Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 11, 1990 TAG: 9005110286
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FAIRFAX LENGTH: Medium
"I don't want to give up my program, but I don't like to step on anybody's toes," said Freddye "Action" Jackson, part owner, president and general manager of Brown Lincoln-Mercury.
"Hopefully we can come up with a program that satisfies everybody," he said after his nine-month-old Christian Members Buyers Plan was called discriminatory. The program offers discounts to Jews as well as Christians.
Jackson said he intended to meet next week with his business partners and separately with the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, which has called for an end to the discount program.
The Washington Post on Thursday quoted William E. Schuling, chairman of Mid-Atlantic Cars Inc. of which Brown Lincoln-Mercury is the major dealership, as saying he and Jackson had agreed to end the program.
But Jackson said, "I haven't made a decision on it at all."
Shuling told the newspaper: "No one's perfect. Everybody makes a mistake. Freddye is a preacher and a salesman. He meant no harm."
Jackson started the CMBP last August. But the uproar began Wednesday, to Jackson's surprise, after a local newspaper reported on the incentive program.
"Any time you talk about Christianity, people blow it out of proportion, people take it negatively. I don't know why," he said Wednesday.
Jews may get the discounts because, said Jackson, they believe in God. Jews are the only non-Christians who can participate in the program.
Jackson spoke by telephone Thursday to the Anti-Defamation League's David Friedman and they agreed to meet early next week.
Under Jackson's program, people who prove membership in a Christian church or Jewish synagogue may buy upscale Lincoln automobiles for $600 over cost to the dealer and Mercury cars at $250 over cost.
Ministers pay $400 over factory cost for a Lincoln and $150 extra for a Mercury. In addition, the dealership donates to the church of the buyer's choice $100 for a Lincoln and $50 for a Mercury.
Friedman said the inclusion of Jews "doesn't change things one bit."
Jackson, who said he became deeply religious, recalled that shortly after taking over the dealership last July, he prayed for "a way of giving . . . something from the dealership."
by CNB