National civil rights leaders who visited Cincinnati this weekend pledged their support to the boycott of the city, adding momentum just as a major summer convention heeded the boycott and pulled out.

Events announced at Sunday's rally

• April 4: “Black Power Day,” noon to 1 p.m. at Fountain Square, downtown.     • April 5: “Take a Sick Day of Racism Off Work.”     • April 7: “March for Justice” at 3 p.m. at Fountain Square.     The Rev. Damon Lynch III also asked that April 5, 6 and 7 be days of fasting and praying to prepare for the April 7 anniversary of Timothy Thomas' death.

        At a Sunday rally at New Prospect Baptist Church in Over-the-Rhine that drew more than 200 people, New York civil rights activist Al Sharpton vowed boycotters would be financially backed by other civil rights leaders if they are sued.

        The Coalition for a Just Cincinnati, one of the groups pushing the boycott, sued the managers of the Aronoff Center for the Arts on Friday, saying they tried to intimidate boycotters into silence with the threat of a lawsuit for asking performers to stay away from the embattled city.

        On Saturday, an arts association spokesman said the group would file its lawsuit this week.

        “I don't know how somebody sues you to spend their money with them!” the Rev. Mr. Sharpton yelled as the audience laughed and cheered.

        “None of us can sit anywhere in this nation and let anyone make a legal precedent out of suing people for the right to boycott,” he said. “We will stand and fight against that lawsuit.”

        Saturday night, Martin Luther King III joined the Rev. Mr. Sharpton, Cincinnati Black United Front (BUF) President Damon Lynch III and BUF members to show their support of the boycott.

        Mr. King also has endorsed the boycotts called for by BUF and Coalition for a Just Cincinnati. He pledged his support.

        Mr. King, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and son of the slain civil rights leader, said his organization has a database of more than 5,000 that would be “sympathetic” to the issues Cincinnati blacks are facing.

New York civil rights activist Al Sharpton. (Craig Ruttle photo) | ZOOM |

        He said the SCLC plans to send letters to all of them telling them not to come to Cincinnati until substantial economic and police reform has occurred.

        “My impression is there clearly should have been more dialogue between city leaders and black leaders,” Mr. King said. “This boycott is going to continue gaining steam unless the community leaders, and it will probably have to be the business community, steps up and says it's time to talk.”

        The civil-rights leaders' visit came as the boycott got a boost Saturday when the Progressive National Baptist Convention announced it would not hold its 10,000-member session in Cincinnati this summer.

        The church's decision to go elsewhere for its annual August event is a major victory for BUF and the Coalition, two of the groups who organized the boycott of downtown businesses and events because of perceived racial injustices.

        The loss of the weeklong convention, with more than 10,000 Baptists nationwide attending, will cost Cincinnati businesses millions of dollars.

        Also at Sunday's rally, the Rev. Mr. Lynch, New Prospect's pastor, renewed a call for Cincinnati Police Chief Thomas Streicher to leave his job.

        “Fire, quit,” the Rev. Mr. Lynch said. “If they're going to let all these officers walk away then that only leaves the chief of police to be held accountable for the misconduct of his officers.”

        Boycotters are angry that two Cincinnati officers involved in police-intervention deaths either have left the force or are leaving the department to work at suburban ones before internal investigations of the incidents are complete.

        The Rev. Mr. Lynch also called for city officials to quickly settle lawsuits filed against the city and police department by families whose relatives were involved in police-intervention deaths.

        He noted that the city recently settled with the family of an Alzheimer's patient for $700,000 after a Cincinnati police officer was accused of body-slamming him.

        In contrast, those who were hit by Cincinnati police firing bean-bag ammunition last April were offered from $1,000 to $8,000, he said. .

        Chief Streicher and Mayor Charlie Luken could not be reached for comment Sunday night. But police spokesman Lt. Kurt Byrd said the demand for the police chief to go is nothing new from boycotters.

        “They have had that demand from the beginning,” Lt. Byrd said. “That's been their demand all along.”

        The Rev. Mr. Sharpton and Mr. King were in Cincinnati over the weekend to celebrate the Rev. Mr. Fred Shuttlesworth's 80th birthday and the Rev. H.L. Harvey's 25 years at New Friendship Baptist Church in Avondale. The Rev. Mr. Sharpton spoke Sunday at New Prospect and at Allen Temple AME Church in Bond Hill.

        E-mail jedwards@enquirer.com and kaldridge@enquirer.com

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