Blacks Vow to Buy Korean Market : Race relations: Girl was shot to death in store, sparking charges of racism and economic exploitation. Activists hope to purchase other stores as well.

Black activists launched a campaign Wednesday to buy up stores in their Los Angeles community owned by what they call “undesirable” merchants, starting with the market at which a 15-year-old African-American girl was shot to death by a Korean grocer.

“The African-American community will no longer sit back and accept disrespect, racism and murder and write it off as ‘cultural differences,’ ” Danny Bakewell, president of the Brotherhood Crusade, told a supportive crowd in front of the boarded-up market near Figueroa Street and 91st Place.

“Beginning with the Empire Liquor Market Deli, this organization will send a clear signal to merchants who attempt to rape our community of profits and pride,” Bakewell said. “We’re taking our community back.”

Bakewell said that no purchase plans have be formulated, and there has been no indication that the owners of the store have any wish to sell it.

The Brotherhood Crusade leader said he and a business partner, Lonnie Bunker, are launching the campaign with a personal donation of $5,000 for an “economic development fund” that will be used to help black people purchase and operate the stores in their neighborhoods.

Mark Ridley Thomas, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Los Angeles chapter, said his organization is donating another $5,000.

“We will be calling on friends in Hollywood,” Bakewell said. “You will see black entertainers, black athletes, black businessmen supporting this.”

The news conference in front of the market, which has been closed since shortly after the March 16 shooting, came a day after Soon Ja Du, 51, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Latasha Harlins.

The shooting occurred after Du accused the girl of shoplifting a bottle of orange juice. But police say a videotape from a security camera shows that the girl was not attempting to steal anything.

Officers said the tape corroborates accounts of two witnesses who said that, even though the girl had placed the juice in her knapsack, she was approaching the store counter with money in hand when a dispute with Du erupted.

They said that after a brief struggle with Du over the knapsack, the girl threw the juice container on the counter and was apparently trying to leave the store when she was shot once in the back of the head.

“We are not against Koreans, as such,” Bakewell said Wednesday. “We are against Koreans, and anybody else doing business, who are disrespectful to black people. . . . We are going to come out in massive force to demand that people do business in our community in an honorable way.”