The Struggle Continues

From an online article in The Smithsonian magazine

By R. T. Andrews

‘Lord, we ain’t what we oughta be. We ain’t what we want to be. We ain’t what we gonna be. But thank God, we ain’t what we was.’

That sentiment, expressed by Martin Luther King at an Emancipation centennial event in 1962, can be felt across much of the land this morning.

You could sense the nation’s collective sigh of relief last night as the country began the ceremonial transition, from its Tasmanian devil of a president and his wooden sidekick of a veep, to the reassuring presence of an Uncle Joe, accompanied by his potential rock star of a governing partner, Kamala Harris.

‘Lord, we ain’t what we oughta be. We ain’t what we want to be. We ain’t what we gonna be. But thank God, we ain’t what we was.’

The United States in 1862 was a nation literally at war with itself. Rebels were fighting to preserve a way of life that other parts of the country wanted to leave behind: chattel slavery, religious bigotry, nativism, xenophobia.

For the past four years it seems as if those alternative visions of the world were still being contested. Make America Great Again was a very thin code for a nostalgic call to a past where black people were underfoot, women were in the kitchen, gays were in the closet, and white men were ascendant, under precious few obligations of restraint. Police busted heads on the regular without fear of reprisal, women were silent over all manner of violation, shaming and disbelief being normal consequences for truth telling. Anything outside of an able bodied heterosexual white man was deviant and ‘less than’ by definition.

The irresistible forces of diversity — which is to say, the natural conditions of humankind — have been taking it on the chin and in the solar plexus these last four years. The assault has been played out relentlessly on the airwaves: governance by ego, rooted in confederate nostalgia and counterfeit reality, manipulated offstage as always by forces of unmitigated greed that produce historic wealth inequality.

While the trumpian coronavirus has been momentarily exorcised from the White House, its residence there did incalculable damage to the organs of America: our infrastructure of government, our politics, our society, and our culture.

To expect a Biden administration to restore the status quo that existed before trumpism entered the open sores of our society is fantasy. For the moment we can breathe more easily because the inflammation has receded, that incessant tweeting pain has subsided.

But COVID-19 is still here, wreaking havoc with our health and our economy. To defeat it will require and the immediate attention and intelligent aggression of the new administration, as well as patience by American citizens, who are already fatigued by mask-wearing, social distancing, Zoom meetings, and lost conveniences.

Patience has seldom been a virtue of our national character. While Trump fatigue may be in our rear view mirror, one early measure of the Biden administration will be its ability to forge sufficient consensus around mask-wearing and quarantines while an effective vaccine is developed and distributed.

That won’t be easy. The new president will have a thin margin in the House and implacable opposition in the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may extend some good ol’ boy collegiality towards Biden, a former colleague, but he will continue to stand resolutely in the gap against anything remotely resembling progress.

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris superimposed upon the shadow of Norman Rockwell's
1964 illustration of six-year old Ruby Bridges as she was accompanied by US Marshals in the
desegregation of public schools in New Orleans.

Finally, a word on the new Vice President. It is of course far too early to tell, but her elevation to national leadership status may prove to be the most consequential harbinger of a new generation. Barack Obama cracked open a door in a notorious manner, ushering in a twenty-four second “post-racial” America that was immediately followed by in true American fashion by nativistic American backlash. But Kamala Harris, on the strength of black women, has eased into the sidecar seat, from which she is positioned both symbolically and realistically, to change the landscape irrevocably.

To put it another way, there was no guarantee that the Jackie Robinson experiment to integrate major league baseball would succeed. If Obama was Jackie, Kamala is Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente. There is no turning back.

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Political Consultant Jerry Austin in Beachwood tonight; Wyatt Tee Walker and Hugh Masakela leave us

Cuyahoga Politics Today

Renowned political consultant tells compelling tales

​I read Jerry Austin’s True Tales From The Campaign Trail: Stories Only Political Consultants Can Tell pretty much in one afternoon.

That wasn’t my expectation when I started in on it, but the stories have a crescendo effect. Each one made me want to read the next one. Since they average only a page or two, the book almost had a hypotic, slot-machine effect.

Political consultants appear to be a small self-selected group. They seem to enter the field through different doors but I suspect it’s the same few themes that draw them inside the hidden walls of campaigning.

One of the common traits of the best of them, it would seem, is a wry sense of humor. I wouldn’t call many of the stories Austin shares “funny”, but several have wrinkles that remind you of our common humanity.

In its heyday, Reader’s Digest magazine had a feature that I loved called “Life in These United States”. As I remember, the feature consisted of eight or so vignettes depicting incidents in the lives of a handful of folk with whom we millions of readers were sharing national borders.

Austin’s compilation of stories from his friends, colleagues and competitors evokes that feeling along a narrower trail. The cumulative effect is to give readers a sense of what it’s like to be inside a political contest, to appreciate the vagaries of candidates and campaigns alike.

Among the highlights of Austin’s career are directing Dick Celeste’s two successful Ohio gubernatorial campaigns and managing Jesse Jackson’s 1988 presidential campaign.

