Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, with cap, marching down Woodward in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Detroit Walk to Freedom., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Media Advisory
Contact: 313-671-3715
http://www.internationalpeoplesassembly.org
Today at 10:00am
Where
Grand Circus Park,Detroit, Michigan, USA
Description
On the 5th Anniversary of the Federal $700 Billion Bank Bailout . . .
A CALL FOR AN INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY AGAINST THE BANKS AND AGAINST AUSTERITY
SATURDAY & SUNDAY
OCTOBER 5 & 6, 2013
GRAND CIRCUS PARK
Woodward & Adams
DETROIT, MICHIGAN, USA
endorsers list at http://www.internationalpeoplesassembly.org/endorsements/
We call on all activists fighting banker-imposed austerity – here in the U.S. and worldwide – to come to Detroit, Michigan, on October 5 and 6, 2013. Join the people of this city under siege in convening the International People’s Assembly Against the Banks and Against Austerity.
Join us in Detroit on October 5-6 to demand:
* Cancel the debt to the banks which is strangling our schools, cities, states and countries.
* Guarantee workers’ jobs and pensions and services for the community. No union busting. $15
minimum wage!
* End undemocratic, racist emergency management of our cities and schools.
* A jobs program funded by the banks to put the unemployed to work rebuilding our cities. The banks owe our communities billions of dollars for the destruction they have caused.
* Moratorium on all foreclosures and foreclosure-related evictions. Housing is a right.
* Repudiate student loan debt. Education must be free and available to all. Increase funding for public education.
* Stop racism and attacks on immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community and people with disabilities.
* The federal government must bail out the people, not the banks.
* Money for cities, not for war--Hands off Syria.
* Ban Fracking. No tar sands oil, petcoke, wood ethanol, etc. Reverse climate change.
Detroit is the epicenter for the financial and social war being waged by the banks on the working class. The fraudulent mortgage lending practices of these banks, car- ried out through subprime and predatory loans, placed 73% of Detroit’s homeowners in mortgage crisis, resulting in over 100,000 foreclosures in the last decade. Some 237,000 residents have been driven out of the city. Public education has been gutted.
After destroying Detroit’s tax base, the banks subjected the city itself to predatory lending, including interest rate swaps resulting in banks collecting interest pay- ments 1200% higher than the actual bond rate. The exorbitant debt the banks im- posed on the city was the pretext for Michigan’s governor staging a coup, removing all power from Detroit’s African-American elected officials and imposing an unelected “emergency manager” (EM) whose primary job is to guarantee debt service payment to the banks.
Now the governor and emergency manager have taken the City of Detroit into the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Their target is City workers’ consti- tutionally protected pensions, and other immensely valuable City assets. In contrast, bankers are considered “secured creditors,” to be paid first.
The EM-imposed austerity plan in Detroit is designed to establish a prece- dent for attacking public workers’ pensions nationwide. Cities and states across the country facing similar debt crises because of the criminal lending practices of the banks are in line for the same treatment as Detroit. These same banks, by impos- ing over $1 trillion in student loan debt, have declared war on youth, who will be burdened with student debt for the rest of their lives. These austerity programs are being imposed across the globe, in Greece, Spain and Portugal; from Latin America to Asia and Africa.
These patterns of financial destruction have happened for years in communities of color across the U.S., and now entire cities are being threatened. Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Philadelphia are now targeted. Before the takeover of Detroit, Michigan’s governor focused on controlling primarily Black-majority cities and school districts – Benton Harbor, Flint, Pontiac, Highland Park, Buena Vista (near Saginaw) – and some cities are about to lose their school districts altogether. Events in Detroit exemplify historical racism across the U.S., and are underscored by the outrageous verdict in the Trayvon Martin murder, Supreme Court rulings against the Voting Rights Act and affirmative action, and the deportation of over 1 million undocumented immigrants in the past five years.
The people of Detroit, the city that was a center of the unions and Black liberation struggles in the U.S., need the solidarity of the world’s working class to beat back the current onslaught. Please join us in Detroit on October 5 and 6, 2013. Bring your issues and demands.
