Chairman Sekú is running for Denver mayor. (Jon Murray, The Denver Post)
Denver City Council members and Mayor Michael Hancock are long familiar with a social justice activist who goes by the name Chairman Sekú. The question that will be answered Tuesday: Are Denver voters?
The frequent speaker at city meetings to challenge Hancock for re-election, along with Paul Noël Fiorino and Marcus Giavanni. Sekú — whose legal name is Stephan E. Evans — says he marshaled several supporters from among Denver’s homeless and downtrodden to collect signatures for his ballot petition, amassing 800-plus back in February and March.
Like the other challengers in the Denver election, he hasn’t raised a dime, a big reason why analysts expect Hancock to sail to re-election on Tuesday.
But Sekú, 62, says he and his supporters have knocked on thousands of doors to convert voters to his side. He’s all confidence, aiming to prove everyone wrong. He’s listed first on the ballot, by drawing, and simply as “Sekú” because state law doesn’t allow titles on the ballot.
The northeast Park Hill resident is a passionate speaker whose activism goes back to his teenage years, when he says he adopted the Ethiopian-rooted name Sekú around the time he joined up locally with the Black Panther movement. At a Five Points coffee shop Monday, he brought up the early underestimation of boxer Muhammad Ali when he fought against bigger opponents, then confounded commentators who doubted him. In campaign appeals, Sekú says he’s “ready for the revolution” that his victory would bring to Denver.
Community activist Chairman Sekú sounds off at a Denver Sheriff Department community forum in September 2014.
(Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)
I met Sekú after failing to connect with him before writing . Here is part of our conversation, edited for length. (By the way, while the photo at top was taken Monday, Sekú requested that I also use this file photo to the left. He’s fond of it.)
Why did you decide to run for mayor? Whatap your motivation?
ú: Well, I’m going to tell you, the truth is I had no idea ever in my life that I would ever run for public office. I’ve been throwing bricks at the system my whole life, since I was 18 years old, when I joined the Black Panther Party. After being down at City Council for five years, since 2010 — making over 150 video presentations — I have a body of work, and I have an audience that looks forward to me just showing up. And then, I was laying up in bed one night. I said, “You know what? All that research I did would be for nothing if I didn’t close this out and go on and have a regime change.”
Because I discovered those folks down at City Council, that game is fixed. Before you even go down there, they’re already bought and sold by developers, labor unions and a diseased way of thinking called stankin’ thinkin’ and a funky way of treating somebody. Because itap about me, myself and I, and my career and my lifestyle, and me having this job and having this social status. So they’re all bought.
Whatap the revolution?
ú: The revolution is a regime change where you replace the paradigm of money over humanity, where now itap people and money, not people versus money. Because money is a tool, (and you can) use it properly, with real intent, to increase the happiness and joy of the people that you serve. See, this is about pursuit of happiness. Now I’m going beyond pursuit, I’m talking about the achievement of happiness, alright? That I’m not spending my life chasing a depreciating asset. The dollar’s always gone down. (And) you’ve got poor, working poor and homeless people dying every day.
If you’re elected mayor, what do you want to do first?
ú: Well, first thing is this: You’ve got to stop this killin’ of unarmed citizens, whether it be by the police or other citizens. Now, when it comes to the police, there’s no excuse for that. C’mon, man. You’re supposed to be trained to knock a gnat off an elephantap butt. You can disarm him, but if you can’t do that, you’ve gotta get out of my town.
Now, (then) I get to jail, to get killed — because thatap . Alright? Thatap got to stop. Your job is to arrest them, book them. The sheriff’s job is to get them to court and then itap up to the judge, jurors and the lawyers. Thatap our system. It ain’t workin’, because my people are dying on misdemeanors or less than felony charges — ain’t nobody got no death penalty charge in this, and you’re killin’ them! Thatap that stankin’ thinkin’.
