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Harriet Miers, “Consensus Builder”

richard

Originally published October 2005.

Black Columnists Recall Her Service in Dallas

As conservatives pile on Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers for not fulfilling their expectations, two African American columnists who watched Miers in her Dallas days write that the White House counsel was a consensus builder who won the respect of African Americans and Latinos.

“I’ve known Miers for a while — I’ve watched her in the spotlight and behind the scenes in what could be very messy Dallas politics — and I found her to be a listener, a consensus builder, a calm voice in times of chaos,” Bob Ray Sanders wrote Wednesday in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“In Dallas, a city that long has been torn by racial strife, Miers had the respect of the white establishment and vociferous black political leaders including former city Councilman Al Lipscomb and county Commissioner John Wiley Price,” he continued.

James Ragland, local columnist at the Dallas Morning News and a past president of the Dallas/Fort Worth Association of Black Communicators, wrote Tuesday that he covered Miers’ 1989-91 term on the Dallas City Council.

“My hunch is that she would be a conciliatory swing vote on the Supreme Court, an icy bridge between the court’s more conservative and liberal factions. At least that’s how she functioned as a Dallas City Council member a decade and a half ago,” Ragland wrote.

A “former council colleague, Diane Ragsdale, a liberal politician who represented a predominantly black and poor section of town, recalled how Ms. Miers quickly established a bond with her.

“‘She asked me, “What can I do to help you improve the conditions of your district and your constituents?” Ms. Ragsdale said. ‘And most of my constituents were African-American and low-income. That indicated to me her strong desire to reach out and help.’

“Ms. Miers got caught up in some heated political battles, but some of her colleagues say she was always trying to do what she thought was fair and just.

“For example, she initially backed a controversial, voter-approved redistricting plan that most black and some Hispanic leaders said would dilute their voting power. Once it became clear that the plan would not prevail in the courts, however, she got behind a plan that the black plaintiffs favored rather than another alternative that some civic leaders were pushing.”

A story in the Washington Post Saturday by reporter Jo Becker, writing from Dallas, led off with this anecdote: When “a black county commissioner was arrested after a physical altercation with an off-duty police officer who allegedly had spat a racial slur at him, more than 1,000 demonstrators marched on City Hall. Many feared violence until Harriet Miers, a first-term City Council member and local lawyer, spoke to the crowd.

“‘If it means anything to you, I want to apologize,’ Miers said in her native Texas drawl. ‘I want to apologize to the African American community of this city for an unprovoked and unexcusable attack on one of their elected leaders.’

“Her apology, met with applause from the crowd, played a key role in defusing the tension that November night in 1990, many here recalled. Those who knew Miers at the time said her apology that night was characteristic of her tenure — unafraid to take on controversial issues, sometimes even to her own political detriment.”

In a separate development, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said last week that one of his concerns about Miers was “whether she played a role in the Bush administration decision to pay conservative commentator Armstrong Williams for favorable coverage of the president’s education programs,” the Associated Press reported.

Meanwhile, other columnists of color offered opinions:

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How LBJ Engineered Marshall onto Supreme Court

Tim Russert told the story on NBC’s “Meet the Press” yesterday of “how it came to be that Justice Tom Clark retired from the Supreme Court at the relatively young age of 67.

“His departure was masterfully engineered by President Lyndon Baines Johnson himself,” Russert said.

“L.B.J. wanted the chance to appoint the first African American to the court, namely Thurgood Marshall. But there were no court openings, so he cleverly set in motion a scheme to create one. You can hear L.B.J. laying the groundwork in this telephone conversation with Justice Clark’s son, Ramsey, on Jan. 25, 1967:

JOHNSON: Do you think you could be attorney general with your daddy on the Court?

RAMSEY CLARK: Well, I think that–I guess other people ought to judge that, really. I know as far as I’m personally concerned, that that would not affect my judgment. I don’t think it would affect Dad’s judgment. I’d hate to see Dad get off the Court. I think he’s at the height of his judicial power . . .

JOHNSON: My judgment is that if you became attorney general, he’d have to leave the court, for no other reason than the public appearance of the old man sitting on his boy’s case and you tell me that the old man can judge it fairly when his own boy’s sending them up?

“Just four weeks later,” Russert said, “Ramsey Clark was named attorney general of the United States, and as predicted, his father, Justice Tom Clark, announced his resignation from the Supreme Court that same day. L.B.J. then nominated Thurgood Marshall to fill the Clark vacancy, becoming the nation’s first black Supreme Court justice.”

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“Heart & Soul” Returns with Yanick Lamb as Editor

“Heart & Soul, the health and fitness magazine for African-American women, has released its first issue since coming under new ownership last year,” Target Market News reported last week.

“The publication was purchased at auction by Baltimore-based Twenty-First Century Group when former publisher, Vanguarde Media, went bankrupt.” Publisher Edwin V. Avent is quoted as saying the magazine was on a mission to help African American women succeed in health and fitness, finance and mental and spiritual well-being.

“The faithful readers of Heart & Soul will be able to recognize many of their favorite writers and lots of their favorite subject matter,” Avent said in the story. “I think they will be especially pleased with our new focus on eliminating disparities in health and wealth accumulation.”

Yanick Rice Lamb returns as editorial director after serving in that capacity while the magazine was owned by Black Entertainment Television, the story said.

