SCLC threatens tourism boycott of New Orleans over student's death
Saturday, January 22, 2005 at 06:37PM
TheSpook
The president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference says the
group will organize a boycott by black tourists if authorities don't
take seriously the idea that racism was part of the reason a black
student died in a fight with three white bouncers. The bouncers have
been booked with negligent homicide. It should be murder, Charles
Steele said at a news conference Friday asking New Orleans' black
community to boycott the Bourbon street nightclub where 25-year-old
Levon Jones died Dec. 31. ''Racism is alive and well here in New
Orleans,'' said Steele, flanked by about a dozen local black leaders.
''We didn't come here to play with you, and we're sending notice that
we'll raise hell in New Orleans. We've been receiving complaints for
years about New Orleans and its racist attitudes.'' Both New Orleans'
mayor, Ray Nagin, and Police Superintendent Eddie Compass are black.
Steele said he has written to Nagen and hopes to meet with him and
Compass to discuss Jones' death and ''several other'' complaints the
SCLC has received about racism in New Orleans. Most are that French
Quarter businesses either spurn black customers or close during major
black social events like the Bayou Classic or the Essence Music
Festival, Steele said. The coroner found that Jones -- a senior at
Georgia Southern University in town for a flag football tournament --
suffocated while one bouncer held him in a headlock for 12 minutes and
another pushed down on his back. A third bouncer held Jones' legs. [more]
Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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