"Black Contractors to Stage Highway Shutdown Commemorative Demonstration in downtown St. Louis at evening rush hour on eve of Obama Visit."

Black Contractors will stage Highway 70 shutdown commemorative demonstration in downtown St. Louis at evening rush hour on eve of Obama Visit i.e. July 13, 2009.

The data recently released by Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT) and revealed by the media decisively substantiates the inequality in federal-funded contracting, with MODOT's contracting history stunningly showing that while minorities have over the past several years constituted over 60% of the firms classified as disadvantaged, they have only received 12% of the contracts, with white women owned firms receiving 88%.
















Interstate 70 in downtown St. Louis.

"We must be undaunted in pursuing our cause. It is a cause greater than any one contractor and greater even than minority contractors collectively. Our cause is economic justice, and every time we succeed in getting a contract for one of us we open up opportunities for all of us. And that is how a people progress." Eric Vickers-a memo to the minority contractors on February 22, 1988.

Ad lutua continua - "the struggle continues."

Eric E. Vickers
Attorney, Minority Inclusion Alliance
St. Louis Metropolitan.