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NEWS & LETTERS,
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2003
Benton Harbor, Michigan copes with class, race revolt
Benton Harbor, Mich. is a work in progress for Governor
Jennifer Granholm. She has assigned a task force to deal with a more than
90% African-American community with 25% unemployment that competes for the
highest murder rate in the U.S., where a revolt took place on two nights this
June. Causes for the mid-June outburst have been brewing for many
years: lack of educational and job opportunity; slumlord conditions; 42% single
parent households with 130+ teen births per year (population 11,500); excessive
force/harassment by police, and a series of wrongful convictions whose cameo is
the sentencing of Ephran Paredes, 16-year-old honor student, to three life
sentences for crimes he did not commit. Things weren't always so grim in this beachfront town.
Benton Harbor used to advertise the world's largest outdoor fruit market, and
was 75% white. African Americans migrated here to work the farms and factories.
There were foundries, parts plants, Clark Equipment, Heath do-it-yourself radio
kits, and Whirlpool. The steamer Roosevelt brought Chicagoans over as tourists.
Benton Harbor supported many churches and grocery stores. Today however,
Interstate 94 has no exit to Benton Harbor. From the 1960s to the 1990s global competition killed the
factories. In the 1970s Benton Harbor schools were found guilty of racial
discrimination. When the federal government issued a desegregation order,
white citizens moved to the surrounding communities. Benton Harbor students
could choose to be bused into the surrounding, more prosperous (and whiter)
towns, but not the closest, St. Joseph. Today there is no busing for high
school students. Benton Harbor has become, as Jesse Jackson said, “The
hole in the doughnut – an island of poverty in a sea of prosperity.” Since
1986 Benton Harbor and St. Joseph have been represented in congress by Fred
Upton, a “Newt Gingrich Republican,” whose family established the Whirlpool
corporation. With white flight, institutions left--the newspaper, YMCA,
FBI offices, the hospital. There was a big split in the First
Congregational Church and much of it moved to St. Joseph. A proclamation
from the state that court functions, including misdemeanor court, were to come
under county jurisdiction was another blow to Benton Harbor. The jury pool
whitened. The motorcycle death of Terrence Shurn in the wee hours of
June 17, which Benton Harborites believe was caused by a police chase, triggered
the June revolt. Mr. Shurn was a popular and valuable citizen and his loss
cut Benton Harbor to the quick. Three non-profit organizations existed in Benton Harbor
before Governor Granholm's task force was formed. Cornerstone Group is an
outgrowth of the Whirlpool Corporation; the Committee for World Class
Communities (CWCC) is a phony civic group established by Whirlpool; and Citizens
for Progressive Change (CPC) was formed at the grassroots in response to corrupt
law enforcement, crooked prosecution and stacked courts. These groups serve
Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, the traditional "twin cities." Two
members of the task force were drawn from Cornerstone and CWCC. No one
from CPC was selected. But according to a CPC activist, Cornerstone Group and CWCC
don’t reach the people. They are “gatekeepers,” controlling
corporate money, funneling it into towns around Benton Harbor, not dealing with
the core problems of depressed lives. “Whirlpool, with lower taxes,
favorable land deals...and other corporate demands, has profited from the dire
situation of the Black population.”* The executives of Cornerstone and CWCC have no interest in
developing a creative street life in Benton Harbor, which is literally deserted
and has no “downtown.” Small businesses at the center of town are
failing one by one because very few people go there. Thus, those
organizations that for years have presided over development-in-reverse of this
depressed community were included in Granholm’s task force. Meanwhile,
CPC is struggling to maintain its identity as a criminal justice advocacy group
and is being steamrollered by the “giant” task force. It has to fight
for criminal justice as a defined “task” for the “force.” --January * A scathing expose of CWCC can be found at: |
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