Ward Connerly and the so-called Missouri Civil Rights Initiative have stooped to enlisting avowed racists and white supremacists to collect signatures for a ballot initiative designed to outlaw affirmative action programs by state and local governments in Missouri.
With just three days left before the signature deadline, Connerly has become “desperate,” according to Brandon Davis, co-chair of the WeCan Coalition, which was formed to fight the ballot initiative.
“Connerly has made it clear that his effort is behind (in Missouri),” Davis said. “They are acting with reckless abandon and showing that they are open to any hate group or organization.”
Connerly has contacted Stuart H. Hurlbert, a San Diego State biology professor and secretary for the anti-immigrant Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), seeking assistance.
Hurlbert then wrote to the Minutemen Project, lauding Connerly’s effort and urged for people to come to Missouri and help his effort. The Minutemen Project is an anti-immigrant vigilante group.
Hurlbert wrote that Minutemen would “get to interact with and make friends with some more can-do ‘salt of the earth’ folks you may never otherwise meet.”
CAPS was founded by the late population-control activist and Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) board member Garret Hardin. Hardin once argued that assisting Africans enduring famine was counterproductive.
Reddit Hudson, racial justice manager for the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, said the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative also is seeking help through postings on white supremacist websites.
Last weekend, more than 100 people with the WeCan Coalition monitored signature gathering in the region.
Davis said a crowd became angry in North St. Louis County when they learned that the petition they had signed allegedly to “end discrimination” actually is designed to eliminate affirmative action programs offered by state and local governments.
Davis said a white man also reported to WeCan that he was approached at a grocery store in Fenton for his signature. When he refused, the signature gatherer told him that he was “a helpless white man facing an onslaught of Mexicans, black persons and females of all descriptions” coming to take his job.
The signature gatherer told this man “he had driven overnight from Colorado to save (whites) from the other kinds of people,” Davis said.
“They are putting a volatile element on our streets,” Davis said of the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative.
“In their zeal to stop affirmative action, they could care less how much damage they do to this community.”
Davis said that WeCan is finding that people “are turned off by that language and behavior.”
Observers reported that six petitioners gathered only 30 signatures over two hours outside the St. Louis Zoo last weekend.
Some local minority business leaders also have organized against the initiative.
“In a city where we still have a ways to go in establishing a stable and diverse minority contracting, architecture and engineering business base, we cannot afford to allow this ballot initiative to move forward,” said Nicole Adewale, ABNA Engineering principal and director of business development
“When we still have contractors and business leaders that don’t see the value of supporting the local economy through small and women-owned businesses, we must stand firmly together as a community to defeat this attack.”
Davis said it is important “to keep the pressure on” during the next three days, before the May 4 deadline for signature gathering.
“If anybody sees anybody gathering signatures, make sure they are telling the truth,” he said.