Austin will discuss his book and career at Beachwood Public Library tonight from 7PM-8:30PM. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing. There are sure to be a number of political junkies in the audience.

Beachwood Library is a branch of the County Public Library located at 25501 Shaker Blvd.

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The following tribute is from a social media post by the Rev. Dr. Jawanza Colvin of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio.

A MIGHTY OAK HAS FALLEN

The Reverend Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker

Civil Rights Icon • Prophet • Pastor • Scholar
Genius • Renaissance Man • Gentleman

Thank You for...

• Providing Leadership to SCLC under MLK

• Developing the Strategy for Birmingham in 1963

• Smuggling out of Dr. King’s cell the “Letter from The Birmingham Jail”

• Pressuring the World Council of Churches into taking a stand against Apartheid in S. Africa

• Showing us the African Roots of Black Sacred Music and Sounds

• Picking up the mantle from Adam Clayton Powell Jr. as the Prophet of Harlem for all those years at Canaan Baptist Church of Christ

• AND SO MUCH MORE...May You Now Find Rest

Wyatt Tee Walker was a key strategist of the Civil Rights Movement, a confidant of Martin Luther King, and a leading pastor and civic leader in Harlem. He died yesterday in Virginia at 88.

The following is from the New York Times article reporting his death:

In 1989, speaking from the pulpit of Riverside Church in Manhattan to celebrate Dr. King’s 60th birthday, he said that the establishment of a national holiday to honor King had “seduced us into becoming too comfortable.”

He added, “It is insufficient for us to come together on his birthday, sometimes in an artificial way, white and black together, and sing ‘We Shall Overcome’ and hold hands and get a warm feeling and then go back to business as usual in white racist America.”

We recommend your reading the entire article. We also commend this resource on Dr. Walker.

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The great jazz trumpeter Hugh Masakela also died yesterday in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was 78. His death and life were reported here (NPR) and here (NYT).

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CPT • Black Political Unrest playing out in Cuyahoga Democratic Party

 Cuyahoga Politics Today

Cuyahoga Democrats: Change is Blowing in the Wind

Endorsement process is tip of iceberg of roiling black political energy

​It’s impossible to talk about politics in Greater Cleveland without talking about black politics.

That fact makes some folk uncomfortable for different reasons. People want to believe in the Kumbaya stick image that our homogenizing culture has made of Martin King. They like to cite his Dream while omitting the realities he gave his last full measure of devotion trying to change: a dominant military-capitalist system that crushed poor people and people of color.

Fifty years later society celebrates a sanitized version of King’s legacy that omits how he was cursed, vilified, asaulted, spied upon by his own government, and thrown in jail with regularity, just for trying to make this country a more just and humane place to live and work. When King came to Cleveland to support the 1967 Stokes campaign, Democratic Party chairman and county engineer Albert Porter sent out letters saying that a Stokes victory meant turning the city over to Martin King, the tone of his message implying that rape and pillage would soon follow.

King was one of a trio of now celebrated black men hated for their fearless and sacrificial stance on behalf of their community and thereby on behalf of the larger society. Muhammad Ali was another towering black figure who came to prominence in the civil rights era. His livelihood was taken away and all manner of hatred hurled at him for his humble, courageous and principled stand for his religious beliefs. He died in 2016 as perhaps the most recognized and beloved global citizen of his time.

Last year in Cleveland, establishment institutions went all in on the golden anniversary of Carl Stokes’ election as the first black mayor of a major US city. It seems little time was spent on how far we have and have not come in addressing our community’s continuing racial and class inequities. Carl and his widely respected brother Lou — the beloved Congressman aka “the Distinguished Gentleman” are today remembered for their accomplishments, as if the demons they wrestled against were vanquished.

The reality is quite different. Echoes of their struggles resound nationally in the rollback of voting rights; the outright perfidy of gerrymandering in North Carolina, Ohio and elsewhere; the open racism, crudity and unchristian behavior of this ersatz evangelical Administration bent on destroying the fundamentals of our democracy. Echoes of Ali’s struggles can be scene in the honest protest of Colin Kaepernick, who is reviled and unemployed for daring to speak out against police brutality and injustice.

Here in Cleveland, an examination of Stokes’ legacy would include fighting his own Democratic Party for respect and a fair deal. It would involve remembering how and why the Twenty-First Congressional District Caucus was formed, and how it became a transcendant force for empowerment.

When I remember Carl Stokes I like to recall his love for black people, his self-confidence, his willingness to go into hostile territory and stand on his qualifications to serve. I remember the respect he had for the profession of politics and the disdain he had for political pretenders. I loved that he always kept his eyes on the prize of fair and equitable power distribution.

I wish that today we had more African American professional politicians in our community who were, like the Stokes boys, rooted in our community and focused on their role as public servants. They understood that the leadership followed the service.

Each of these distingushed gentlemen — King, Ali, Carl, Lou — was guided in their professional pursuits by principle, purpose, passion and preparation. These were key elements in their ability to excel in their chosen fields.

