Gaining Confidence
By Chelsea Conaboy
They picketed BayWalk for eight months, gaining some support, especially from young shoppers. Finally, as the trial approached for Keith "Mtundu" Stewart, the man for whom they rallied every Friday night, the Uhuru Movement leaders say they saw victory – twice.
Last Friday, June 11, the BayWalk shopping center announced changes to its dress code that eliminated policies the Uhuru leaders said were targeting the black community. On Monday, June 14, Stewart's case was settled. The original felony charge of inciting a riot was reduced to a misdemeanor for obstructing justice without violence, and Stewart filed a guilty plea.
Some Uhuru leaders are celebrating both developments as a triumph for the group, saying the pressure they put on BayWalk to change also pushed the state attorney's office to a settlement. The results emboldened their efforts, according to Sateesh Rogers, director of organizations for the African People's Socialist Party, a subgroup of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM).
"This is a serious indication that if the people organize and resist, they can win," Rogers said.
From Sideways Hats to a Settlement
The Uhurus first began their Friday night picketing on the corner of Second Street North, and Second Avenue North, after Stewart was arrested on Oct. 3, 2003. Police said he was yelling profanities and threats at the police as they arrested another man at a bar at BayWalk. Stewart was charged with inciting a riot, a felony charge, and with a misdemeanor charge for resisting arrest without violence.
As the protests continued for months, Craig Sher, CEO of the Sembler Co., which owns BayWalk, asked the Urban League to act as a neutral party in organizing a meeting with the Uhuru leaders. Concern about the dress code policy surfaced, and the Urban League put together a committee to suggest changes.
Dawn Cecil, assistant professor of criminology for the University of South Florida who helped review the policy, said the committee determined that BayWalk was "enforcing rules against people for how they look instead of how they behave."
Following the suggestions of the committee, BayWalk changed the policy prohibiting styles such as wearing a baseball cap sideways or backwards or wearing one pant leg rolled. The guidelines were replaced with statements prohibiting offensive or suggestive clothing.
As a result of the dress code changes, the Uhurus stopped protesting, although the focus of the protests had been the Stewart case and not the dress code.
"There wasn't any deal made," according to Sher. "But the results, I guess, were acceptable [to the Uhurus]."
But to the Uhurus, the change in the policy was about more than the tangible dress code. Rather, it put Keith Stewart's case into a new context.
According to Rogers, the changes showed that it would be difficult to prove a case against Stewart when BayWalk had essentially admitted, in the course of reforming the policy, that it had inequitable practices in place at the time of Stewart's arrest.
Penny Hess, who is the chairperson of the African People's Solidarity Committee, a group comprised mostly of white community members who support the goals of InPDUM, said the new context of the case could show that the police were singling Stewart out.
By admitting that the dress code had been aimed at a certain group, BayWalk was "admitting that they had policies that did [target the young African community]."
'A Political Case'
Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe and others do not agree that the Stewart case was influenced by the policy changes at BayWalk. McCabe said that on Friday it was clear in his mind that the case would settle even before he was aware of the dress code changes announced that afternoon.
While he would not discuss the details of the case, McCabe said that, "it's never over until it's over."
And it wasn't over until Monday morning.
According to Stewart's attorney, Maura Kiefer, "[the case] was in a constant state of flux."
Kiefer said she was still unsure of the status of the deal up until the morning it was finalized. The trial was set for Wednesday. She said lawyers in the state attorney's office had told her they wanted to wait and see what happened over the weekend, but she did not understand what that referred to.
"I've never had them say anything like that to me before," she said.
But, Kiefer said she was unsure whether the policy changes at BayWalk made a direct difference in the case.
"They were two separate, yet related, things," she said.
Rogers said it made sense to him that the state attorney's office would not recognize a connection between the two events.
"It would be political disaster for [McCabe] to say that the struggle at BayWalk affected the charges," he said. "This was a political case."
Hess also said that Stewart's struggle was a political one, and the state lost.
The case revealed a two-tiered policing practice, Hess said, the same one that was hidden in the former dress code policies in which there is one way of handling white people and an alternate "containment policy" for black people.
"This is a really great victory because it exposes [this inequity] and it pushes it back," Hess said. "And, it gives the African community a little bit of space."
St. Petersburg Police Chief Chuck Harmon said the two issues had no bearing on each other. He said, while there may have been a disparity in the treatment of shoppers at BayWalk under the dress code, it did not have anything to do with Stewart.
Sher had a similar opinion.
"Personally, I just think it was interesting timing," he said. "They're really two independent events."
But the Uhurus said the timing was about more than just this weekend. To them, the settlement was a successful end to an eight-month struggle.
Stewart said he hopes that others will look at him and his supporters and say, "If this guy stood up for what was right, then all of us can stand up for what is right."
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