Jesse Jackson Announces March on Justice Department in September

By Ayesha Ahmad, IOL Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON, August 19 (IslamOnline) - A coalition of civil rights organizations will march on the U.S. Justice Department on September 13 to protest injustices against minorities, women and workers, civil rights leaders told reporters late last week.

"Since 2000 there's been a closed-door, no-talk policy [by the government] towards civil rights, civil liberties, women's rights, and labor organizations," said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, founder and president of the Rainbow/PUSH coalition of civil rights groups.

"This is a call to action, a demonstration in September… a movement of organizations from around the country are coming to march and conduct a prayer vigil at the Department of Justice, a call to action."

Jackson opened the press conference of several civil rights leaders at the National Press Club, spelling out a list of injustices against immigrants, workers, minorities and women and urging activists to "march in September and remember in November," during the voting season.

The march, organized by Jackson's coalition, will take place two days after the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but Jackson said the date was chosen because the Congressional Black Caucus and the National Hispanic Caucus will be meeting in Washington that weekend.

Jackson said organizers plan to meet at the Justice Department at 11 a.m. and hand over a list of demands to Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose name arose at the press conference in conjunction with the erosion of civil liberties. The demonstrators would then march to the White House and leave a list there as well.

"Because of the abandonment of a commitment to [our] rights, hard won through much sweat and blood… we choose to protest," Jackson told reporters, adding later about the importance of working together with other groups, "When we march together, we almost always win."

Other speakers at the press conference addressed the various concerns uniting them in common cause against Ashcroft and his department’s policies.

James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, stressed the specific issue of detentions and racial profiling facing Arab and Muslim Americans after September 11, saying the central problem facing their communities was not hatred from fellow Americans, but injustice from the government.

"What do we do when the problem becomes our own government?" he said. "The fear we face is not from the bigots… the problem is from our own Justice Department, which has gutted and dismantled our Constitution in so many ways in the last year that it has become a danger."

Zogby described his ethnic community as the "weak link in the civil liberties chain… if the chain breaks with us, it breaks for everybody in America."

He said the Arab and Muslim community saw an appropriate response from the Justice Department in the days and weeks after September 11 in pursuing hate crimes against their members, but have since witnessed an erosion of rights and a rise in fear.

"Our rights are being dismembered and we cannot allow it to stand," he said, stressing the importance of working with other like-minded groups.

"We are here today, proud to be a part of this coalition, and proud that we have so many partners in wanting to make America not only safe and secure, but free."

Ted Shaw, Associate Director and Counsel of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund, described how he recently resigned from working with the Justice Department because he felt that it was no longer effectively enforcing civil rights law.

"We call to the Justice Department to open its doors," he said. "We realize in a post-September 11 world we're living in an area in which there has been a crisis which requires new action, but we can win the war against terrorism and lose our soul as nation if we don't protect civil rights."

And Brent Wilkes, executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, described the administration’s domestic policies regarding minorities as a "net" that would eventually catch everyone.

"When you're caught in that net, that's when it's too late to stand up for your rights," he said. "We need to stand up now, and we need to do something about it now before it gets too late."