Coalition for an International People’s Assembly Against the Banks and Against Austerity
For more information and/or to list your organization or yourself as a convener:
Call 313-744-7912 or
Email: moratorium@moratorium-mi.org
Web:
http://www.moratorium-mi.org/
http://www.DetroitDebtMoratorium.org/
http://internationalPeoplesAssembly.org/
PROGRAM:
Saturday
7:30 am – 9:30 am Peoples Prayer Breakfast at Sacred Heart Church , 1000 Eliot, Detroit – Honoree Councilwoman JoAnn Watson
International People's Assembly Gathers at Grand Circus Park, Woodward at Adams, just north of Downtown Detroit
---------------------------------------
Saturday Session
10:00 am – SEIU power point presentation on how Wall Street and Banks are behind attack on public workers by Jono Shaffer Deputy Director at SEIU
10:45 am – Abayomi Azikiwe — Moratorium Now! Coalition– Lila Cabil from DREM (Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management) – Chairs with introductory remarks
Maureen Taylor – Chair Michigan Welfare Rights Organization on anti-democratic and racist character of Michigan’s Emergency Management Law
Helen Moore – on Banks and Attacks on Public Education
Renee Manley, SEIU Capital Stewardship Program on significance of Detroit for public workers nationwide
Panel of City of Detroit Retirees featuring John Riehl, trustee of Detroit General Retirement Fund
Youth on struggle against Emergency Management
Vanessa Fluker, anti-foreclosure attorney, on Foreclosures and banks predatory lending on Detroit’s financial crisis
S. Baxter Jones – banks targeting of persons with disabilities for foreclosure
Jerry Goldberg on banks’ predatory loans against city of Detroit
12:30 – 1:30: March on Emergency Manager Orr’s Penthouse — Run on Bank of America
1:30: Lunch
Workshop during lunch on Education Crisis
Workshop on Anti-fracking struggle
Tent set up to film statements by Participants
3:00 –Afternoon Session – National and international Aspects of Crisis – Chairs – Debbie Johnson – Sharon Feldman
Larry Holmes – Bail out the People Movement – The federal bailout and national and international struggle against the banks
Laura Gottesdiener – author on foreclosure impact on cities
Speaker from Baltimore Peoples Power Assemblies
North Carolina Moral Mondays
FIST — national youth group– Student Loan cutbacks
Sara Flounders – United national Anti-War coalition – War budget and attack on cities
Community Labor United for Postal Jobs and Services — Privatization of post office and the banks
Nick Mirzoeff – Tidal/MTL/Militant Research Collective
Carl Stokes Brigade Cleveland
Tom Michalak – Workers World statement of solidarity
International Solidarity
Raquelle Saade – Puerto Rican struggle against austerity
International League for Peoples Struggle video
Video from Sud Banques Populaires Caisses d’Epagne (France)
Video from International Migrant Alliance
Video from Mohammed Kasin, General Secretary, Lebanese Teachers Union
Video Conlutas – Peoples Union Federation National Struggles Coordination – Brazil
Video – Asotrecol – Association of Injured Workers — Columbia
Statement from Marcia Campo – Women’s International Democratic Federation – Kris to read
Statement from Movement for Popular Unity – Panama
Solidarity Against Austerity (Portland, OR)
4:45 –D-REM, AFSCME, MORATORIUM NOW, NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK – CALL FOR MASSIVE DEMONSTRATIONS AT BANKRUPTCY AT ELIGIBILITY HEARINGS OCTOBER 15 AND OCTOBER 23
5:15- 6:30 Informal discussions in park – individuals attend Jericho public transit march
7:00 – 9:00 Entertainment
Insurgency ( rock band )
Jim Perkinson (A political poet)
The Raiz Up with Antonio Cosme ( hip hop)
Aurora (Spokent Word) with Wardell Montgomery, Bilal & Freeway
Walter Blaney (Jazz Keyboard and band)
Writer L. Bush (poet)
Sunday Session – Grand Circus Park
10:00 am –Open with Mike Shane — Power Point on Banks and Foreclosures – Impact on Detroit
10:45 – 11:15 — Workshop on Eviction Defense
11;15 — Workers Speakout – Action Proposals
$15 minimum wage
Postal Workers
Green Party –
Warriors on Wheels
Alex Wassell – Autoworkers Caravan – Fight for 8 hour day
