Detroit Branch NAACP announces Hillary Clinton as Freedom Fund Dinner speaker
See page A-3
POWERED BY REAL TIMES MEDIA
michiganchronicle.com
Volume 79 – Number 31
April 13-19, 2016
Chief James Craig, defining how to do more with less
Imhotep Blue (left) and Eric Ford
Detroit 300 has ear to the streets, trust of victims
By Roz Edward
When a 90-year-old woman was raped and brutalized on Detroit’s east side, neighbors and citizens across Detroit determined that rampant crime crippling communities had to come to an end, and it had to happen sooner than later. That event signaled the rise of an all-volunteer organization to battle crime, protect the innocent and bring perpetrators to justice, dubbed the Detroit 300. The much praised and applauded community patrolling and crime fighting organization gets its name from the hit Hollywood film “300,” about a fighting force of 300 Spartans who fought valiantly to protect their country, women and children from an invasion of Persian marauders. And much like the lore that surrounds that legendary fighting force, the Detroit 300 — which is actually made up of 4,300 registered volunteers, with about 400 active volunteers — is dedicated to the principles of protection and justice for those they call the “innocents” — women, children and senior citizens. Detroit 300 president Eric Ford and vice president Imhotep Blue explained that the five-year-old organization is highly structured and is not limited to male volunteers. “The Detroit Community Action team is comprised of four tiers which includes an executive board, with a membership director, a resource director, a research director and a communications director. And contrary to what people believe, all of our directors are female,” explained Blue.
By Keith A. Owens Senior Editor
P
rior to the election of Mayor Coleman Young in 1974, the relationship between the predominantly white police force and Detroit’s black community was toxic on a good day. It was years of pent up anger against police brutality and other elements of everyday racism and segregation in an Up South Detroit that lit the fuse on the explosive 1967 upris-
Detroit 300 volunteers hail from all walks of life with business persons, law enforcement, ex-law enforcement and clergy working together to make Detroit streets safer. The one caveat: a volunteer can cannot have a criminal sexual conduct violation. One of the factors which makes Detroit 300 such an effective crime fighting arm is their ability to bridge the gap be-
See DETROIT
300 page A-4
See CHIEF JAMES CRAIG page A-4
Andre Smith photos
Nicholas Hood, Sr. was a bridge builder
WHAT’S INSIDE DTE Energy makes it easier (Page C-1)
DTE Energy is rolling out a series of technological advances to put bill paying and account management at the customers’ fingertips. This includes 22 kiosks located throughout DTE Energy’s service territory.
By Ken Coleman
Monica Morgan photo
Gov. Snyder insists he’s the best captain for this ship
By Keith A. Owens Senior Editor
$1.00
ing, and it was Young’s promise to disband STRESS, the notoriously brutal Detroit Police unit known to routinely terrorize the black community, that was considered the key plank in his campaign that got him elected. Soon after Young became mayor, he not only made good on his promise to disband STRESS but also aggressively integrated the entire police force from 95 percent white to a much more equitable 50/50 split of white and black officers.
Early Monday morning, Gov. Rick Snyder was asked almost sympathetically by Pancakes & Politics moderator Carol Cain what the past six months have been like for him (being listed among the 19 most disappointing leaders by Forbes magazine, being brutally grilled by a mocking and incredulous congression al committee investigating his involvement in the Flint water crisis, the swell of lawsuits, etc.) In response, Snyder, the keynote speaker, gave what was perhaps his best answer to date trying to describe the level of strife and turmoil that has become his virtual everyday existence as he continues to navigate the relentless
not-so-positive fallout of what will go down in history as one of the worst failures of state government in Michigan’s history. Or at least he almost did. “It’s a humbling experience. And it’s a huge challenge. That’s the honest answer. It’s been a very difficult time period. But what I keep in mind is there are people suffering more in Flint, and I want to do something about it,” he said. So far, so good. If only he had stopped there. “If you step back and look at it, you have a handful of career civil servants, been there 20 and 30 years, who did not
See GOV.
SNYDER page A-4
The late Nicholas Hood, Sr. was dedicated to creating a city where racial unity was possible. His historic 1965 election to the Detroit Common Council was as magical as it was masterful. Hood died on Sunday. He was 92. Within months of arriving in the Motor City in 1958, Mayor Louis Miriani appointed him to the Commission on Community Relations, a panel created to help strengthen relations between blacks and whites after the 1943 race riot. “I had established a pretty good base in the general community,” Hood said last fall. “My elections had never been based in the 13th District.” He was referring to the enclave on Detroit’s lower east side called Black Bottom, an African American section of town named for its fertile soil. Hood, a Terre Haute, Indiana native, hit the ground running. As pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church, he began visiting fellow Methodist churches throughout the city’s northwest and northeast sides, which in those days were lily white. “During the campaign, I and some of the white ministers in my denomination worked out a system of coffee hours,” recalled the Purdue and Yale-educated man who had helped to form the civil rights era’s beacon institution, the South-
See NICHOLAS
HOOD SR. page A-4