The Human Rights City Campaign
In light of the recent killings of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin and hundreds of Black people throughout the U.S. by state actors, we plan to take a proactive approach to make Jackson a Human Rights City that respects, protects, and fulfills the human rights of all its inhabitants.
This Campaign is also in honor of our late Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, who envisioned Jackson being a world leader in the promotion and protection of human rights, and who in the pursuit of justice and dignity for all Jacksonians introduced a human rights proclamation to the City during his term on the Council.
What is the Human Rights City Campaign?
The Human Rights Campaign is an initiative to establish a Human Rights Charter for the City of Jackson that would create greater protections and facilitate more equitable social relations for its residents. A Human Rights Commission would enforce the Human Rights Charter and its statutes.
In order to create the two aforementioned institutions, we intend to secure the following from the City of Jackson:
1. A Proclamation, committing the City to build these institutions and to work with the Human Rights Institute to facilitate a process to create them.
2. An Ordinance that would enter these institutions into the force of local municipal law.
The Human Rights Charter would be based on a people-centered analysis of all of the essential covenants, conventions, and treaties that comprise the human rights framework, including the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights.
The Commission we envision would, first and foremost, create a “Police Control Board”, that at minimum would be an elected body that would have the right to monitor, subpoena and indict police officers for gross misconduct and constitutional and human rights abuses. The Commission would also have Committees or Councils that would address all of the aforementioned issue areas:
- People of African Descent
- Indigenous Peoples
- Historically Discriminated Minorities
- Workers Rights
- Immigrants and Migrants
- Women
- Children
- LGBTQI
- People with Disabilities
- Religious Protections
- Cultural Rights
- Environmental Justice – Rights of Mother Earth
Our Basic Game Plan
Our first task is to mobilize the progressive forces in Jackson to join us in supporting this campaign to create positive, pro-active institutional structures that will help us ensure that there are no Mike Browns in our city, as well as help facilitate greater equity, justice and democracy. We ask everyone to sign onto this campaign and join us in seizing the moment.
Our second task is to put City Council on notice at the Special Session called by Councilwoman (now Judge) LaRita Cooper-Stokes to rename Battlefield Park after our late Mayor Chokwe Lumumba on Thursday, December 4th at 2:30 pm.
Our third task is getting the Charter and Commission on the City Council agenda and securing a commitment from the Council members to support it and move on it immediately. We plan on doing this at the next special session of Council on Monday, December 8th at 4 pm.
Our fourth task is getting the Proclamation approved and securing a written agreement that the City will work with the Campaign and the Human Rights Institute our campaign will create at the next general meeting of the Council on Tuesday, December 16th at 6 pm.
Join Us! Please sign on to this initiative and turn out your family, friends, associates and networks for the 3 critical mobilizations listed above.
Seize the Time!
Respectfully,
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Cooperation Jackson
http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2014/dec/04/activists-want-city-human-rights-commission/
Activists Want City Human Rights Commission
When Chokwe Lumumba was a city councilman, he introduced a human rights proclamation and successfully pushed for an anti-racial profiling ordinance. As mayor, Lumumba wanted to implement a human-rights commission, but he died eight months into his term. Photo by Trip Burns.
#In the aftermath of a string of extrajudicial killings, including Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York, advocates in Jackson want to charter a commission to protect and facilitate more equitable social relations.
#A partnership between the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and Cooperation Jackson, which emphasizes cooperatives, the campaign's organizers want to continue the vision of late Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba. When Lumumba was a city councilman, he introduced a human rights proclamation and successfully pushed for an anti-racial profiling ordinance. As mayor, Lumumba wanted to implement a human-rights commission, but he died eight months into his term.
#Adofo Minka, an organizer with Cooperation Jackson, said the deaths this year of men like Brown and Garner—both of whom died at the hands of police officers whom grand juries ultimately cleared of criminal wrongdoing—underscore the need for a body that holds police departments accountable.
#"It's an attempt by a group of organizations to be proactive to prevent those things that happened in other places from happening in Jackson," Minka said.
#Minka points to the officer-involved shooting earlier this week of Terrance Jordan, 31, who Jackson police say was in a stolen car and attempted to pull out a gun during the traffic stop.
#"Officers then approached the vehicle and noticed that there was a weapon that's been described as a .38-caliber revolver, possibly, and ordered the driver to show his hands," Chief Lee Vance told WAPT after the shooting. "The driver did not comply. One of the officers saw that this individual was trying to go for the gun or pull the gun on them. He fired one shot, striking the individual in the neck."
#As of yesterday, Jordan was in critical but stable condition. Minka believes it's the kind of incident that needs an independent review. Information from organizers states their desire to create a police-review board, an elected body that would "monitor, subpoena and indict police officers for gross misconduct and constitutional and human rights abuses."
#At a special meeting of the Jackson City Council this afternoon, called to vote on whether to rename Battlefield Park in west Jackson in Lumumba's honor, campaign organizers will ask to place the development of a charter and human-rights commission on an upcoming city council agenda. Minka said developing the charter and commission, which would be a grassroots process, could take up to a year.
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