Auto speaker on Fight Against Two Tier
Ban Michigan Fracking
Jobs with Justice
Speaker LGBTQ struggle
Detroit Coalition Against Tar Sands
12:30 to 1:30 – Implementing Action Proposals – Building Statewide Organizing Network
Closing Statement – Abayomi Azikiwe
-------------------------------------------------
GENERAL INFORMATION:
Most assembly will be in Grand Circus Park, in downtown Detroit. Note that Grand Circus Park is located on Woodward Ave., which is the main thoroughfare running through the center of Detroit. Some meetings and meals may be held in another location and will be announced. For a searchable map of Detroit, go to “visitdetroit.com” and select “Interactive Map” (on the right hand side). Then, on the map page, go to “Destination District” and use the drop-down arrow to choose “Downtown Detroit.” For an unsearchable but better general-purpose map online, go to “City of Detroit Parking,” then “Municipal Parking Department/City of Detroit Departments,” and select “Public Parking Facilities.” Click on the “Parking Map” and increase its size to 125%. This map shows street names clearly, as well as parking ramps and People Mover stops (see below).
ACCOMMODATIONS:
A limited number of local hosts will provide beds and transportation to and from the Grand Circus Park (please be sensitive to their other responsibilities during the Assembly!). Call (313) 744-7912 to arrange housing. Hotels in the Grand Circus Park area are, in order of proximity: (1) (Nearest. Most expensive, but on the Hotel Workers’ “Please Patronize” list) the Westin Book Cadillac (1114 Washington Blvd.,); (2) the Doubletree Hilton (525 W. Lafayette Blvd.); and (3) (Cheapest, farthest) the Holiday Inn Express (1020 Washington Blvd.). Please check the “Hotel Workers Rising” website for active boycotts before booking. Consider telling the hotel you are responding to Hotel Workers’ right to collective bargaining. Expedia and Hotwire show much lower rates, but are non-refundable. Consult the “better” map (see General Information, above) for proximity of hotels to Grand Circus Park and to the People Mover.
TRANSPORTATION:
The Greyhound Station is at 1001 Howard St., just east of the Lodge freeway (M-10). It’s nine blocks from Grand Circus Park. Megabus doesn’t have terminals in Detroit, just drop-off corners. The closest corner at which Megabus drops off is Michigan Ave./ Cass (about a five block walk from Grand Circus Park). The Amtrak Station is at 11 West Baltimore, at the corner of Woodward Ave. It is not walking distance to Grand Circus Park (it’s 34 blocks to the north). If you fly into Metro Airport, we may be able to provide rides to and fro on the days of the Assembly (schedule ahead of time: 313.744-7912). Local: The maps show the “People Mover” stop at Grand Circus Park and at various points throughout the downtown area. It’s an automated light rail system on an elevated track. Consider` the People Mover to get around, including possibly to your hotel and/or parking area. The fare is 75 cents. Change is available from the token machines at each station. People Mover Hours:
Friday……6:30 a.m.-2 a.m. Saturday……9:00 a.m.-2 a.m. Sunday……noon-midnight
Local bus travel is by “D-DOT.” Fares are $1.50 for adults, 25 Cents for transfers. The buses are white with green and yellow stripes. Medicare card holders get half off. Bus info. at (313) 933-1300. Accessibility Guidelines are available online at the Detroit Department of Transportation.
PARKING:
On weekends, there is some parking at meters available, especially on Washington Blvd. Saturday evening, it might be difficult to find another metered spot if you move your car (concert in the area). There is an underground city parking ramp below Grand Circus Park Maximum daily rate is $10. Cars can exit 24 hours a day, but entrance is only guaranteed up until 6:00 p.m. The elevator is broken. If you need assistance, please call the Detroit Parking Department: (313) 224-8925) in advance.
RAIN INFO:
In case of hard rain, we will be hosting the Assembly both days at 1515 Broadway Cafe, at 1515 Broadway near Gratiot.
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