Back during the 1960s, when civil rights organizations still opposed the distribution of benefits or burdens based on race, those hardy individuals who campaigned for equal rights in the South were uniformly referred to as “outside agitators.” It was apparently assumed, mistakenly, that no native Southerner could actually favor equal civil rights for all.
Now those opposed to equal rights are at it again, and they’re still denouncing “outside agitators.” Only this time the opponents are in a northern state, Michigan, and they’re denouncing supporters of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which has just launched a petition drive to place an equal rights amendment to the state constitution similar to California’s Proposition 209 on the November ballot.
Old bull Rep. John Dingell, striving to be the Bull Connor of Wayne County, wrote to Ward Connerly last summer in a public letter (posted on his Congressional web site), to “go home and stay there.” Writing in National Review Online, Peter Wood observed that Dingell’s letter
achieves a level of venom seldom seen in American public life. Declaring to Connerly that “Michiganders do not take kindly to your ignorant meddling in our affairs,” the congressman appears to have borrowed his rhetoric from some swamp-fever version of the Old South.
Dingell’s still at it, recently attacking the ballot initiative as the product of “carpetbaggers” and “non-resident troublemakers.” Since the co-chairmen of the initiative drive are two Republican state senators, a Detroit News columnist just observed, this accusation makes about as much sense as when another distinguished Michigan legislator once told some Native Americans involved in a dispute over fishing rights in Lake Michigan to “go back where they came from.”
Anyone interested in contributing to the MCRI, as I plan to do, should contact Chetly Zarko. (See here for an earlier comment of mine on Zarko’s good work.)
Thanks again, John. Tomorrow morning in Farmington Hills, Michigan, there will be a press conference announcing the beginning of the petition drive and fundraising effort. I will post some more details on my website and a clip here after the press embargo has been lifted.
The new MCRI website will be posted online either tonight or tomorrow morning, as well, and will contain many details. I created the transitional site, at http://www.michigancivilrights.org, and assisted a design team on the new one, which will be mirrored at http://www.MCRI2004.org and the older address.
Of course, MCRI invites all of you who support the cause, inside Michigan or out, to express your support. In a couple of days a preliminary support list will be added to the website, and I invite you to request to be added. (email hidden; JavaScript is required) Anyone with a website is invited to a link-exchange as well.
Naturally, only Michigan registered voter residents can sign or circulate the petitions, but any United States citizen can donate any amount of money (ballot initiatives do not have the same limits as individual candidates) or other in-kind services, with the one caveat being that you must provide your name (and occupation if over $100). Such information must be reported approximately every six months. For details on campaign finance issues, I will put you in contact with the MCRI treasurer.
The website, http://www.mcri2004.com, is now up and running officially.
Jennifer Gratz, Plaintiff in one of the cases, and Tim O’Brien, a long-time Michigan resident whose political involvements go back to 1968, are running the initiative.
Mail in and Verisign donations are on the website. Volunteering can be done through there as well, or I can refer you whomever is in charge depending on your area and services offered.
How does one sign up?