Support Monday, July 13, 2009 I-70 evening rush hour demonstration in St. Louis.

Dear Community Leaders:

I ask you to join me this Monday, July 13, 2009, in supporting the African-American Business and Contractors Association (AABCA) and the Metro East Black Contractors Organization (MEBCO) in their planned shutdown commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the 1999 I-70 Shutdown. Though somewhat obscured by the media, AABCA and MEBCO have eloquently stated that the purpose of the protest action on Monday-where, unlike in 1999, no arrests are planned-is to have a "moment of observance to highlight the fact that, 10 years after the 1999 shutdown protest of 70, minority contractors and workers are still being denied economic justice."

The data recently released by MODOT and revealed by the media decisively substantiates their point, 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%.

But more important to me than this data, is the spirit of progress I see in those leading AABCA and MEBCO in this reminder that we all must be ever mindful that there are doors to diversity that still remain closed. I am proud to see the passion that this new generation of minority advocates and entrepreneurs is expressing for this cause - a level playing field - and I am pleased to see that they have decided to engage in this mission through a message and measured method that is their own reflection, rather than a re-play of ten years ago when drastic measures were essential for change.

I have told them that this is their moment and that I will not participate in the actual physical shutdown, but that I will be honored to be at the press conference they have scheduled for 5:00 p.m. at the Cochran Center, immediately following their commemorative protest.

They asked if I could convey the message to all the community leaders I know -particularly those they named that they have viewed with admiration from a distance - that they would like for us all to come to their Monday evening press conference in order to show again, ten years later and twenty years after Percy climbed the Arch, that we are still united in belief and cause, and now again more youthfully determined, to have real economic diversity in this town.

I hope to see you on Monday evening at the Cochran Center to welcome and thank and congratulate them for reminding us all, that were it not for the exercise of the First Amendment right of peaceable protest, we would not on Tuesday, the next day, be having the nation's first African-American president throwing out the first pitch at America's quintessential pastime event - in the shadow of the courthouse haunted by Dred Scott. I thank you for giving this your most sincere and earnest consideration.

And I thank again and eternally the many of you who were there ten years ago-nobly sitting down on the highway, humbly and proudly being arrested-when we planted both real progress and the seeds wonderfully sprouting today.

Ad lutua continua - "the struggle continues."

Please click this link to contact the White House. Share your feelings about the inadequate minorities inclusion in the federal-funded projects by Missouri Department of Transportation and Illinois Department of Transportation. Please take a few minutes of your precious time to fill the form and click submit to send your message online to the White House. You can also call or write to the President.


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