Harlem coalition protests police violence, cutbacks
1987Chris Butters 1987-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 5 →
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NEW YORK—The anti-racist and labor movements took a small but important step forward on June 11 with a demonstration at Harlem Hospital protesting a police assault on Dr. James Gibson while he was treating a patient.
Gibson, who is Black, was shoved against a wall by police in the hospital's Xray lab. When Gibson objected to a prisoner being moved while he was under treatment for a cerebral concussion, a cop pointed a gun at the doctor's head and called him a racist epithet.
In addition to calling for the four officers involved in the attack to be brought to justice, speakers at the rally linked the racist attack to cutbacks in health care.
Health-care union representatives denounced the "increasingly separate and unequal [health-care] systems—one for the rich and one for the poor." Signs carried by the 300 largely Black hospital workers and neighborhood residents included, "Cure racism!" and "Give us health care, not hardware!"
The demonstration was called by the Coalition to Save Harlem Hospital and included a number of church, labor, and community organizations. Particularly significant were the presence and support of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees District Council 37; the Committee of Interns and Residents; and Local 372 of the Social Services Employees Union.
The City Sun, one of New York's leading Black newspapers, called the demonstration "a new development in a labor-church-community coalition, both born out of necessity and common interest."
The Coalition to Save Harlem Hospital was initiated by labor and community organizations three months ago, upon the publication of a report by the state's Health Systems Agency calling for cutbacks at Harlem Hospital.
Harlem Hospital is the only hospital remaining in central Harlem, and many of the community's 250,000 residents depend upon its clinics and emergency room for care. Here, in the shadows of Wall Street, tuberculosis is 10 times the national average. The infant mortality rate is twice the national averageroughly on a par with Chile's.
Assaults in the city's ghettos are standard operating procedure for the N.Y.P.D. when its authority is questioned. The acquittal of the cop who shot and killed Eleanor Bumpurs while she was being forcibly evicted from her apartment—which is only one of many cases of police brutality in the ghetto— has sent a message to police that they can continue to get away with violence.
Thousands of working people-Black, white, Latino, and Asian-have marched Dr. James Gibson at June 11 Harlem Hospital rally against apartheid with their trade unions in recent years. Many believe it is high time they march with their unions against South Africa-style racist attacks here in New York.
William Biggart