Steve Quayle News Alerts

June 23, 2003

CHICAGO (AFP) - Two nights of rioting put the small midwestern Michigan town of Benton Harbor on the map, and brought the state's governor and black civil rights leaders to town in its wake, preaching reconstruction and reconciliation.

The death of a 28-year-old black motorcyclist at the end of a high-speed police chase on June 16 touched off the mob violence for two nights, but simmering tensions between locals and police, and the area's economic deprivation were the underlying causes of the sudden flare-up, according to community leaders.

"A population that explodes like this often has strong grievances that have built up over time," noted Joe Darden, a professor of urban affairs at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

In economic decline since the 1960s, Benton Harbor, (sometimes wryly referred to as Benton Harlem in a nod to one of New York's toughest neighbourhoods) is one of the poorest communities in the northern midwestern US state of Michigan.

Unemployment in the predominantly black town runs close to 40 percent. Abandoned houses, boarded storefronts and crumbling hotels testify to the urban blight.

Federal funding for programs that provided summer work for local teenagers has dried up. And migrant Mexican laborers have taken over some of the seasonal agricultural work -- picking strawberries and blueberries in the fields -- that local kids once did, according to community workers.

Meanwhile, just across the bridge is the quaint, affluent town of St. Joseph -- the epitome of what Benton Harbor once was -- a thriving resort town for well-heeled vacationers from Chicago 160 kilometers (100 miles) away around the lake.

"When you contrast (the towns) it is a tale of two cities, one of racial and economic apartheid," said the Reverend Jesse Jackson during a visit to Benton Harbor Friday.

"The bridge between the two communities must be a two-way bridge and not a one-way bridge," added the civil rights activist.

Jackson, who heads up the Chicago-based Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, called on the US Justice Department to "address the issue of excessive force and the issue of the criminal justice system coming down in such a cruel way on African American men."

The Justice Department has intervened before to rein in police forces that have a reputation for racial profiling or singling out blacks and Hispanics -- usually for traffic stops.

The department has cut deals with both the New Jersey state police, and the Pittsburgh police department in the past, increasing federal oversight of police activities in exchange for dropping charges against those forces.

Many residents of Benton Harbor complained that the police pursuit of Terrance Shurn was part of a pattern of police harassment of blacks -- a phenomenon popularly known as BWD or black while driving.

Shurn died after losing control of his motorbike during a high-speed pursuit by a white police officer who wanted to ticket him for having expired license plates.

Many blacks in Benton Harbor feel they don't get a fair shake from the police or justice systems, acknowledged Dayle Webbs, a chaplain with St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Benton Harbor.

"It's a case of guilty until proven innocent," said the 32-year-old, while nevertheless reserving some of his toughest criticisms for the rioters.

"I can understand them being angry," he said. "I can't understand people burning their own neighbourhood. It's time for people to take a stand but they need to take a righteous stand."

Some two dozen homes valued at about 500,000 -- some of them abandoned -- were destroyed during the disturbances, either torched or burnt down after catching fire from a neighbouring building.

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