SPRINGFIELD — A group of Black pastors, politicians and others plan to follow through on threats to boycott an alternative African-American newspaper after the owner did not retract an article that referred to some as “Black Judases” and sycophants to white leaders.
Outraged over an editorial in Point of View titled “The Worst Article I Ever Wrote” in which author Frederick Hurst took multiple leaders to task for failing to publicly support his son, then-Councilor Justin Hurst, in his run to become the first Black mayor in Springfield, leaders gathered last month and demanded a retraction or an apology in the next month’s edition. They swore they would boycott the paper in its absence.
“The Point of View shouldn’t be allowed to be trafficking in hate and extreme points of view as a voice for the Black community,” said Rev. Talbert Swan, long-term president of the Springfield regional chapter of the NAACP and bishop of the Vermont Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of the Church of God in Christ, which covers five Eastern states.
The Dec. 1 article called some “Uncle Toms” and criticized Black leaders who were “conspicuously absent” when Hurst was campaigning against Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, who won reelection to his sixth term by 12,077 to 8,945 votes in November.
It described a “deep division between the Black masses” and called out leaders who were “conspicuously absent” when Justin Hurst was campaigning against Sarno, who is white and the city’s longest-serving mayor.
A list of people — Police Commissioner Robert C. Jackson, state Rep. Bud L. Williams, Rev. Jay Griffin and Rev. George Bruce, the father of City Councilor Lavar Click-Bruce — were accused of having “long ago been compromised by money and the mere illusion of personal and political power and their obsessive love of white people,” Hurst wrote in the editorial.
The fact that Hurst did not back down in his Jan. 1 edition was not a surprise, multiple leaders said on Monday. Last month, Hurst publicly said he said if he had to defend every article he wrote he would do nothing else. Hurst did not return requests seeking comment.
The front-page story in this month’s edition of the “Point of View” was a commentary on the difference between Black leaders and Black communicators by Rev. Atu White, pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, called “The Truth Hurts.”
It did not specifically name anyone but called communicators “public-facing emperors with no clothes” and said they suffer from their lack of follow-through and vision.” Leaders he said are those who have “visions to encompass the next generation” and are more concerned to with seeing those ideas advance than getting credit for them.
Instead of all unity, he called for the diverse Black community to come together to work toward common causes such as addressing food insecurity, quelling violence and improving the economy.
Swan called the article a “veiled shot at the people who Rick Hurst called out.”
Swan said the group is in the process of writing a letter that will be signed by multiple people and sent to advertisers asking them to boycott the paper.
The list of 28 advertisers for the January edition was nearly identical to those from the previous edition. Because ads are often taken out weeks and sometimes months in advance, Swan said the campaign will likely not see any results until March.
“We have supported it for years. I’ve written a monthly column for 15 years and my church and NAACP has advertised in it but we don’t like the ugly turn it has taken,” Swan said.
A lot of pastors said they will no longer allow the free paper to be distributed in their churches and the group is now planning to also ask local stores and others to stop making it available at their businesses, Swan said.
“We want to send a message you don’t speak for the Black community by slandering upstanding members of the Black community just because you couldn’t get them to support your son,” he said.
The Point of View is also available online.
Archbishop Timothy Paul Baymon, pastor of Christian Cathedral and president of the Council of Churches of Greater Springfield, said he was hoping the outcry from the Black community as well as that from those of Irish and Italian ethnicity who were also slammed in the writing, would prompt Hurst to make some concessions.
“Our goal is that this effort will silence that kind of divisive and non-ethical journalism,” he said.
The group is also talking about creating its own publication that would at least start as an online paper, he said.
City Council Vice President Melvin Edwards, who was one of three Black councilors to be criticized in the article, said he will sign the letter that is being sent to advertisers but is mostly washing his hands of the controversy and concentrating his efforts on doing the work he was elected to do.
“I don’t plan to be a leader for any place but Ward 3 where I represent everyone regardless of race, ethnicity and economic status,” he said.
Edwards said everyone has the right to free speech but they do not have the right to free speech without consequences.
“He’s educated, he is knowledgeable, he knows what he is doing,” Edwards said. “What is the value of arguing with a fool?”
