San Jose NAACP boycotts Freedom Train because SJ Police Officers Assn donated to it too

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The local NAACP boycotted, but that didn't stop thousands on Monday from boarding the Freedom Train from San Jose to San Francisco, an annual trip that commemorates the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

The San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP — along with other civil rights groups — pulled their support from the Freedom Train this year because the San Jose police officers' union raised money for the event. Some local civil rights leaders are upset that the ride's producers will be honoring the union for the San Jose police officers, whose tactics with "communities of color" have come under fire.

Some of the estimated 2,000 passengers who rode the Freedom Train on Monday, including many African-Americans, said the controversy should take a back seat to an event commemorating King. "Not to support the train ride is the wrong message," said San Jose resident Gregory Leftridge, who learned about the NAACP's decision a few days ago. "But as far as why they're not doing it, I believe very much in their reasoning behind that."

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San Jose police officers have been under fire from local civil rights activists for their handling of complaints about officer behavior, including the fatal shooting in May of a knife-wielding and mentally ill Vietnamese man, and the videotaped beating in September of an Vietnamese man who reportedly had threatened a roommate with a knife.

Mercury News reports have suggested police officers arrest Latinos disproportionately on public drunkenness charges and some officers are more likely to use force over minor offenses. The San Jose POA has disputed the paper's findings and said the officers acted appropriately under stressful and potentially dangerous circumstances.

Against this rising tension, local civil rights groups objected when the officers union donated money to the Freedom Train for the first time. The union, as with all event sponsors, will be honored in March by Freedom Train organizers.

"After years and months of abusing the community, the San Jose Police Department has the nerve to show up under the banner of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.," Pastor Jethroe Moore II, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP, wrote in a letter to Bonita Carter-Cox, president of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Association of Santa Clara Valley, which produces the event.

Moore demanded the association remove mention of the NAACP as a sponsor for the event and from implying its support for the San Jose Police Department. The NAACP was joined by about a dozen other community groups, including the Asian Law Alliance and Silicon Valley De-Bug, a community watchdog group.

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In a release posted on its Web site, the King association wrote that it had unsuccessfully tried to make up the lost funding from both the African American community and private corporations.

"We regret that the NAACP does not agree with our organization's policy to publicly acknowledge one of our much needed and valued sponsors," the association said in a statement. "If it were not for the efforts and contributions of the SJPOA we would not have the Freedom Train this year."

Read more: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_14217619