Well, to bring things up to date, I’ve become an impassioned Barack Obama supporter and was devastated Tuesday, March 4 when Ms. Clinton won both Ohio and Texas. As and old (77) civil rights guy, I allowed myself to think about the incredible fact that less than fifty years ago….virtually NO black people voted in the American south. And here we are, in 2008, with a viable black candidate for president. I remembered that CORE’s first big voter registration drive was led by Jim McKeon in South Carolina in 1960. I remember…I remember a lot of things….but the truth is that most people take the franchised “African-American” community as a given…as if it has always been there.
I like Barack Obama…..I find him a strong and gracious leader, a gentle man, not unlike my best friend Jim Farmer who was the actual founder of the non violent civil rights movement in Chicago in 1942. Jim, like Obama, had both a moving and common touch….and could, with a few words….reach across old divides with a call for self-respect and yes….love of one another. I was moved by the number of white votes for Obama in South Carolina….a state where it was worth your life to try to register black voters all those years ago.
There came a time when Jim Farmer was attacked and pilloried just as Senator Obama was beaten up on the weekend before the Texas and Ohio primaries. One story links the two men in my mind in a remarkable way. In 1968 Jim ran for Congress in the Bed-Stuy
District of Brooklyn, NY. He didn’t have much of a chance because he didn’t have the Democratic line on the ballot…..he appeared only on the Liberal line….way down on the lower left hand corner of the ballot. About a week before the election, a friend of mine….a distinguished writer, pulled me aside in a Harlem restaurant and told me he had what he called “a terrific piece of dirt” on Jim’s opponent. The writer told me a harrowing story about a close relative of the opponent which, if revealed, might well have killed the opponent’s chances in the election.
I took the story to Jim and asked him if we could use it. Jim looked at me as if I was crazy…… “No! No! A thousand times No!,” he said, “I’ve been preaching brotherhood all my life…I’ll be damned if I’m going to get down in that sewer.”
We lost.
1 comment:
Val, old sport,
Alas, we're not on the same side this time, at least for the first few months. Cynthia and I've committed to Hillary and will stay with her because we feel the suppression of women and of black people is of the same magnitude and often is organized by the same masters. But I'm sure we agree that whoever wins the primaries we'll all support her or him in the fight for regime change. Its going to be a long hard slog to restore the republic even if we win. Hope all's well and events bring us together again soon. Howard
PS--Note the new email address.
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