Frustrated youth struggle to find hope in long-troubled Michiga

BENTON HARBOR, Mich. -- They gather in front yards, ride bicycles and walk the streets of this southwest Michigan town where young people have plenty of one thing: time on their hands.

Dante Allen is one of them. The 22-year-old has been looking for a job for weeks since returning to his native Benton Harbor from Atlanta, where he had worked in a grocery store bakery.

But jobs are scarce here. And with few summer recreation programs or facilities, even free time is difficult to fill in a city where nearly half the population is younger than 25.

"There's nothing to do," Allen says, sitting with a friend in the shade of a maple tree outside his family's home. "We can't even pull out a basketball rim on the curb without somebody getting mad."

These are the same streets where rioting erupted two weeks ago after Terrance Shurn, a young black man, crashed his motorcycle while fleeing police from a neighboring township.

Dozens of people were injured and several houses were torched in a two-day melee that, on the surface, was about black youth protesting the actions of white police officers. But many of the predominantly black town's residents say Shurn's death was just the spark that ignited anger over a host of issues -- poverty and unemployment among them.

"People just hit their boiling point," says Dennis Sims, a black 24-year-old father of two who was laid off from his telemarketing job six weeks ago. "They just couldn't take it no more."

State Police helped patrol the city for a few days, and it has been quiet since. But Sims says it will take more than a visit from Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who came to town shortly after the riots and promised to help to solve deep-seated problems in Benton Harbor.

Racial divisions

Here, according to the latest census, nearly two-thirds of the housing is rental and the median household income is $17,471.

Just across the river in St. Joseph -- a relatively prosperous tourist town on Lake Michigan -- the median income is more than twice that. The communities are often compared because of their proximity and because their racial makeup is so different: Benton Harbor is 92 percent black; St. Joseph is 90 percent white.

Author Alex Kotlowitz detailed the racial and economic divide between the two towns in his book "The Other Side of the River," an investigation of the 1991 death of a black teenager last seen in St. Joseph.

After witnessing residents put up with frustrations for so long, Kotlowitz says he was surprised the riots happened now.

Most young people in Benton Harbor don't condone the violence. But given the national attention it drew, 14-year-old Dennis Davis has come to a conclusion.

"I guess that's what it takes to get people to notice us -- to do something that's not right," he says, standing with a group of friends.

The boys talk about their dreams -- to be doctors and engineers. They also express dismay at seeing houses a few blocks away burned to the ground and are skeptical about the governor's pledge to help.

Granholm on Friday announced the appointment of a task force to examine the underlying issues that fueled the riots and to make recommendations for helping the city, such as adding after-school activities and job training and improving police-community relations. Next week, the state plans to announce funding for summer jobs in the town.

The goal is to "develop an aggressive plan to make certain that Benton Harbor is not left behind and that its future is filled with hope," Granholm said Friday.

"I just don't think she'll do it," says Khrystoffer King, 14. "She just came here to calm things down."

But Police Chief Samuel Harris remains hopeful. He talks about a "rebirth" for a city that fell on economic hard times in the 1960s, after white residents and white-owned factories and foundries began moving to St. Joseph.

Today, Harris notes the city's small but growing Arts District, which includes a few galleries, a book store and a new restaurant. He points from outside the police station to a high-rise being renovated for senior housing and notes that Whirpool Corp. built its headquarters on the edge of town.

"It will come back. And young people will be a big part of helping that happen," he insists.

Tamika Miller, a 21-year-old Benton Harbor resident who works two jobs to make ends meet, also has a sense that things will be "a little better."

But, sitting at a dinner for family and friends of the young motorcyclist who died, she said she still thinks about leaving the town where she grew up, perhaps for Indianapolis or another larger city.

"I know there's something better for me," she says, pausing. "Somewhere else."

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Martha Irvine can be reached at mirvine(at)ap.org