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Breaking News: Cincinnati NAACP President Christopher Smitherman and Baptist Ministers Conference President Doc Foster were arrested around 6:45 A.M. this morning at the North Avondale Montessori School construction job site as they stood peacefully together with about 30 others against economic apartheid on Cincinnati Public School (CPS) construction job sites. . Updates will be provided here throughout the day: . --9:10 A.M. Update: President Smitherman has been released! He was charged with criminal trespassing. His hearing has been set for Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 12:30 P.M. in Room JC-A at the Justice Center.
BREAKING NEWS: . Cincinnati NAACP President Christopher Smitherman and Baptist Ministers Conference President Doc Foster were arrested early this morning (Wednesday, 3/17/10) as they stood peacefully together with about 30 others against economic apartheid on Cincinnati Public School (CPS) construction job sites. The arrest occurred around 6:45 A.M. at the North Avondale Montessori School construction job site. As of 8:25 A.M. President Christopher Smitherman and Baptist Ministers Conference President Doc Foster are still at the Cincinnati Justice Center being processed. The attorney for President Foster expects Smitherman and Foster will be released this morning with a possible court date as early as tomorrow. The Cincinnati NAACP Secretary spoke with President Smitherman around 8:25 A.M. and he is doing okay. . The organizations started arriving at the North Avondale Montessori School construction job site around 5:20 A.M. Lincoln Ware (The Buzz radio station) arrived aound 5:45 A.M. About 30 peaceful protesters were present by 5:50 A.M. The Police was present by 6 A.M. Some construction workers started arriving aound 6:20 A.M. Around 6:40 A.M. the Police approached President Smitherman and President Doc Foster and proceeded to arrest them. . Background: Both organizations are frustrated that the Cincinnati Public School Board continues to spend tax payer money while excluding African American contractors. CPS has had plenty of time to provide a strategic plan on how to include African American contractors on job sites that are under construction. It is unacceptable for CPS to build public schools in African American neighborhoods with no African American contractors. "Our organizations are forced to make them care. CPS can no longer have policies in place that exclude African American people. This is institutional racism," Christopher Smitherman President of the Cincinnati NAACP says. . It is unacceptable to continue to have the majority of workers build our Cincinnati Public Schools from Kentucky and Indiana. "Our organizations have done all we can do to explain the fraud and corruption that Cincinnati Public Schools have been engaging in for five years by inflating minority inclusion numbers intentionally. It looks like business as usual. If African Americans can not work no body works," Smitherman says. |
