Mayor Broome Declares May 19th Malcolm X Day

Baton Rouge is so screwed...

Per the Business Report

Broome Loves Malcom X

Former Metro Council member Joel Boé is asking Mayor Sharon Weston Broome for an explanation of why she declared May 19 Malcolm X Day in Baton Rouge, just hours after penning an open letter to the citizens of Baton Rouge calling for unity and decrying divisiveness and hate-filled rhetoric.

“Can you please help me understand your actions on May 19, 2017 before I make a quick assumption of hypocrisy on your part?” writes Boé, who also sent copies of his letter to members of the Metro Council and the media. “On the same day, your open letter to the citizens of Baton Rouge was very clear in your mission to unify our community and shut out all divisiveness.”

Boé’s letter goes on to say, “In my opinion, declaring any day as Malcolm X day only makes the divide in our city that much greater. Malcolm X rejected the civil rights movement and advocated for the separation of white and blacks. I don’t discount some of the good that he might have done in the black community, but I have also lost count as to how many racially charged statements that he made during his tenure.”

Pictures of Broome at a Malcolm X Day event in Gus Young Park on Saturday, May 20—as well as an image of the official city proclamation, which is dated May 19—circulated over the weekend on social media and on the conservative news website The Hayride.

May 19 is widely recognized as a day to honor the controversial civil rights leader, who was assassinated in 1965.

Broome’s spokesperson, Janene Tate, tells Daily Report the mayor’s participation in the Malcolm X Day event was not meant to be divisive and that the proclamation was meant to celebrate the event at Gus Young Park, not the activist leader of the early 1960s.

“This proclamation was meant to recognize an event held at Gus Young Park on Saturday,” Tate says in a written statement in response to questioning. “This was a diverse, family-oriented event promoting unity, which the mayor-president stressed in her open letter to the community this past week. The mayor-president recognizes that this event was named for Malcolm X, who, in his later writings and speeches, emphasized the need for all races to work together for progress.”

As of press time, Broome had not yet responded directly to Boé, who represented District 9 in southeast Baton Rouge from 2008 to 2016. He did not seek reelection last fall.