detroit. For more information just contact us by telephone, e-mail. Flyers and sponsorship forms for the MLK Day events can be downloaded from the MECAWI website at http://www.mecawi.org

In Solidarity,
Abayomi Azikiwe, Detroit MLK Committee Call: 313-671-3715

Friday, January 06, 2006

Dr. King Was a Target of the Counter-Intelligence Program


MLK
Originally uploaded by naughton321.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement as a whole were the focus of local, state and national governmental programs aimed at destroying the mass struggle of African-Americans against legalized segregation and economic exploitation. The local authorities in the South working in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under former director J. Edgar Hoover, used various tactics designed to minimize Dr. King's influence and to bring about his political and physical destruction. The article published below documents testimony from the Church Committee Senate hearings during the 1970s where some aspects of the dirty tricks campaigns against Dr. King and the movement were revealed.
Enemies Of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Legacy Persist In Govt.

PANW Editor's Note: The following editorial was written on the eve of the assumption of power by George W. Bush in January of 2001. It is being reprinted in honor of the 77th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Jan. 15.

Join the Detroit Martin Luther King Day annual demonstration on Jan. 16, 2006 at the Central United Methodist Church beginning at Noon. For more information log on to: http://www.mecawi.org
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ENEMIES OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.'S LEGACY PERSIST IN GOVT.

Bush administration and Congress continues to conceal the destruction of the civil rights leader by the American ruling elite

By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Originally Published on January 15, 2001

Editorial Review, 15 Jan. (PANW)--Today represents the 72nd anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the leader of the modern-day civil rights and human rights struggle in the United States. King, who was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while in Memphis, Tennessee to assist a massive strike by the city's sanitation workers, has been recognized with a federal holiday since 1986.

When people listen to the tributes paid to Dr. King today, they should not be confused by the many kind words and praise from the corporate media and the officials of the United States govt. In fact it was the US govt. that created the conditions for the murder of Dr. King and the conspiracy toconceal the true reasons behind his assassination and as a consequence distorted the true meaning of the leader's ideas and work. King, was a controversial figure during the 1950s and 1960s. He was arrested many times by the police and was kept under constant watch by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

It was the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover that grafted many plots designed to not only discredit King but to bringabout his political destruction and physical death.In 1975 the United States Senate, through its Select Committee to study Governmental Operations as it relates to Intelligence Activities, which later became known as the Church Committee, investigated the excesses of the FBI against the civil rights, black power and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

This series of investigations grew out of the exposures emanating from the watergate scandal and the liberation of FBI documents from Reading, PA during the early 1970s. In the conclusion of the Church Committe report it stated the following:"The Committee finds that covert action programs have been used to disrupt the lawful political activities of individual Americans and groups and to discredit them, using dangerous and degrading tactics which are abhorrent in a free and decent society....The sustained use of such tactics by theFBI in an attempt to destroy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., violated the law and fundamental human decency."

On November 18, 1975, Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., chief counsel, and Curtis R. Smothers, minority counsel of the Church Committee, spoke to the investigative panel on their finding related to what became commonly known as the Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) that was directed againstthe progressive movements of the 1950s thru the early 1970s. In questioning them, the then Senator Walter Mondale, who later became Vice-President under Jimmy Carter during the late 1970s, stated that "the tactics they [FBI] used against him [King] apparently had no end."

In regard to some of the tactics used against the civil rights leader included "wiretapping. They included microphonic surveillance of hotel rooms. They included informants. They included sponsoring of letters signed by phony names to relatives and friends and organizers. They involved even plans to replace him with someone else whom the FBI was to select as a nationalcivil rights leader."Some of the testimony during these hearings in 1975 included the following exchange:"

Senator Mondale: It included an indirect attempt to persuade the Pope not to see him [King].

Mr. Schwarz: And many other people. Senator Mondale: It directed him [an FBI employee] to persuade one of our major universities not to grant him [King] a doctorate degree.

Mr. Schwarz: That is correct. I think there were two universities. Senator Mondale: It included an attempt to send him a letter prior to the time he received the Nobel Peace Prize, which Dr. Martin Luther King and close associates interpreted to mean a suggestion that King should attempt suicide.

Mr. Schwarz: That's right. Included in that were materials which the Bureau had gathered illegally or improperly through tapes and bugs and so forth."These chilling comments that were made during the 1970s clearly reveal the extent of the conspiracy against Dr. King and the civil rights movement in general in the United States. With the ending of the Clinton administration, it is appropriate to take stock of developments affecting African-Americans over the last eight years.

