Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [137]
Jurkiewicz was told by her manager on various occasions that: “Black people don’t mind being called niggers… They drive big cars… They’re lazy… They usually make trouble… They talk back, have no respect… They all look alike.”
This was the 1980s, and this story simply seemed too rotten to be true. This was not the South of the 1950s. This was Michigan, a state that bordered Canada. And this was Howard Johnson’s, a respected national chain of restaurants and hotels, not Billy Bob’s Grits and Grinders. I asked Carole if she would sign a sworn affidavit attesting to these facts, and both she and another employee did so.
To further verify it, I decided to see what would happen if a black friend of mine went over to Howard Johnson’s to apply for a job. Lamont went in, filled out an application, and left. Then Dan, a white guy, went in a half hour later to also apply for a job.
The next day, Carole brought me copies of both apps, and sure enough, the white applicant had a big red star plastered on top of his form. Lamont’s, though, had none.
It was then time for part two of the sting. George Moss, an African-American teacher at Flint’s Beecher High School, walked into Howard Johnson’s the following evening, and asked for a room. Outside, on the lawn, I lay facedown on the grass so no one inside could see me. I crept closer to the window where I had, with my long-lens 35mm camera, a clear view of the front desk. And, sure enough, as I snapped through a roll of film, George was turned away after being told that there were “no vacancies.”
Ten minutes later I motioned for Mark, a white guy, to head in to try and get a room. “No problem,” the man behind the counter said, and signed him up for a single with a double bed—all of this, of course, captured by my camera.
I put it all in the Flint Voice, and it wasn’t long before the civil rights commission brought the hammer down on Howard Johnson’s (they were ordered to pay a $30,000 fine to one of the black women who had applied for a job and been denied). There would now be one less business that would discriminate in Flint—and one less business to advertise in the Flint Voice.
Doing stories like this every month for ten years had the uncanny knack of depleting advertising revenue, and I began to see why the larger media is loathe to tell the public the truth about anything that may cost them cash. Before long the Voice was the pariah of not only the business community in Flint but also of its political establishment (which was owned by the business community) and the local media (also dependent on the same advertising revenue).
By the end of 1985, with unemployment in Flint well above 20 percent, there were fewer and fewer ways available to fund the Voice. Our main benefactor had been the wonderful folksinger Harry Chapin. Years earlier, I had snuck backstage at a concert of his in Grand Rapids. A security guard grabbed me as I approached Harry’s dressing-room door.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he barked at me.
“Oh, I’m just stopping by to see Harry,” I said matter-of-factly.
“The hell you are,” he said, as he started to drag me away by my collar. The commotion was loud enough to cause Harry to open his door.
“What’s going on out here?” Harry asked.
“This guy says he was coming to see you,” the bouncer said.
“Well—let him come see me!”
The guard reluctantly let me go and I walked into Harry’s room.
“So, you wanted to see me?” Harry asked, smiling.
“Uh, yeah, I’m so sorry about causing a ruckus. I just wanted to ask you a favor.”
“Shoot.”
“Well, a bunch of us in Flint want to start an alternative paper and we were wondering if maybe you could help us by coming to Flint and doing a benefit.”
As I said the words, I could not believe how presumptuous