Mayor Francis Slay’s words were drowned out yesterday by the boos and protests of his opponents.

Slay was trying to deliver a speech at the Old Courthouse during a ceremony honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As soon as the mayor was introduced, protesters began to shout and wave signs. Former fire chief Sherman George, whose demotion by Slay helped spark this fiery political backlash, tried to calm down the crowd down, but to no avail.

These videos are from people in the audience. The video quality is pretty low, but you can clearly hear what happened.

Last week members of the effort to recall Slay warned organizers of the MLK event that there would be problems if Slay was allowed to speak.

After Slay was booed off stage, he stormed out of the Old Courthouse and did not participate in the traditional march or ceremonies afterwards.

First the New York Times, now the Associated Press via the Boston Herald.

From yesterday’s Herald:

Few brotherhoods are as strong as the one among firefighters, who depend on one another just to stay alive. But powerful racial tensions have divided the St. Louis Fire Department and spilled over recently to City Hall.

In October, the city’s white mayor, Francis Slay, demoted black Fire Chief Sherman George after a three-year dispute over the firefighter promotion exam.

Since then, the FBI has investigated two incidents inside engine houses that were reported as possible hate crimes — one involving a stuffed monkey hung by the neck, the other a noose tied around a cracker box.

More…

George — the city’s first black chief — himself won his first promotion only because of a federal court order in 1978 that found the department’s tests for promotions discriminated against blacks. George, 63, and other black veterans of the department say racism hindered their rise at every step.

“The fire department was a country club for white folks,” said retired Capt. Baby Webber, who is black. “Then the black folks started coming in and breaking up their country club.”

Click here to read the full story.

In today’s New York Times (hat tip to the Arch City Chronicle for first noting it), former Riverfront Times reporter Malcolm Gay pens an article on the City of St. Louis’ ongoing racial problems following Mayor Francis Slay’s handling of the promotions controversy in the fire department.

In demoting Mr. George, some of those leaders said, Mr. Slay brought St. Louis race relations to a new low. Some started a petition drive in support of a mayoral recall.

“Sherman George was an African-American in one of the highest positions in the mayor’s administration — he was an icon,” said Alderman Terry Kennedy, chairman of the Aldermanic Black Caucus. “To push him out like that? You’re not doing anything but causing trouble.”

Click here to read the full article.

In response to the recent call to boycott the City of St. Louis, the Chairman of the Board and the Executive Director of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) will arrive in St. Louis tomorrow to meet separately with community leaders and Mayor Francis Slay to determine whether NSBE will cancel its national convention scheduled for 2011 in St. Louis. That’s according to the group which called for the boycott and are seeking to remove Slay from office.

By some estimates, the NSBE convention is expected to draw 15,000 visitors and generate as much as $25 million in business for the city.

According to a press release from Slay’s opponents, the head of the NSBE will meet with their group before his meeting with the Slay, and will follow that meeting with a joint press conference with the group at 1:30 PM at the Gateway Classic Foundation building.

Check back tomorrow for video.

From KSDK.com: “Slay Says More Needs To Be Done To Address Racial Divide“

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay told Channel 5 reporter Cordell Whitlock yesterday that he thinks Firefighters Union Local 73, which is white-dominated, and F.I.R.E., the African-American firefighters organization, need to come together.

But as Slay was quick to publicly remind ex-fire chief Sherman George, the mayor’s office controls the fire department. He can, as he did with George, order both sides to the table.

Instead, he has clearly sided with Local 73.

To now say “something” needs to be done by “someone” “someday” is just skirting his responsibilities once again.

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Click here to watch KSDK’s softball interview with Slay.

This whole ugly mess with the stuffed monkey hanging in Firehouse 13 has brought to light a serious problem in how the Slay Administration is running both the St. Louis Fire Department and the City.

When the media learned about this incident from a mass email sent out by a member of F.I.R.E. (the organization representing black firefighters), Mayor Francis Slay and his public safety director Charles Bryson responded a few days later by forwarding the situation F.B.I. At no time did the mayor’s office or the public safety director meet with or even call leaders of the black firefighters organization to try to dampen the flames which such an incident could ignite.

The Slay Administration’s policy with regard to the fire department is to deal only with the firefighters union, Local 73, and not the black firefighters association. The new fire chief also operates under this policy.

It is interesting that the old chief, Sherman George, was instructed by the mayor’s office to meet monthly with both organizations. But now, as F.I.R.E. vice-chair Wayne Luster noted at yesterday’s press conference, the black firefighters are no longer involved in the direction of the department, even though their membership accounts for nearly 45% of the department.

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So what is the real effect of this policy? Well, when the head of the mostly-white Local 73 was asked about the hanging monkey incident, he downplayed it and suggested there was no need for an investigation.

“[The monkey] was put on the coat rack because it was wet and it was drying,” Chris Molitor told the Post-Dispatch. As for the rope, he said it “has been attached to that coat rack for several years.”

This calls for some clarification.

First, the black firefighters organization, F.I.R.E., while not a recognized bargaining entity with the City of St. Louis, is still nonetheless clear on their mission: representing the interests of black firefighters. And like any good union, recognized or not, they push hard for the advancement of their members.

Local 73 on the other hand has long rejected its characterization as the “white firefighters union.” Its leaders say their mission is to represent all firefighters, regardless of color. However, history has not shown that to be the case. And this incident indicates that the professional needs and desires of African-American firemen and women are still not being represented by Local 73.

