June 21--There was palpable anger among the hundreds of attendees of the South Side's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition conference Saturday morning, three days after a young white man killed nine black people in a Charleston, S.C., church.
Gathered at Rainbow/PUSH headquarters on Chicago's South Side, attendees appeared as somber as the conference's panelists, led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. On paper, the conference's theme was minorities' roles in the burgeoning technology age, but the conversation kept coming back to the Charleston shootings.
"The shooter has already raised $900,000 on the Internet, which means he stands to some as a hero," Jackson said. "This is not an incident. It is a movement. A movement of fear, hatred and violence."
Jackson championed banning the flying of the Confederate flag in the U.S., a symbol he said stands for the suppression and segregation of African-Americans, as well as secession and treason.
"It is wrong to fly the Nazi flag in Germany. It is wrong to fly the apartheid flag in South Africa. It's wrong to fly the Confederate flag in the U.S.," he said.
State Rep. Mary Flowers, D-Chicago, and U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., argued that stricter gun control legislation was a necessary part of any solution. Flowers said she would fight for a bill mandating that anyone who purchases a gun in Illinois have insurance for it.
Butterfield said laws should limit gun access to people showing signs of mental instability.
The shooting was, in Jackson and other panelists' minds, domestic terrorism.
"Just look at the differential treatment of black and whites," said Julianne Malveaux, a social activist who recalled black protesters being labeled as "thugs" during this year's uprising in Baltimore. "But before (Dylann Roof) was even caught, people were making excuses for him. This wasn't a mental defect. This is racial terrorism."
meltagouri@tribpub.com
