Kansas City Strip

No ju$tice, no peace: When Florida election buster Jesse Jackson came to town last week, it was no surprise that he complained about George W. Bush‘s nominating John Ashcroft for attorney general. But during Jackson’s appearance at the $25-per-head “Economic Ju$tice” luncheon at the downtown Marriott, Jackson got a taste of his own medicine from a handful of protesters who were angry that Osco had sponsored the event.

The demonstrators were led by Shiriki Unganisha and included relatives of Demetrius Davis, who died outside the Osco at 39th and Main on November 9, 1999, shortly after being wrestled to the ground by drugstore employees who suspected Davis of shoplifting. Davis was black; the four people who sat on him after he complained he couldn’t breathe are white.

Black activists were outraged — until two things happened: Osco agreed to sign a “memorandum of understanding,” outlining ways the pharmacy chain would improve its relationship with the African-American community, and an autopsy revealed that “cocaine intoxication” had contributed to Davis’ demise.

No criminal charges were filed in the case, but Davis’ family filed a wrongful-death suit just days after his death. The family’s supporters have been protesting on the corner of 39th and Main for more than a year. For them, the fact that Osco sponsored a lunch as part of the city’s weeklong Martin Luther King celebration was “a slap in the face.”

“How can you have a dinner when justice has not been served?” Davis’ sister, Deborah Godfry, shouted at puzzled luncheongoers as they pulled up to the hotel.

“I wonder if Dr. King would have signed an agreement when a black man was murdered by four white men in front of a store in broad daylight with twenty to 25 witnesses and no one was arrested,” hollered Davis’ brother-in-law, Reginald Parsels.

As the shouting escalated, a mysterious figure appeared as if from nowhere. It was Omega Man! Otherwise known as Alonzo Washington, the media-savvy activist and creator of the black comic-book superhero was one of the activists who had attended the initial Osco protests following Davis’ death. Now his action figures are available at Osco as a result of the company’s commitment to carrying products made by African-Americans.

Wearing a midlength leather coat tied at the waist, a crisp black suit, a brilliant-blue shirt and tie and an omega-symbol earring — looking like Omega Man might in his civvies — Washington had come to save the day.

But instead, things just got more tense. Washington tried to convince Godfry he was on her side, pointing out that he was the only one “down here” talking with the protesters. “They want me to come out to deal with it because they don’t want to,” he claimed, referring to the community leaders inside.

Godfry was having none of it. “Osco has passed a lot of money and you all have got in on it,” she barked at him.

While Parsels and Unganisha argued that Washington was there only to protect the Omega Man image, Godfry criticized Washington and other activists for selling out. “Everybody was bought. If you stood for righteousness, you wouldn’t have put no toy in the stores for my brother’s life.”

But nobody calls Omega Man a sellout. “I want you to name a young black person who has done more in the community than I have!” Washington shot back. “Tell me somebody else young and black who came and talked to you. You know what? I come to these things when it ain’t my family member that was killed. Have you all done that?”

Finally, Washington pulled out the big guns. “If y’all want me to have Jesse come out I can do that …”

Jackson never materialized, but, like a superhero sidekick showing up just in the nick of time, a man in a Quick Delivery uniform, identifying himself as Davis’ best friend, Stacy Mirth, stopped his car in the street, jumped out and stepped between Godfry and Washington — and in front of gathering TV cameras. “I think the public that’s watching this,” he calmly began, “you have to understand how [the protestors feel] every time they open up the paper and they see the black leadership shaking hands with Osco over certain types of arrangements. That hurts the family because what the family is seeking, it isn’t just the monetary aspect of what goes on in these cases; they want someone to be held accountable for the death of their son.”

Shortly after that, the Davis crowd dispersed, leaving a lone protester waving a laser-printed sign he’d made at Kinko’s that morning. Blue Davis (no relation to Demetrius Davis) offered a neatly typeset bromide: “Jesse Jackson: Poverty-pimping whore who divides the nation.”

Davis said he was an independent contractor who had “never done this before.” After shouting “Uncle Tom Club!” to Clinton Adams as the high-profile school-district critic left the luncheon, Davis explained that “Instead of being in there they should be out there with their khakis on, talking with the crack heads and welfare recipients, praying with them and bringing Christ into their life.”

A hotel manager had called the police when Davis stepped off the public sidewalk onto the Marriott driveway, but the cops didn’t hassle him much. Davis, however, was prepared to be arrested for civil disobedience: “I got my credit card in my pocket.”

And that, we say, is the true meaning of economic justice.