The sharp rise in the prison population; the epidemic of police murder and brutality; the escalation of hate crimes; and the continuing incarceration of political prisoners who came out of the civil rights and progressive movements of the 1960s and 1970s such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sundiatta Acoli, Leonard Peltier, Eddie Marshall Conway, and many others; illustrates clearly that the vision of a genuine democratic society is far from being realized. Fortunately, on the eve of the administration of George W. Bush, a new coalition of progressive forces are coming together to protest the massive assaults on democracy and human rights that are so pervasive in the present period.

Organizations from the civil rights, youth, women's, anti-imperialist and the new abolitionists movemens are gathering in Washington, D.C. to make their voices heard in opposition to the right-wing political coup that resulted from the mass disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of African-Americans and other voters in Florida and throughoutthe country last Nov. 7. Demonstators will voice their discontent over the growing prison population, now numbering over 2 million people and the existence of over 3,500 people on death row. They will seek to expose the draconian and right-wing character of the Bush cabinet appointments including people such as John Ashcroft, an avowed racist and opponent of the rights of women.

These actions will culminate on Jan. 20 with mass demonstrations in the nation's capital. The speeches, slogans, banners and other forms of expression that will be put forward this week are far more representative of the true legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement of the post world war II period than the dry and dishonest platitudes being put forward by the corporate media and professional politicians.

Dubya's trip to Houston on Monday that will ostensibly represent his tribute to Dr. King is an act of hypocrisy and villification. Dr. King played a leading role in the struggle to win the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that guaranteed universal suffrage in the United States.

The stealing of the elections in Florida and the subsequent actions by the US Supreme Court was a gross attack on the legacy of Dr. King and everything he stood for during his lifetime. It will be up to the progressive human forces of the 21st Century to carry on the true legacy of Dr. King and all other fighters for human rights and genuine democracy. Those who are complicit in the destruction of Dr. King's legacy and dream must and will be exposed for their treachery by the new face of human rights and democracy that is emerging from the bottom of society to fight against those social elements who are attempting to reimpose slavery and fascism in the modern era.

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Pan-African News Wire articles may be broadly forwarded for non-profit educational and research purposes.
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Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Detroit MLK Day March & Rally Set For Jan. 16


MLK jr.
Originally uploaded by Hawk Eyes.
This year's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. March and Rally will be held on the federally designated holiday in honor of the slain civil rights leader on Monday, Jan. 16 beginning at the Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit. This is the third annual King Day march in Detroit. The project was initiated in 2004 by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI). Now the Detroit MLK Committee has grown to encompass many organizations, schools and religious institutions.
For Immediate Release

Media Advisory
Tuesday, January 3, 2006

Event: Dr. Martin Luther King Day Freedom March, Jan. 16
Central United Methodist Church, Noon Rally
Woodward Ave. at Adams, Downtown
March Thru Downtown Beginning at 1:00 p.m.
Contact: The Detroit MLK Committee
5922 Second Ave., Detroit, MI 48202
Tel. (313) 680-5508
E-mail: mlkdetroit@comcast.net
URL: http://www.mecawi.org

Annual MLK Day Freedom March & Rally to be Held Monday January 16 Beginning at Central United Methodist Church

This year's plans for the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march and rally are well underway. The theme for 2006 is "Freedom From the Shackles of War, Racism & Poverty." 2006 will be a monumental year as it relates to the struggles for peace and social justice.

With the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the growing socio-economic crisis in the country, people of conscious need outlets to express their determination to see fundamental changes in our lifetimes. The march and rally on January 16 will provide such an opportunity to connect with other progressive people and to build networks aimed at fostering change.

The growing budget deficit in Detroit, the attacks on the standard of living of working people by the corporate structures, the efforts to outlaw affirmative action in Michigan and the total neglect of hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters displaced from New Orleans and the Gulf region, illustrates clearly the necessity of the majority of the population to take control of their own destinies. On Saturday, January 7 at Noon, the MLK Day Planning Committee will meet at the Central United Methodist Church.

We are in need of volunteers to assist us in distributing leaflets/posters, to work as marshalls, puppets and media aides during the march, gaining endorsers and co-sponsors, donating items for the outreach programs supporting the homeless and the needy as well as mobilizing people throughout the city of Detroit and the southeastern Michigan region to participate in this historic annual event.

Please join us in building this important event. This is the third consecutive year that a demonstration has been organized to specifically honor the peace and social justice legacy of Dr. King in downtown Detroit. For more information just contact us by telephone, e-mail or regular mail.

Flyers and sponsorship forms for the MLK Day events can be downloaded from the MECAWI website at http://www.mecawi.org or leaflets are available for pick-up at the Central United Methodist Church information desk located on Woodward avenue at Adams in downtown Detroit.

In Solidarity, Abayomi Azikiwe,
Detroit MLK Committee