March Against Councilman Ends With Shouting Match

Accusing a black city councilman of denigrating the Latino residents of his racially mixed district, an influential community activists’ group members staged a peaceful march against the councilman Wednesday night--then goaded him into a brief shouting match before they stormed out of a community meeting.

Leaders of the Southern California Organizing Committee (SCOC) sent about 250 demonstrators, mostly Latinos, on a half-hour march from St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church on Adams Boulevard to the Golden State Mutual building a few blocks away, where Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas was hosting a meeting for residents of his 8th District.

The group, which draws from churches, block clubs and community organizations in South-Central Los Angeles, Compton, Wilmington and Inglewood, is known for its confrontational tactics and its ability to turn out large numbers of people.

Toward the end of the meeting, SCOC members began asking questions about attempts to build a supermarket at Vermont Avenue and Adams--plans that have remained on the drawing boards for nine years.

The SCOC says that it has been excluded from discussions about the store carried on among Ridley-Thomas, the Community Redevelopment Agency and various grocery chains.

Ridley-Thomas told the demonstrators: “We all want the same thing--the market to be built. . . . I am prepared to accept the sentiments of a wide variety of voices.”

But the demonstrators were not to be appeased.

One accused the councilman of a “lack of responsiveness to an ethnically and religiously diverse community in your district,” and another demanded that he sign an agreement “to work with us.”

When Ridley-Thomas replied that the group’s allegations contained “inaccuracies,” he was drowned out by repeated shouts of “Will you sign?” before he finally shot back, “I will not sign that document!” With boos and catcalls, the demonstrators stalked out.

The supermarket project is part of a long-simmering dispute between Ridley-Thomas and the largely Latino and Catholic SCOC. The councilman has angrily denied the group’s allegations that he favors blacks over Latinos, accusing the group of making a play for power through intimidation.

SCOC leaders say they are incensed by what they feel are disparaging remarks made by Ridley-Thomas last November while voting against an anti-gang program sponsored by Cardinal Roger Mahony, the SCOC and other community groups.

Ridley-Thomas said the coalition backing the program was made up “largely of white pastors and Catholic church organizations . . . without any regard for traditional leadership in the African-American community.”

“We feel he has been somewhat denigrating,” said Father William Delaney, pastor of St. Agnes. “Nor does he seem to like it when Anglo clergy lead a delegation of Latinos into dialogue with him; he seems to view it as a confrontational thing.”

Ridley-Thomas disputed that interpretation. “I think the issue of race is not to be toyed with, and if I have made denigrating remarks about any group, they should not be tolerated.”

Times staff writer Jean Merl contributed to this story.