wfn.org | Michigan UCC pastor says, 'Riots have reasons'

[powellb@ucc.org]

United Church of Christ
General Synod Newsroom
Saturday, July 12, 2003
newsroom@ucc.org
http://www.ucc.org

By J. Bennett Guess

MINNEAPOLIS?Recent riots in Benton Harbor, Mich., are the result of years
of systemic abuse, a UCC pastor told delegates and visitors at the UCC's
General Synod on Saturday morning.

"Riots have reasons," said the Rev. F. Russell Baker, pastor of Benton
Harbor's First Congregational UCC. He pointed to abandoned and boarded up
housing, police misconduct, adult illiteracy, and extreme economic
segregation as the main causes of community unrest.

"What we have witnessed in the recent riot was the rage, anger and
frustration of the victims of abuse in this poor African American community
that goes far deeper than we may have ever imagined," he said.

On June 18, hundreds of Benton Harbor residents took to the streets to
protest the death of 28-year-old Terrance Shurn, who was killed after his
motorcycle crashed following a high-speed police chase. The riots grew out
of the city's long-standing racial and economic injustices, Baker said.

He also said the Rev. Jesse Jackson's comparison of Benton Harbor to the
1950s-era Selma, Ala., and apartheid-era South Africa is "not far wrong,"
and said Benton Harbor's version of racial and economic apartheid is
"concealed, yet every bit as vicious."

"This community is so isolated, impoverished, and controlled by forces that
are hard to identify, much less challenge, that only change must come from
the outside," Baker said. "This means that the witness of the church, our
church....is to end the victimization and abuse and to assist in
transforming the very soul of this extremely neglected community."

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