Rally in Washington to Commemorate 37th Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' Speech
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Martin Luther King III and the Reverend Al Sharpton met yesterday with Attorney General Janet Reno and other officials to press for a federal ban on racial profiling by law enforcement agencies. The Clinton administration reportedly is looking into the possibility of cutting off federal funds to state and local governments that permit the controversial practice. Racial profiling will be a prominent theme today in Washington during a march to commemorate the 37th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Gary Nurenberg in Washington has more.</s>GARY NURENBERG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. King's dreams of racial harmony galvanized a divided America in 1963 and helped create his legacy. But don't expect a celebration of old victories over the segregation Dr. King so despised. His son says this weekend's rally is to draw attention to contemporary racial issues.</s>MARTIN LUTHER KING III, RALLY LEADER: We've seen police brutality and misconduct and racism at a whole new level. We saw in Philadelphia police officers jumping over cars, coming to beat up a man who was a suspect, to apprehend him. Racism is institutionalized, so it doesn't matter what color the police officer is. It's how that individual was programmed.</s>NURENBERG (on camera): Some of the activists who are here this weekend weren't even alive when Dr. King gave that speech at the March on Washington, but they say they've learned lessons from Dr. King, lessons they can apply to issues that confront them this year.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It makes sense that we would join in this anniversary, particularly around the issues stemming around racial profiling and police brutality.</s>NURENBERG: Organizers say those issues and the death penalty make this year's march particularly important.</s>KING: This is an election year. And all the candidates need to address this issue.</s>NURENBERG: Thirty-seven years later, Dr. King's followers believe his dreams are still far from coming true. Gary Nurenberg for CNN, Washington.</s>O'BRIEN: For more on what organizers hope to accomplish with today's rally, we're joined from Washington by the Reverend Al Sharpton. Thanks for being with us, reverend.</s>REV. AL SHARPTON, RALLY ORGANIZER: Thank you, thank you.</s>O'BRIEN: All right. This is a difficult problem to quantify. I'm talking specifically about racial profiling. How are you able to get a handle on it? Because quite oftentimes there are other reasons a person could be stopped by a police officer, otherwise legitimate reasons. How have you been able to quantify it?</s>SHARPTON: Well, two ways. Last June I met with Attorney General Reno and President Clinton, with other leaders, and which the president gave an executive order to collect the data from a federal level of the race of people who are apprehended or arrested. I urged her yesterday with Martin III, since we are co-convening this march, to, now that you have data, now you must do something about the data and have some penalty for those that engage in this. The second way is, we have officers around the country, particularly in Illinois and New Jersey and other places, that have come forward and said that this is a policy they've been instructed to do. So you're not guessing, which is why we're saying the executive order should bar federal funds where there's proven patterns. If you can bring officers forward that says, My superiors say that you should look at a profile of a black as a criminal, then you're not speculating. That's policy.</s>O'BRIEN: All right. But in many cases this is sort of a wink and a nod kind of policy, this isn't codified or put on paper. So it puts...</s>SHARPTON: Well, it is a wink and a nod, but it's also -- if someone is saying, These are the instructions given at the station house, or at the state patrol bunker, and this can be established and corresponds with the data that is collected, then clearly you have a case to bring someone in on a -- some entity in on the problem. There's -- you have no law or executive order to bring them in on them at this point if you can prove it. You prove it against what law or against what executive order?</s>O'BRIEN: All right, having said all of that, though, do you think this is something that can be legislated out of existence?</s>SHARPTON: I think clearly it can. I think the fact is, several years ago when we started, for example, in New Jersey, New York, and other places talking about racial profiling, people said that, Oh, Sharpton, you're just exaggerating. Now people are acknowledging that it's true. So clearly I think that you can regulate behavior, particularly of people that work for government. You can't change the attitudes, but you can certainly regulate their behavior and put a check and balance system in place.</s>O'BRIEN: How much do you think having more African-American police officers and state troopers on the ranks, how much would that help?</s>SHARPTON: It would help to some degree. But then again, you have situations like in Philadelphia where we're fighting. Some of the black cops were involved. So I think that again, you can start there, but you must deal with training, you must deal with the real mentality of police, in that in some cases, not all, but in some cases feel that they're above the law. So it doesn't help me any to fear that I'm going to be beaten by a black cop rather than a white cop. I don't want to be beaten by any cop.</s>O'BRIEN: So when you -- you talk about Philadelphia, we're shifting somewhat into the area of police brutality...</s>SHARPTON: Correct.</s>O'BRIEN: ... and we'll talk about that. How can you be certain that what we're talking about is a racial issue?</s>SHARPTON: Well, it is our argument that the cops that beat Mr. Jones in Philadelphia wouldn't have done the same to a white suspect, even the black cops. So even black cops can engage in racial profiling, because in our judgment, they would know that they couldn't have got away with doing that to a white suspect.</s>O'BRIEN: Well, but, you know, you got to remember, let's set up that scene for just a moment. That was after a long chase, the suspect in that case allegedly stole a police car. He was pulled out from the police car. There was -- they felt there was bodily harm headed their way. Are you -- how can you say for certain that that would not have happened to a white suspect?</s>SHARPTON: Well, first of all, he's laying on the ground as he's being stomped. I don't see the bodily harm that they are facing. And secondly, there's been any number of thousands of white suspects arrested in Philadelphia. We've never seen that kind of behavior. And you would ask yourself, pursuing him, if he's to be pursued, he should be apprehended. They should not become the judge, the jury, and the executioner. I've seen organized crime figures arrested in Philadelphia and never seen them operated at that level of brutality. Why are they more afraid of a guy on the ground than they do that people who have so-called hired killers working for them?</s>O'BRIEN: All right. (inaudible) the march that you're calling Redeem the Dream, explain why calling it Redeeming the Dream, 37 years after the famous March on Washington, do you feel as if the dream, as it were, has lost its way?</s>SHARPTON: I think that the dream in many ways has been ignored, distorted. We feel that in many ways the American public does not understand that part of that dream was clearly Dr. King talking about not judging people by the color of their skin, which is racial profiling. He even addressed police brutality. And we're also going to challenge many in our own community that have in some ways benefited from the civil rights movement but have not engaged in the struggle. So my address this afternoon will challenge both sides. Martin King III and I will keynote this. And it will be a double-edged sword. We want to remind people of the black community, that whatever we enjoy is a result of sacrifice and struggle, so we should take it more seriously. And we want to challenge America that we must finish the journey toward racial justice. You will never have racial harmony until you have racial justice.</s>O'BRIEN: The Reverend Al Sharpton is a co-organizer of the march he's calling Redeem the Dream. Thanks for being with us, and thanks for your patience with some breaking news today, reverend, we appreciate it.</s>SHARPTON: Thank you.</s>O'BRIEN: All right.