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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 2011)
WWW . ThESkANNEr . COm S EPTEmBEr 21, 2011 P OrTLAND , O rEgON V OLumE XXXIII, N O . 47 25 CENTS i nSide Davis Injustice page 4 ‘Sister Citizen’ page 5 Toure C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow Troy Davis Execution Help witH Jobs Worldwide protests held in advance of Georgia inmate’s By Greg Bluestein The associated Press The effort by local Black workers to help others make sure their job bids are filled out and submitted correctly comes amidst a long struggle against discrimination on the waterfront dating back almost 60 years. PHOTO BY SuSan Fried aTLanTa (AP) — Troy Davis support- ers in the U.S. and Europe were trying just about anything to spare him from lethal injection Wednesday evening for killing an off-duty Georgia policeman, a crime he and others have insisted for years that he did not commit. Supporters planned vigils around the world. They’ll be outside Georgia’s death row prison in Jackson and at U.S. embassies in Europe. At presstime Wednesday morning, the 42- year-old’s most realistic, though slim, chance for reprieve is through the courts, and his lawyers are trying. His backers have tried increasingly frenzied measures: offer- ing for Davis to take a polygraph test, urg- ing prison workers to strike or call in sick, posting a judge’s phone number online, urg- ing people to call and ask him to put a stop to the 7 p.m. execution. They’ve even con- sidered a desperate appeal for White House intervention. “We’re trying everything we can do, everything under the law,” said Chester Dunham, a civil rights activist and talk show host protesting in Savannah, where in 1989, prosecutors say Davis fatally shot 27-year- old Mark MacPhail. Davis’ supporters include former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI and a former FBI director, the NAACP, as well as conservative figures. The U.S. Supreme Court even gave him an unusual opportunity to prove his innocence last year, but ultimately didn’t hear the merits of the case. Several witnesses have recanted their accounts that it was Davis who pulled the trigger, and some jurors have said they’ve changed their minds about his guilt. Still, prosecutors and MacPhail’s family have staunchly backed the verdict and state and federal courts have repeatedly upheld his page 8 Longshore Workers Job Event Boisterous crowd fills Reflections to counter history of racism A bout 100 prospective longshore workers thronged Reflections Coffee and Books Tuesday morning at 11 sharp to make sure their application cards were filled in correctly for the Portland Maritime Association “casual worker” jobs lottery. African American employ- ees of the PMA held the event on their own time, staffing the help table on their lunch hour, then trading off with other workers scheduled to come down, in turn, when their lunch hour arrived. The effort by local Black workers to help others make sure their job bids are filled out and submitted correctly comes amidst a long struggle against discrimination on the waterfront dating back almost 60 years. “It’s a big deal because most of what we’ve been talking about locally is the opportuni- ty for Blacks to have free access to the economic devel- opment of Oregon,” said Portland City Council candi- date Teressa Raiford, who attended the Tuesday help ses- sion at Reflections. “A lot of these guys who are here now – we’re talking about past generations of family members who were also long- shoremen but this generation has been kept out of that pool.” unfair Practices African Americans have filed lawsuits and grievances alleging exclusion and unfair hiring practices by longshore- men’s unions down the stretch of the West Coast, including the Portland waterfront. A key legal decision in 1964 forced the first desegregation of the International Longshore Workers Union Local 8, allow- ing 50 African American workers to be hired. In Portland, critics charge, unfair practices continued until a group of six casual workers filed an Equal Employment Opportunity See wOrkerS on page 3 See daviS on page 3 indeX News ................2,3,5,6 Opinion .....................4 A & E ......................5,8 Food..........................6 Bids/Classifieds .......6,7 East Portland Champ Jefferson Smith Candidate for Mayor of Portland speaks on his priorities if elected Helen Silvis Of The Skanner news I f East Portland was a city it would rival Eugene for the title of Oregon’s second largest. It would likely be the most diverse city in Oregon, and the youngest. Almost 40 percent of Portland’s school-age children live east of 82nd Avenue. And stu- dents in David Douglas School district speak 73 different languages. These are just a few of the facts I learn from State Rep. Jefferson Smith, the East Portland champion who has just announced he is running for Mayor of Portland. Two days after launching his mayoral campaign, Smith arrives at Heavenly Donuts on 102nd Avenue, wearing a black eye patch that makes him look like a strangely clean-cut pirate. The reason for the patch? Skip this if you’re squeamish. Pulling a late night work session with his wife Katy, he kept going so long that his contact lens “fused with” his eye. At least that’s what he discovered when he removed the lens, and pulled off patches of sensitive cells from the surface of his eye. Ouch! The injury didn’t make him See SmiTH on page 3
