Ironies II: Keep the Faith!

After Senators Clinton and Obama broke even in the Nevada Caucus, Obama headed to Atlanta, while Hillary spent some time campaigning in NYC. On the eve of the holiday commemorating Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, Senator Clinton reminisced about seeing Dr. King in Chicago, when she attended a rally with her church's youth group. She described it as a "transforming moment" in her life.

The Abyssinian Baptist Church, where Senator Clinton was speaking, is one of the most historically important churches in Harlem. It was home to Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who Doris Kearns Goodwin describes as "arguably the most powerful African American politician of the 20th Century..." Powell, who succeeded his father as pastor, was a member of the New York City Council and won his first election to the United States Congress in 1944. In order to do it, he had to outmaneuver the legendary forces of Tammany Hall.

Wil Haygood points out in his seminal biography, King of the Cats, "...Adam Clayton Powell... emerged ahead of the other Harlem figures - the ones with law degrees, the ones with political reputations, the ones who considered him too radical...Harlem, so celebrated for its cultural renaissance, was now on the cusp of a political renaissance..."

At that time, Harlem had no lack of Black leadership. The era when Adam Clayton Powell emerged as a political force, coincided with the the times of A. Philip Randolph and W.E.B. Dubois. Fred Morton, an African American, was the "go to" guy at Tammany Hall for Harlemites, and Roy Wilkins and Benjamin J. Davis were also growing in prominence. Herbert Bruce fancied himself a Black political kingmaker. In fact, Wil Haygood tells us, Bruce had forged a connection of sorts between many of the more progressive reformers in Harlem and the politicians at Tammany Hall. But when Tammany finally endorsed Powell for Congress, Bruce was so angry, he told the New York Times that he "...could not endorse Powell, because he feared that Powell would bring about "bloodshed" between the races."

Powell's true power base, his main leveraging tool, aside from his own brilliance and a stunning audacity, was the love and the support of the people of Harlem. He'd earned their trust and their loyalty with old fashioned, grassroots community organizing. He'd supported their rent strikes, and set up emergency food and shelter for them during the darkest days of the Great Depression. He energized and encouraged them. The basement of his church was a hub of activity in service to the community. In Washington, he continued his fight for racial equality and for fair employment practices. As Chair of the House Education and Labor Committee, he spearheaded the blizzard of legislation through Congress that would become LBJ's War On Poverty. School lunch programs and breakfast programs, but in particular, Project Head Start, owe their existence, largely, to Adam Clayton Powell.

In 1966, Powell's mostly self-inflicted legal problems exposed him to censure by his colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives. He was stripped of his committee assignments, denied his seat, and expelled from Congress. In 1969, he was re-instated, but without his seniority. In 1970, an embittered Adam Clayton Powell lost his seat to Charles Rangel, who won the primary by 150 votes. Powell had appealed Congress's actions against him to the United States Supreme Court. The Court eventually ruled in his favor, it would be Chief Justice Earl Warren's last decision, saying that Congress had overreached and had no authority to deny Powell his seat or his seniority. Adam Clayton Powell died April 4, 1972. He was sixty-four.

He'd served as a member of Congress for nearly thirty years, and he left a very big footprint. One that Charles Rangel has never been able to fill. Through the years since Powell has been consigned to the judgements of history, a great many presumptive political leaders, wanting something from Harlem, have made the pilgrimage to the Abyssinian Baptist Church. So it is no surprise that, in her quest for support in the African American community, Senator Clinton chose this Civil Rights citadel for her Harlem appearance, along with Congressman Rangel, who has endorsed her.

Powell would have thundered in outrage at the convoluted logic that permitted the current pastor, Calvin Butts, to present his labored rationale for denying Obama his support, in favor of Hillary Clinton. A vote is a tangible, quantifiable means to measure a candidate's value to you. Support has to be earned. Usually, the candidate will have DONE SOMETHING to EARN your support.

Posing for a photo opportunity at an historic church while saying some polite things about Martin Luther King, Jr. isn't enough. Being on a first name basis with the world, and being a former First Lady isn't enough. (Even Betty Ford founded a clinic!) Having served as senator from New York for eight years, with an undistinguished record, is definitely not enough. Tell me what you stand for, Adam would thunder! Tell me why I should support you. Tell me what you have done on my behalf. Adam Clayton Powell, certainly understood stewardship, and he understood leadership, and he understood power. And at this point, he would have wrapped his arms around Barack Obama, and given the congregation his signature admonition: "Keep the faith, baby!"

