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Black Missouri politicos form 'Fannie Lou Hamer Coalition,' challenge Democratic Party
A significant number of black Democrats in Missouri are vowing to withhold support in the upcoming elections from any candidate – Democrat, Republican or Independent – whom they deem as “disrespectful” of the black community.
According to the AP, the just organized Fannie Lou Hamer Coalition, headquartered in St. Louis, will monitor political candidates' positions on education, jobs and racial profiling. At this writing, however, the Coalition, has not pointed to any specific candidates, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Still, St. Louis County Chairwoman Hazel Erby, the Coalition's leader, has indicated that it is adopting a “wait and see” attitude as to the candidacies of Democrat Steve Stenger and his Republican opponent state Rep. Rick Stream. Stenger and Stream are locked in a battle for the St. Louis County executive's post.
It was last week when many speakers at a St. Louis County Council meeting loudly excoriated Stenger and demanded that he disavow and denounce his well-publicized support for County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch, who, in turn, has politically supported Stenger.
The issue, of course, is that McCulloch's police officer father was killed by a black suspect. McCulloch is now responsible for the possible prosecution of Ferguson cop Darren Wilson who killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown on August 9.
Also, during McCulloch's 25 consecutive years as county prosecutor, he has not once successfully prosecuted any police officer for the use of excessive force, police brutality, or police misconduct of any kind whatsoever.
Stenger has left no wiggle room in the matter, though. He dismisses the uproar and disapproval of Ferguson's heretofore non-voting black population as of little consequence to him politically because his appeal is directed to the larger, white, rural, and pristine suburban enclaves – the vast majority of St. Louis County.
Thus, Stenger's response to the black people of Ferguson?
"The answer is, 'no,' I'm not going to denounce Bob McCulloch," Stenger said, according to the Post. "He has been our elected prosecutor for 25 years, and by state law he has been charged with doing a complete, thorough and unbiased job. And I truly believe he will do that."
Thus, the Fannie Lou Hamer Coalition, and most black people throughout this nation-state, rather reasonably suspect that McCulloch's personal and professional history preclude and disqualify him from handling Wilson's prosecution. Indeed, his obvious and personal biases and prejudices will unduly influence his decisions in the investigation Michael Brown's death at the hands of police officer Darren Wilson.
As for the Republican in the county executive race, Stream has said that he supports not only the naming of a special prosecutor to handle the investigation in order to "remove all doubt about having a fair and independent investigation,” but he has also called for the appointment of special prosecutors for future police shootings.
Erby has issued a statement thusly: "We are all serving notice that we are not going to support candidates just because they have an insignia of a donkey behind their name."
Stenger, currently a fellow county council member, has pooh-poohed Erby's and the Coalition's efforts, saying that he does not expect them to impact his relationship with her or the council.
"I value her opinion and concerns a great deal," he said. "Directly and indirectly she has expressed her concerns for her community and our community. I hope this is the first step toward a meaningful dialogue."
Fannie Lou Hamer
Beginning life as a Mississippi sharecropper, Fannie Lou Hammer (1917 – 1977) became a towering and iconic voting, civil and human rights leader.
Like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and so many, many nameless others before her, by the time of Hamer's death at 59, she had captured this nation-state's imagination and focused its attention on the plight of downtrodden blacks nationwide with a determined and unstoppable will rivaled only by her contemporary Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself.
Fannie Lou Hamer was a driving force during the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964.
As a child and adult, Hamer suffered all and more of the then usual indignities reserved for black people at that time. Among many other atrocities, including beatings and over-work, by the age of 13, she was picking 200 to 300 pounds of cotton per day. She received only the bare minimum of “education.” And, like 99 percent of black Mississippians, she endured the absolute denial of any voice whatever in the political affairs of her country, state or city. As a black woman, she was, in fact, the victim of forced sterilization by the white powers that be in Mississippi under the theory that if something was not done, blacks might someday actually outnumber whites and could and surely would reverse the racial table on them.
And so, in the early '60s when the Civil Rights Movement came to Mississippi in the form of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Hamer jumped at the chance to get involved. Registration of Mississippi's 400,000 unregistered black people was SNCC's primary focus. Later she served as Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She became the face and voice of Mississippi's disenfranchised blacks when the MFDP challenged the Democratic Party at its National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
It was her down-home, plain-spoken manner and unquestionable belief in the absolute righteousness of her peoples' plight and cause which rocketed her to national fame and effectiveness as a civil and human rights activist.
Space does not allow for a more complete exposition of Fannie Lou Hamer's impact on the civil rights movement. I invite you (especially young people) to look her up.
Suffice it to say, though, that the black politicians of Missouri could not have chosen a more appropriate namesake for their movement to revamp Missouri's antiquated white political power structure, and force it -- kicking and screaming, of course – into the 21st century.
References
http://www.mynextfone.co.uk/breaking-news/st-louis-mo-ap-some-black-democrats-say-they-h30335.html
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/09/17/ferguson-protesters-demand-justice-council-meeting
http://breakingbrown.com/2014/09/black-st-louis-politicians-reject-disrespectful-democratic-party-form-fannie-lou-hamer-party/
http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_5509968c-3e8c-11e4-b8fa-d3c00efcf341.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/17/1330422/-What-Type-of-Racists-are-They-62-of-White-St-Louis-Residents-Support-the-Killing-of-Michael-Brown
