A national civil rights leader said Tuesday that he would call for a boycott of Kansas City if the mayor did not remove a controversial park board member.

    Charles Steele Jr., president and chief executive officer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said Tuesday that the organization would make its point economically if Frances Semler, a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, remained on the park board.

     Steele said that Mayor Mark Funkhouser�s appointment of Semler, an opponent of illegal immigration, was part of a pattern of racial insensitivity.

     �We are asking all civil rights organizations to stay out of Kansas City. We are going to shut you down,� Steele said. �� We will take all the monies away from here. � Nobody should come to Kansas City.�

     The boycott would include marches, Steele said, but beyond that, �I believe in the element of surprise.�

     Steele made his comments at a news conference announcing that the SCLC�s board in early November had decided to hold its annual convention in New Orleans this summer instead of Kansas City. Steele said the announcement was timed to coincide with activities honoring Martin Luther King Jr., who co-founded the SCLC five decades ago.

The national NAACP board should join the SCLC and the National Council of La Raza and pull its convention from Kansas City, Steele said.

    The national NAACP board has voted to hold its 2010 convention in Kansas City, but some leaders have publicly voiced misgivings because of the Semler controversy.

    But local NAACP officials have supported keeping the convention in Kansas City.

Funkhouser said in an interview that by pulling their conventions, the civil rights groups were financially hurting Kansas City�s minority residents and businesses. Semler is a good park board member, he said.

    Funkhouser said minority neighborhoods had been left behind during recent prosperous times.

    �I want to know where these people were who are now ranting at me while the city was leaving behind large segments of the minority community,� the mayor said.

Kansas City convention officials said the SCLC had contacted them about holding their convention in late July at the Kansas City Marriott Downtown, where Tuesday�s news conference was held.

    They said that the SCLC asked about 250 hotel rooms but never put down a deposit. The vast majority of the expected 2,000 attendees would have been area residents, said Rick Hughes, head of the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association.

    The convention �did not exist,� Hughes said in another interview. �They are canceling nothing. They are not taking anything away.�

    Hughes said that the SCLC never got beyond the most preliminary stages in scheduling its convention in Kansas City, and that was last summer.

    The national SCLC board�s decision to move the convention drew mixed reviews from local SCLC members.

     Kansas City, Kan., resident Adele Morgan said one woman should not hurt Kansas City�s economy.

    �Why not stay?� she said. �There is always going to be adversity.�

     Later, during the annual SCLC Community Luncheon at the Marriott, the Rev. Nelson     �Fuzzy� Thompson (photo at right) praised leaders of the city�s Hispanic community for supporting the SCLC�s decision to move its convention.

     Thompson said the African-American and Hispanic communities had forged an alliance because of Semler�s appointment.

     �Never again will we be separated by anything,� he said. �We will stand together.�

Steele said at the luncheon that those seeking to fulfill King�s dream of racial, political and economic equity should remain vigilant and not give in to bickering or jealousy.

    �You always have to fight for your civil rights,� Steele said. �You can�t expect a (political) system that enslaved you to save you.