Politics Today

For the past couple of days we have been writing to peel back some of the mystery of local politics, to provide some insight into the how and why some names appear on the ballot and some don’t. To give some understanding about the inner workings of the endorsement process.

One of the things we have noticed in our close up look at the local Democratic Party is how much is changing even as so much remains unchanged.

What has changed? Too often, black candidates are reluctant to campaign across their entire jurisdictions. They self-segregate themselves.

I just paused writing this and went searching for a passage in Carl Stokes’ magnificent book, Promises of Power: Then and Now. I re-read Chapter 3, “How to Get Elected by White People”. It’s unbelievable how his account of his campaign for the state legislature in 1960 remains a blueprint for any candidate of color seeking countywide office today. As I look at what’s happening in the local Democratic Party today, I think Karrie Howard may be the only black person running countywide this year whose campaign has internalized that chapter.

Perhaps that’s why Howard pulled the stunning feat of securing the backing of Parma’s rank-and-file political leaders even in the face of the Mason-Fudge alignment.

My political gut tells me that a huge shakeup in county politics may be on the horizon. Lou Stokes and the Congressional District Caucus were part of a strong black political tradition that connected ordinary black men and women to their political representatives. That tradition waned over the years, and when the Hon. Marcia L. Fudge took over from Lou’s successor, — the beloved Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who died suddenly in 2008 — Fudge effectively dissolved the Caucus, almost the last thread connecting the people to the process. In some cases the thread seems to have been replaced by ministerial mercenaries.

Fudge of late has been generously endorsing candidates, including two judicial aspirants — Deborah Monique Turner and Andrea Nelson Moore — who are longshots to garner the financial resources necessary — generally ballparked at $100,000 — to run successfully countywide. She is also backing Jeff Johnson in his campaign against incumbent State Sen. Sandra Williams, which most observers think is payback for Williams’ challenge to Fudge protégé Shontel Brown, to become Party chair. Fudge won that battle — which may be tied to her deal with Bill Mason — but is upset that Williams did not back down.

It is intriguing to consider what, if anything, this would-be Empress of Black Politics will be wearing if she leaves tomorrow’s executive committee meeting with none of her publicized candidates able to secure an endorsement.

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From Selma to President-elect Trump

​

Last night I watched Part 1 of a two-part special that takes a timely look at what has happened in America's black communities in the five decades since the major constitutional victories of the Civil Rights movement. "Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise" is at once a sobering yet powerful reminder of how far the country's most crucial ethnic minority has come since the legal eradication of Jim Crow, a hundred years after slavery, and how far we still have to travel before the promise of true equality is more reality than dream.

The most riveting image of this pithy but briskly paced retrospective came from deep in the heart of black-belt Alabama, where the sharecroppers of Lowndes County displayed unfathomable resolve and courage and dignity in registering to vote. Their first step towards exercising a long-denied constitutional right carried with it the risk of loss of life, not to mention home and sustenance, for these would-be voters were treated as aliens in the land of their birth.

Racial terror in Lowndes County was undisguised, perhaps especially because black people comprised 80% of county residents. The white men who considered it their duty to keep those black people under heel had no need for ginned up rituals and pointy-headed masks to cover their barbarism. They saw inhumane treatment of their fellow citizens as sacred honor.

Fortified by young idealists from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] like Stokely Carmichael who immersed themselves in the community, these poor black farmers risked everything for a vision of a better way of life for their children.

In showing how overt barriers of racial discrimination were dismantled, this must-see program reinforces important parts of American history too often buried, glossed over, or shaded. Facts do matter. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said after his unsuccessful attempt to combat housing discrimination in Chicago, racism in the North was more virulent than anything he had ever observed in the South. His experiences there helped crystallize his understanding that segregation was imbedded not just in political and social structures, but was deeply rooted in the American economy. The program points out, albeit in passing, the role of government at all levels in creating and maintaining America's ghettos. The concentrated poverty these public policies engendered has made racial and national progress more difficult.

African Americans have shown themselves to be extraordinarily resilient, so this story is far from unremitting gloom. There is a glorious sound track, ranging from Spirituals to Stevie, from Aretha and James Brown to the Sugar Hill Gang and Public Enemy. There are iconic references everywhere: Flip Wilson, Soul Train, and countless other markers of the coal deep influence of black people on every aspect of American culture. And throughout, in what could easily be overlooked, is the subtle but powerful effect of black people telling our own story through the voices of activists, witnesses and scholars.

It may dawn at some point upon senior viewers that this quick and measured history — so vivid and contemporary to our circumstances — is news to Millennials, Gen Xers and those yet to be named. I found disturbing echoes of present day attitudes and polices and politics of current trends throughout the program, especially in crowd scenes of backlash. And who remembers that while Ronald Reagan campaigned on a slogan to "Make America Great Again", his administration proceeded to accelerate the construction of gilt-lined streets for the favored and busted pavement for the rest of us? If this history was more widely known and shared, perhaps we would not be so in danger of repeating less savory aspects of our past.

Part 2 airs on Ideastream next Tuesday at 8pm. You can catch Part 1 online here.