Restore Hope to the City of Detroit:
Kwame Kilpatrick Must Resign!

Kwame Kilpatrick has been indicted on 8 counts of perjury, obstructing justice and abusing the power of his office. Kilpatrick must resign. This is the only way to restore hope and progress to the people of Detroit. The young people of this city must unite, organize and lead the working people of Detroit to force the thug to resign.

Mass popular action by the people of Detroit is the only tactic strong enough to break through the current paralysis of the public officials and politicians whose inaction is allowing Kilpatrick to stay in office. We need to mobilize to get rid of Kilpatrick now or he is likely to linger on as mayor until his term ends in eighteen months. Kilpatrick needs to resign - right here, right now.

There is no argument for keeping Kilpatrick in office until the legal proceedings are completed. Kilpatrick has the right to a fair criminal trial. The people of Detroit do not need to wait a year or two for his trial to conclude to demand that the mayor resign now. We have all the evidence we need to demand that Kilpatrick resign for the good of our city.

The people of Detroit already know from reading Kilpatrick’s text messages and his trial testimony that he lied on the witness stand and lied to the Detroit City Council to secure millions dollars from the people of Detroit to cover for his personal indiscretions and to use as hush money. Kilpatrick does not even claim to be innocent. We need and deserve a mayor we can trust, is honest and who will fight for our interests.

Who in Detroit would tell the young people of this city to emulate Kilpatrick? Be a thug for life. Put your own self- interest before the interests of the people you are charged to serve. Let greed, dishonesty, and corruption be your guiding principles. These are Kilpatrick’s policies. All the people in this city who talk about the need for strong black role models should put their money where their mouth is, show some courage and remove the thug from the mayor’s office.

Kilpatrick cynically presents his refusal to leave the Mayor’s office as a civil rights issue. His claim is false. Kilpatrick knows that he remains in office only because he is receiving tremendous financial backing from suburban and local business interests. Kilpatrick’s policies of attacking the living standards of unionized workers, closing public schools and backing private charters and privatizing public services and properties is what makes him so popular with the business community. They are paying $700.00 an hour for a lawyer who is a public relations expert who is spinning Kilpatrick as a victim, rather than as the loyal servant of business interests that he actually is.

The pessimism and despair arising from and contributing to the reversal of the gains of the old civil rights movement provides the basis of Kilpatrick’s politics and policies. These politics are now being countered by a new, urgent politics of optimism and by the political reawakening of a growing section of America’s youth. A new generation of young leaders emerging from the struggle to defend affirmative action, school integration and immigrant rights believe we do not have to settle for less, but can strive and win more and better. Kilpatrick and his supporters, who once seemed so strong and invincible, are now weak and exposed. Their cynical and degraded methods and policies can be swept aside. The task of the New Civil Rights Movement is to do just that.

Detroit desperately needs new leadership. We have to develop a new generation of honest, bold and optimistic leaders to fill the vacuum of leadership that is crippling and limiting the possibilities of our city. Building a movement from the ground up to get Kilpatrick out is the only way to build such a new, strong, independent leadership. If we act together, we can overcome the inertia that is Kilpatrick’s strongest ally and strengthen the power of our city’s working and poor majority. BAMN is committed to building the new civil rights movement needed to free us from Kilpatrick’s thug regime and to restore our city’s dignity, pride and prosperity.

Detroit has a long and proud history of leading the fight for civil rights and black equality in American society. Detroit’s civil rights and labor struggles created and expanded economic and social opportunities for black and all poor and oppressed communities in this nation. In 1963, Dr. King first delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in Detroit. The Detroit uprising in the summer of 1967 created this nation’s first and most comprehensive anti-poverty and social services programs. The Black Action Movement student strike at the University of Michigan in 1970 developed a model for affirmative action programs which brought about the integration of universities across this nation. The massive GM strike of 1971 forced the Nixon administration to recognize the impossibility of maintaining the Vietnam War and improved the living standards of countless American families.

Continuing this tradition now requires building the new, integrated, youth-led civil rights movement and defeating the corrupt, cynical, arrogant and lawless politics of the Kilpatrick regime and others like it. Praised for years by the national media as the model for young black leadership in America, Kilpatrick is maintaining his position as Mayor solely on the basis of the support that he is receiving from powerful white business interests who, in the shadows and behind the scenes, are paying for his defense efforts and propping up his regime. Unseating Kilpatrick gives the young people of this city an opportunity to show America how young black political leaders actually fight for the interests of our communities.

The young civil rights leaders emerging from the schools and neighborhoods of Detroit and other overwhelmingly black and Latino cities across this nation are proud and dignified. Like Dr. King, we understand that our interests and futures are inextricably bound to the interests and futures of our communities and the oppressed. We are honest, plain-speaking leaders accountable to our communities. We are prepared to fight Lansing and Washington tooth-and-nail to get the resources we need to rebuild our schools and our neighborhoods.

We know we can restore affirmative action and win back the gains of the civil rights movement. We can win full citizenship and equality for immigrant communities throughout this nation. We know that if we are organized and stand up for our rights we can force the same powerful white business interests to whom Kilpatrick bows, to respect our rights and dignity. If we organize the tremendous power that Detroit possesses on an independent basis, we can vastly improve our living standards and the quality of our lives.

Our time is now. We can see the daylight ahead. Our city can once again be the pride of black communities all across this nation. Kwame Kilpatrick must resign now. We must clear away the old, and renew the hope that is the basis for social progress, equality, justice and freedom.