Laney College hosts Benton Harbor activist Rev. Edward Pinkney

When Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan spoke out against the state’s draconian “Emergency Financial Manager” law that stripped the power of all the city’s boards and commissions of their authority, he quoted the Holy Bible.

For doing so, he was placed in jail for a year.

The imprisonment was just one of the experiences Pinkney faced in the mainly African American Rust Belt city of Benton Harbor where the Whirlpool corporation is king and the state has declared, “economic martial law.”

With increasing unemployment and corporate profits being used for increased cuts to public services for poor and working class people, people are fighting back from Wisconsin to Wall Street and back to UC Berkeley. The people of the Bay Area can learn many lessons from the struggles of Rev. Pinkney and his wife, Dorothy.

On Saturday, October 1, the Pinkney’s will speak at Laney College on the 2011 Justice Tour, to share “Lessons from the Battle of Benton Harbor.”

The Pinkneys will raise awareness on what’s taking place in Michigan and the Rust Belt and some crucial lessons learned in battling for democracy and human rights, according to organizers. The Pinkney’s will expose the corporate/government strategy being implemented in California and how they have worked to give voice to the voiceless.