While Molitor and the people he represents believe that a hanging monkey means little, his African-American co-workers and his bosses (at least publicly) think it deserves serious investigation.

The fire chief and the public safety director told the media Tuesday that the department was taking the situation “very seriously.” Though, again, neither have talked to the black firefighters’ organization about it.

If Jenkerson, Bryson and Molitor think the fire department can be its best without communicating with the black firefighters organization, they are wrong. But they are not alone. This “blackout” started at the top.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay’s office — specifically his chief of staff, Jeff Rainford, and his communications director, Ed Rhode — continue to ignore St. Louis’ African-American press. No responses to inquires (the St. Louis American has not received a response in over a month). No press releases or notices of press conferences.

How long will the Slay Administration continue this “blackout”? And how long with the white press sit without comment and watch the disrespect of its African-American colleagues?

As a citywide elected official from a majority-black city, Mayor Slay actually has more black constituents than white. But that’s not how his administration sees it.

A white elected official recently told me how Slay’s chief of staff, Jeff Rainford, once suggested to him that he was wasting his time by attending meetings in north St. Louis.

“They’ll never vote for you anyway,” Rainford told this official.

Is that how we’re going to operate in this city? Elected officials only recognizing the importance of half their constituents?

Where’s the outrage among more of our white citizens — our white journalists, our white firefighters, our white elected officials?

I can only hope it is because they sincerely don’t know what’s going on.

I’d hate to think that you are OK with our city being divided as it is today by the people in Room 200.

Leaders of the city’s black firefighters association said today that Mayor Francis Slay’s removal of Fire Chief Sherman George has created an “energized atmosphere of defiance and intolerance” among some white firefighters, and it is in that atmosphere that a toy monkey was left hanging from a makeshift noose at a northside fire house over the weekend.

The F.B.I. has been notified of this possible hate crime, but Abram Pruitt and Wayne Luster, co-chairs of F.I.R.E., said no one from the Mayor’s office nor Public Safety Director Charles Bryson had bothered contacting F.I.R.E. regarding this incident, despite the organization representing 98% of African-American members of the department.

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The following statement comes from F.I.R.E., the African-American firefighters association:

Almost 50 years ago Black firefighters for the City of St Louis were told by white firefighters that they could not attend the firefighters’ barbecue.

Those African American firefighters were given $5.00 by the white firefighters and instructed to go have their own function—-because of the color of their skin they were not welcome at any firefighters’ event in the City of St Louis. It was out of that incident that F.I.R.E. was founded.

African American firefighters understood then that the racism that infected the fire department could not be cured from the inside out.

Unfortunately little has changed with regard to acts of hate directed at black firefighters.

A few days ago a stuffed monkey was hung by a noose in a northside firehouse. This act of hate comes shortly after the first African American fire chief was forced out and replaced with a lesser qualified white firefighter.

F.I.R.E. (Firefighters Institute for Racial Equality) is demanding that the City of St Louis respond to this act of hate properly and F.I.R.E. is also requesting a Federal Investigation.

F.I.R.E. is holding a press conference today at 5:00 PM at their headquarters, 1020 North Taylor Ave.

Burning Crosses, Hanging Monkies. No, not quite the title of a new Wire Fu movie starring Chow Yung Fat. Just the latest chapter in St. Louis’ never-ending story of racists behaving badly.

On the same day that a special House committee heard testimony on why the State of Missouri should finally apologize for years of recognizing Africans as the legal property of others, two reports highlight the struggle for racial harmony that still exists today.

The FBI was notified this week of a cross-burning in the nearby town of Belleville, IL.

From the Post-Dispatch:

Police here are investigating a burning cross that was found Saturday in a black man’s yard on the 3600 block of Sheridan.

Police said a neighbor had seen the 5 foot cross about 11 a.m. Saturday. The resident had not seen a cross when he got home at 1 a.m. the night before. The bottom of the cross burned, and racial slurs were written on it with a black permanent marker.

And in the recently beleaguered St. Louis fire department, where tensions have been high for weeks following Mayor Francis Slay’s removal of the city’s first black fire chief, a stuffed toy monkey was found hanging in an engine house.

Chris Molitor, head of the predominantly-white firefighters union, Local 73, played down the incident, telling the Post that the stuffed animal was found at a fire several weeks ago by firefighters at the station.

“It was put on the coat rack because it was wet and it was drying,” Molitor said. As for the rope, he said, it “has been attached to that coat rack for several years.”

Despite Molitor’s explanation, the black firefighters union and the new fire chief, Dennis Jenkerson, are said to be taking the incident “very seriously.”

The group representing African-Americans in the St. Louis Fire Department today called on Mayor Francis Slay to address the issues of their members — which account for 44% of the department — and no longer deal exclusively with the so-called “white firefighters union,” Local 73.

Addington Stewart, the chairman of the Firefighters Institute on Racial Equality (F.I.R.E.), also said that only this week was he informed by St. Louis police that they were about to begin an investigation into allegations of cheating by white firefighters on the 2004 promotions exam — three years after the alleged cheating occurred and after promotions have been made off a possibly tainted list.

Stewart said F.I.R.E. wants to see an independent investigation performed by a federal agency, not local police.