LOUISVILLE — At a Derby weekend civil rights rally, national African-American leaders said riots like Cincinnati's are possible in Kentucky, and one added that he would work against any plan to bring the Olympics to Cincinnati.

Dick Gregory speaks at a rally Friday in Louisville. He said he would work to keep the Olympics from Cincinnati. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

        Martin Luther King III and comedian and civil-rights activist Dick Gregory spoke of the civil unrest in Cincinnati during the rally here on Friday that organizers hoped would bring national attention to their claims of police brutality in Kentucky.

        “Unfortunately, Louisville has many of the same problems as Cincinnati,” Mr. King said in an interview after the peaceful rally of 100 protesters in Memorial Park downtown.

        “When people are oppressed, from (lack of) economic opportunity, it sets up conditions for eruptions like the one seen in Cincinnati.”

        Mr. King told the crowd he had driven in to Louisville from Cincinnati, where he stayed overnight Thursday after a day of meetings with Queen City civil rights leaders. He also attended the funeral of Timothy Thomas on April 14 in Cincinnati.

        Mr. Thomas, the unarmed black man who was shot and killed by a Cincinnati police officer, in death became a rallying point for a community frustrated by the deaths of black men in confrontations with police, sparking riots during Easter week. A grand jury was hearing evidence Friday in the case brought against the Cincinnati officer who shot Mr. Thomas.

        Mr. Gregory told the crowd he would campaign to keep the Olympics from coming to Cincinnati because of what he called police brutality in the Queen City.

        “The Olympics is over. They don't have a chance to get the Olympics anymore. There are too many black African nations that would have to vote on it, and they wouldn't dare.”

        “They never thought with companies like Procter & Gamble, some of the mightiest companies in the world, that ... some cop with a gun would cost them the Games.”

        The city is seeking to host the 2012 Olympics.

        “There are many of us that will campaign to make sure the Olympics don't go there.”

        An Evanston youth minister, Al Sewell, had said during a press conference last month that he would bring buses of protesters from Cincinnati to the rally in Louisville.

        But Mr. Sewell was not in attendance, and organizers said they didn't believe any Cincinnati residents were in the crowd. Mr. Sewell couldn't be reached by phone Friday afternoon.

        For more than four decades, civil rights activists have used Derby Week as an opportunity to call attention to their agenda while Louisville is in the national spotlight.

        Last year, about 90 activists joined Mr. King, Mr. Gregory and the Rev. Al Sharpton in a protest rally on Derby eve. One organizer, the Rev. Louis Coleman, invited Rev. Sharpton back this year, but he was out of the country.

        The Rev. Mr. Coleman linked the Cincinnati shooting of Mr. Thomas to seven cases in Louisville and Owensboro, including the deaths of African-American men who were fatally wounded by Louisville police, a white man who drowned while in police custody and a black man who died after struggling with corrections officers at the Jefferson County jail.

        Police were present at the peaceful rally in the park at Fourth and Kentucky streets in Old Louisville, and one block of Fourth Street was temporarily closed to traffic.

        “Police brutality is not unique to Louisville,” Mr. Gregory said during the rally. “It happens all over the country, and the young men are always unarmed.”

        “We are not anti-police,” the Rev. Mr. Coleman said to the protesters. “ We are anti-police criminals. We can't have two sets of rules and have a democracy.”
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