Black America Chose

By Devin Burghart

What if you held a protest and nobody came? Ask the anti-immigrant group Choose Black America when they flew into Chicago.

CHICAGO - Marching down the sidewalk in the heart of Chicago's Puerto Rican community, five members of the anti-immigrant front group Choose Black America (CBA) headed towards the storefront Adalberto United Methodist Church for what they called "the battle of Chicago."

With covert financing from a national anti-immigrant group tied to white nationalists and logistical support from local Minutemen, it was supposed to be a sneak attack. CBA planned to inflame tensions between African Americans and immigrants by creating a spectacle at a church where a young mother and her son sought sanctuary to avoid deportation. In the end, they succeeded doing precisely the opposite.

The group chose Chicago because Ted Hayes, the wiry, grey bearded, dread-locked organizer of the California anti-immigrant Crispus Attucks Brigade pulled the same stunt earlier in the summer. In August, Hayes and members of the Minutemen provoked a confrontation at the church which captured media attention.

On this cool October Saturday afternoon, Hayes was flanked by Frank Morris of Maryland, who dressed in a big black Stetson cowboy hat. Morris is the head of CBA and also a longtime outspoken anti-immigrant activist (see Choose Black America board member profile). Marching with them was James Spencer, Terrance Lang, and Michael Copper.

They had planned to enter the church, hoping that the controversy of them being blocked entry would capture headlines, as they'd done in August. As they got closer, it quickly became apparent that something wasn't right.

Fifteen yards from the church, the group abruptly stopped, frozen in their tracks.