"Occupy" Comes To The Senior PGA!?
/John Strege reports on the Champions Tour geezers being greeted at this week's Senior PGA in Benton Harbor, Michigan with protestors demanding "partial compensation for stolen land and water" for the city.
The protest organizer, Rev. Edward Pinkney, said that his group does not plan to interrupt play. "We don't want to cause a tremendous disturbance," he said Friday, "we just want to make them sit down with us."
Pinkney said he expects only 300 to 400 protesters to show up on Wednesday, but on Saturday, "we're expecting thousands and thousands of people to show. The main thing we want to accomplish is that we want them to come to the table and sit down with us -- the PGA, along with Harbor Shores, Whirlpool and KitchenAid."
KitchenAid, which has headquarters in Benton Harbor, is the presenting sponsor. Whirlpool is KitchenAid's parent company.
"Benton Harbor is $5 million in the red," Pinkney said. "Our goal is that we can knock off some of that $5 million if they decide to come and help the city."
You may recall that Benton Harbor was the subject of a New York Times Magazine cover story earlier this year.