Protesters Threaten to Block Rose Parade : Diversity: Activists call for integration of the event’s executive board and more benefits for minorities. A leader says they are ‘prepared to go to jail.’

A group of activists, church leaders and community leaders gathered Thursday on the steps of Tournament House in Pasadena and threatened to “bring the Tournament (of Roses) to its knees” if it does not integrate its all-white, all-male executive committee.

Danny Bakewell, head of the Brotherhood Crusade, said the protesters would seek to embarrass and obstruct the volunteer organization in its efforts to put on the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day.

“We’re prepared to go to jail for what we believe in,” Bakewell said.

The group wore buttons saying “Four Now,” referring to the demand that the Tournament’s nine-member executive committee add four minority members--including two blacks, a Latino and an Asian, at least one of whom would be a woman.

A tournament spokesman responded Thursday with a list of actions taken by the organization in the past two years to diversify its membership and leadership.

The tournament has created a diversity committee to help increase its minority membership and has diversified most of its other committees, said Associate Executive Director William Flinn.

Minorites and women now have a say in the expenditures of a charitable tournament foundation, in planning for the Rose Bowl football game, in selecting the princesses in the parade’s Royal Court and, through the new executive policy committee, anything the tournament does regarding employment and contracts.

The tournament has agreed to accept a far-reaching affirmative action plan and committed itself to directing at least a quarter of its annual $2 million in contracting to minority-owned or women-owned firms and vendors, Flinn said.

Last May, in ceremonies at Tournament House, the organization’s headquarters, a large new contingent of women and minorities were inducted into the tournament’s membership.

“I believe that the tournament is showing that it’s committed to diversity,” Flinn said.

Bakewell and others dismissed the tournament’s actions as “foot-shuffling gestures” that did not address the central question of the exercise of economic power. “We want to participate in the feast of the economic pie,” Bakewell said.

The tournament has been threatened with disruptions for two years, since it sought to celebrate the quincentennial of Christopher Columbus’ arrival by appointing a descendant of the explorer as grand marshal, angering American Indian groups and others.

At a rally in Pasadena last month, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a former presidential candidate, compared the tournament’s all-white executive committee to bodies that upheld apartheid in Southern Africa and elsewhere or Jim Crow laws in the Deep South before the civil rights movement.

Jackson may lead a counter-parade on New Year’s Day, Bakewell said Thursday.