R.I.P. Brother Ron Scott

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Ron Scott, longtime civil rights activist and head of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality has died, say community leaders and mayor chief of staff. 2013 photo by Kathleen Galligan, Detroit Free Press.

 

Detroit Civil Rights Advocate Ron Scott Dies at 68

 

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Ron Scott at the NAACP Detroit branch.

Longtime civil rights activist Ron Scott, founder of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, has died of cancer, the Arab American Newsreports. He was 68.

An alumnus of the University of Michigan, he had been a political consultant and media adviser to Mayor Coleman A. Young and Congressman John Conyers. He described himself as a co-founder of the Black Panther Party chapter in Detroit.

More recently, he spoke at activist Grace Lee Boggs’ 100th birthday party in June.

Hiis coalition protested police shootings and he was among a group that spoke out in 2013 when the Detroit Police Department’s decided to hire consultants with a conservative group that promoted a controversial stop-and-frisk program in New York City.

Admirers Sunday night post condolences on his Facebook page and in tweets.

“I shed a tear for my comrade and friend. He was always working to change the world for us — keeping us aware — and walking the talk. He is one of a kind and will be truly missed,” writes Alesia Williams of Detroit.

Major Mike Duggan’s chief of staff tweets:

Andy Arena, the former head of the Detroit FBI, who now heads up the Detroit Crime Commission, dealt with Scott over the years while at the FBI. He told Deadline Detroit Sunday night:

“Ron and I never saw eye-to-eye on much, but I always respected his passion.”

This reaction is from a Detroit police commissioner:

Scott grew up in the Jeffries Projects in Detroit ” where my political and social worldview was shaped by an astute single mother who eventually earned a degree and became a teacher, and by conservative as well as progressive teachers who angered, challenged and ultimately inspired me,” he wrote on his own webpage. “I was accepted into the University of Michigan in 1965, before Affirmative Action was in place to ensure educational equity.”

“I was fortunate to have participated in the famous 1963 Detroit March, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. previewed his famous ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in Washington, D.C. later that year. A few years later, in the middle of my U-M attendance, I heard an electrifying Kathleen Cleaver speak at Detroit’s St. Matthew/St. Joseph Church and found myself co-founding Detroit’s Black Panther Party Chapter.

During controversial police actions, Scott was often quoted in newspaper articles and interviewed on TV.

He described himself as a “Transformational Anthropologist.”

“I am deeply interested and engaged in activities and projects that change human and social behavior in the direction of peace and reconciliation,” he wrote on his website. “I am a political/social activist, a political consultant, a radio/television host and a documentary producer and chronicler of history.”

 

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