Bull Connor by another name
In 1963, Martin Luther King was jailed for speaking out against housing inequality, and other inequities. Sixty years later, Midland Heart Ltd is ready to jail Black tenants repeating King's words: "racist" and "white supremacist".
10 April 1963, Eugene "Bull" Connor got an injunction banning Martin Luther King protesting inequality in Birmingham, Alabama.
King defied the injunction. Two days later, Connor had his revenge. He jailed King from where he wrote his "Letter from Birmingham Jail".
Bull Connor was a white supremacist who controlled Alabama police. Connor used fire hoses, iron-bars, dogs, and batons to suppress civil right activists.
King was a civil right activist. His campaign to end inequalities included “housing discrimination”.
King knew diverse housing teams best served local communities.
Diversity meant BAME at all management levels, “the upgrading in position and hiring of blacks,” King said.
In 1966 he said: “Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children”.
For ten years a black tenant has asked Midland Heart “to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children”. Midland Heart Ltd is a social housing landlord in Birmingham, UK.
60 years after Connor jailed King, Midland Heart’s black tenants risk injunction, eviction, and jail for repeating King’s words demanding equal opportunity.
King described Connor as a “racist” and “white supremacist”.
Midland Heart says the phrases “racist” and “white supremacist” are racist language. A black tenant is guilty of anti-social behaviour, if he uses such phrases to describe Midland Heart staffs’ acts of discrimination.
A tenant repeating King’s words to describe a racist and white supremacist breaches Midland Heart’s tenancy agreement.
Section 5 of the Anti-social, Crime and Policing Act 2014 gives Midland Heart power to apply to a court for an anti-social behaviour injunction banning the tenant using Kings words.
If the tenant follows King’s example and defies the injunction, Midland Heart like Connor can jail the tenant.
We can best honour the memory of Martin Luther King by asking parliament to stop Midland Heart using the law to punish anti-racists.
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.