MCHR Board Member and long-time Detroit civil rights activist Member Dorothy Dewberry Aldridge and her husband Dan Aldridge (also a well known Detroit civil rights activist) were recently interviewed as part of a documentary entitled “Spirit of Detroit: Fulfilling the Dream.” The documentary, which was produced by Detroit’s NBC affiliate WDIV, examined the history of the civil rights movement in the U.S. with a Detroit perspective.
Since the public murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020 there have been large public demonstrations protesting police brutality against African Americans in 2000 cities and towns in the U.S. and around the world.
The protests have led to numerous legislative proposals at federal, state and municipal levels intended to combat police misconduct, sytemic racism and police brutality in the United States.
Click here to see interview with Dorothy and Dan Aldridge from Spirit of Detroit: Fulfilling the Dream” documentary.
Click here to view “Spirit of Detroit: Fulfilling the Dream” documentary in its entirety.
Julie Hurwitz, a long-time MCHR board member and noted civil rights attorney, was quoted by the Detroit Free Press in an extended feature story on the conduct of the police and demonstrators during a recent week-long series of protests against police brutality and systemic racism.
As vice president of the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, Julie was part of a group of legal observers who monitored the protests which occured in the days following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
Click here to see entire Detroit Free Press coverage.
The Detroit Free Press recently published a feature story examining the demonstrations protesting the murder of George Floyd in the context of 50 years of social activism in Detroit. MCHR board members Abayomi Azikiwi and Frank Joyce were both quoted in the coverage.
Click here to see the Detroit Free Press story.
MCHR Statement Black Lives Matter The recent murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of the police and Ahmaud Arbrey by white supremacists are appalling examples of the continuing pandemic of racial injustice in the United States. We (Michigan Coalition for Human Rights) stand in solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of […]
February 23, 2020, an unarmed black man, Ahmaud Arbery, while jogging in his Georgia neighborhood, was fatally shot by a white former police officer and his son.
Reportedly, there were burglaries in the area, and the white former police officer and his son thought Arbery looked like the thief, and so they pursued him with a truck and guns.
Did it matter that Arbery usually jogged five miles a day in this neighborhood — his neighborhood?
Did it matter that as these white “vigilantes” (as some have called them) started to corral Arbery with their truck that he was running down the middle of the road?
It’s not common for criminals to try to escape the scene of the crime by jogging down the middle of the road in plain view.
According to Arbery’s family, the police came to their door implying that he was fatally shot during a burglary. The implication was that Arbery was not a victim, but was the suspect.
Click here read the entire statement on Ahmaud Arbery’s murder.