(Copyright, January 20, 2008)

Ironies

On April 4, 2008, we will celebrate the 80th birthday of an extraordinary woman. Her childhood was spent shuttling back and forth from her grandma's dry goods store in Stamps, Arkansas, to her mother in St. Louis, Missouri.

Anyone who's read, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" will surely gain a deeper appreciation of the experiences which formed Maya Angelou as a woman, and as one of the Mothers in Struggle of the modern Civil Rights Movement in the United States. She has been a visiting lecturer at UCLA, an actor, a director, a Broadway producer, but most notably a writer. A writer of stories and songs and most of all, most sublimely, a writer of poetry. She taught at the University of Ghana at Accra in the 1960's and spent considerable time in that country, where, she once said, she felt more American, than she'd ever felt up until that point, in America.

She once wrote a beautiful poem, called "On the Pulse of Morning." And because of her Arkansas roots, she was invited to recite it in 1993, at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton. Her participation brought her to national prominence and to a whole new audience. There was a demand for copies of the poem which was rushed to print in a slim, attractive, hard-cover volume. Today, when many people think of Maya Angelou, they often think of Bill Clinton, and that wonderful moment in January, 1993, when she recited a poem at his inaugural.
So right now, with my mind at the boiling point with too many things to say, and a righteous sense of anger welling up in me, I realized I needed help to say what I felt needed saying.


I thought of Langston, and his Dream Deferred...I thought of Sterling Brown and his "Strong men just keep coming..." but then I remembered Maya. And another poem she'd written.
And I thought it suited the occasion very well:

And Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?'
Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear,

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

A Guest Column: The History of Iowa as Told By My Great Aunt Fanny

Once upon a time long ago in another century, not too many states even had primaries. And they were non-binding anyway. Just popularity contests, because the party bosses got together and picked the delegates to go to the convention. They could assure the delegates stayed "bound" to a particular candidate, because they still had to come home and face the music if they didn't.


It was a time of smoke-filled rooms and deal-making. Politics was fun and corrupt and juicy! Then party reform reared it's ugly head. More primaries were added in various states and they were binding. Binding means that's how the delegates were picked. To make it palatable to the state chairs and party bosses, they made a category of "super-delegates" that could be selected by the bosses, and also included elected officials.


Primaries grew into an industry. They created jobs for "organizers" and out of work advertising executives. They gave people opportunities to raise money and plan events for things outside their monthly block club meetings and church suppers. They created opportunities for a lot of people in each state to get close to a candidate. If the candidate wins, they now have a new BFF who is President of the United States, POTUS, to insiders. They also get to be BFF with people right there in their state who would never give them the time of day were it not for these political events. It spread the notion that people were important. Even if it was only in their own minds. Local media loved it, bcz it generated lots of advertising dollars for radio and TV.



Some states held on to their closed caucuses, but many began opting for primary elections at which delegates would be selected. A closed primary meant you had to declare your party affiliation before you could vote. An open primary meant you could say anything or nothing and vote. Much mischief occurs in these scenarios. But, oh well.


Back to Iowa. So there was this guy who decided he wanted to run for president. He'd been governor of a southern state for a while, he was a proud, born-again Christian who taught Sunday School, and he ran a farm. And he had big teeth and strange looking children. His eccentric mother joined the Peace Corps, his sister was an evangelist who drove a motorcycle and his brother was...well... he was a "good ol' boy."




Anyway, when other candidates started getting excited about New Hampshire, which was STILL the first primary election, scheduled in early February, this guy, because he had no money to speak of, and because he was scared of New Hampshire and they were scared of him, (neither liked someone who "talked funny.") this guy heard about the state party caucuses in Iowa. He knew Iowa had lots of farms.


He thought of himself as a farmer, so he went to Iowa. And he brought a few faithful staff people along, and they organized the hell out of Iowa. He spent a lot of time visiting with the farmers, sipping coffee with them in their living rooms, and attending their church services. Sometimes, he even spent the night at their houses, because motels cost money he didn't have, and everywhere he went, he said, "Hi. I'm Jimmy Carter and I'm running for president." And he won the Iowa Caucus. And that's how Iowa got important.

copyright, 2008