Activists Planning Interstate Blockade

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Protesters who staged last week's human interstate blockade say they'll do it again Friday, but state highway officials are working hard to get them to change their minds.

"We anticipate the turnout will be in thousands," said Eric Vickers, a civil rights attorney and spokesman for black groups that blocked traffic on Interstate 70 near downtown July 12.

"This issue has really taken hold in the African-American community because the discrimination is so blatant," Vickers said. "It's going to keep growing. It's not going to go away because the

tate wants to whitewash it."

But Lee Kling, chairman of the Highway and Transportation Commission, said that's not the intent.

He said the state is eager to send more road construction business to minority-owned companies, but it's up to the black community to establish those companies. The state would be there for encouragement and technical help, Kling said.

"We cannot put in quotas for minorities; it's illegal," Kling said. "But we can try to do all we can to help these businesses develop and bid on the work and put more people in the minority

ommunity to work."

An estimated 300 demonstrators blocked traffic, and 125 were arrested for impeding the flow of traffic and failing to obey a police officer. The same groups have promised another morning rush-hour blockade Friday, this time along U.S. Highway 40 (Interstate 64), a major route into downtown from St. Louis' western suburbs.

Vickers said that blockade was "still on, but we are working very hard on both sides to try to resolve this prior to that time."

The Department of Transportation has said that two of the disputed I-70 contracts were awarded when federal law required states to ensure 10 percent of the work go to minority- and women-owned firms.

The state has exceeded that figure; more than 14 percent of the subcontracting work on the two projects has gone to minority-owned companies.

MO-KAN, a minority contractor assistance group, and Vickers have called for 25 percent of the contract work to go to minority-owned businesses and 35 percent of the work force to be comprised of minority workers.

Federal law requires states to base the minority contracting goals on the availability of disadvantaged firms. MO-KAN and Missouri officials, however, have been unable to provide specific figures for subcontractors owned by minorities and women. They also have been unable to say how many minorities are working on the Interstate 70 project.

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