Avent said in September 2004 that he had bought the then-400,000-circulation magazine in bankruptcy proceedings for $60,000 plus $450,000 in assumed subscriber debt, the Baltimore Sun reported then.

Lamb’s new team includes Editor-at-Large Valorie Burton, “life coach” and author; fitness experts Donna Richardson Joyner Mocha Lee and Nichelle Hoskins; health and nutrition expert Rovenia ‘Dr. Ro’ Brock and finance expert Michelle Singletary, Target Market News said.

“Heart & Soul is debuting with a bi-monthly schedule and a rate base of 300,000.”

Lamb has been teaching journalism at Howard University and received a master’s degree in business administration there this year.

“The response to Heart & Soul’s return has been great, so far. Over time, I hope that the magazine is bigger and better than ever,” she told Journal-isms today.

“I’m glad that readers are so interested and that so many journalists want to participate. Former contributors and staff members from every ‘era’ of Heart & Soul have been involved.

“Heart & Soul has returned to its roots with a renewed emphasis on health and fitness, plus some new twists. This is important with all the health disparities among African Americans.

“My involvement with Heart & Soul works well with my responsibilities at Howard, where we’re developing a student magazine and magazine publishing curriculum. Students throughout the campus are very interested in working at magazines or starting their own. They’ve had standing-room-only attendance at meetings for Cover 2 Cover, a relatively new organization for students interested in magazines. They’ve organized a panel discussion on magazines for the job fair this week, and they’re planning another magazine conference in the spring.” She can be reached at yricelamb@heartandsoul.com.

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Some “Unwilling to Give an Inch” on Bennett

“A few days ago, I wrote what I thought was a pretty tame column blasting at Bill Bennett and his remarks, and, as expected, I got a ton of email from readers in the 200 newspapers that run my syndicated column,” Ruben Navarrette of the San Diego Union Tribune told Journal-isms.

“The weird part is that most of the readers wrote in to defend Bennett and attack me for attacking him. Today, the piece ran in the Chicago Tribune. And a new batch of mail came in. Same thing.

“Look, people don’t have to agree with me, and frankly, given what I do, I sometimes think I’d be shocked if they did. But I do think it says something that we’re at a place and time when so many Americans are unwilling to give even an inch by way of denouncing racist comments.”

[Added Oct. 11: “I think there’s a backlash out there,” Navarrette added on Tuesday. “A lot of people are tired of being told that this is racist or that is racist or, God forbid, that they’re racist. People are fed up. They just don’t want to hear it anymore. Part of it is our fault, those of us who throw that phrase around too lightly and overuse it. Trouble is, sometimes the shoe fits. And people have to accept it.”]

The comments by the former secretary of education, drug czar and author of 1993’s best-selling “Book of Virtues” have been widely denounced, though his conservative friends in the news media have defended him and he has insisted his comments were taken out of context. Bennett said Sept. 28 on his radio show, ”you could . . . abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.” The remarks continue to provide fodder for columnists of color.

Syndicated Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts wrote Friday that he took the comments personally.

“My youngest son was arrested last year,” he wrote.

“Police came to my house looking for an armed robbery suspect, five-feet eight-inches tall with long hair. They took my son, six-foot-three with short braids. They made my daughter, 14, fresh from the shower and dressed for bed, lie face down in wet grass and handcuffed her. They took my grandson, 8, from the bed where he slept and made him sit on the sidewalk beside her.

“My son, should it need saying, hadn’t done a damn thing.”

Other commentary:

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Shock, Pleasure Greet Richmond Appointment

Among African Americans with more than a passing interest in the development, Thursday’s announcement that Glenn Proctor would become the first black journalist to lead the newsroom of Virginia’s Richmond Times-Dispatch led to shock and pleasure, Michael Paul Williams, reporter and columnist at the paper, wrote Friday.

“The uniform reaction to the news from other members of the ‘Caucus’ — the web of black journalists who once plied their trade here before moving on — was a collective ‘wow!’ Only the number of exclamation points varied,” wrote Williams, who is also president of the Richmond Black Media Professionals.

“‘I’m shocked,’ said State Sen. Henry L. Marsh III , the city’s first black mayor, who over the years has not enjoyed an altogether harmonious relationship with this newspaper.

“‘I’d like to know more about the gentleman. It’s a surprising development. That’s all I can say until I know more about him.’

“. . . state NAACP head King Salim Khalfani seemed stunned at first before quipping, ‘I might be in cardiac arrest.’

“‘Hopefully, this will mean some positive editing, and it’s a beginning. . . . I hope this is a start to diversify a newsroom that’s had its history of racial insensitivity.'”

“Diversifying newsrooms has been the stated goal of the newspaper industry as long as I can remember,” Williams wrote. “Minority staffing in the T-D newsroom is about 13 percent. Change has come not fast enough at the T-D, and some of us chafed at the pace. It was only recently that the paper hired its first black manager, the director of photography.

“Newsday staff writer Sid Cassese said in an e-mail that he was ‘profoundly pleased’ by Proctor’s hiring. Cassese, in his own right, is a historic figure in the history of The Times-Dispatch.

“He recalled that day in 1971 when Cassese, on work release from prison, walked into the T-D newsroom.

“‘There was not another face with my color anywhere in the room, and there were more frowns than smiles, although not necessarily because of my color as I brought a lot of real baggage with me. But I was there, breaking some kind of barrier or two.

“‘And despite all the bull in between, mine and others, I’m here to see another barrier hurdled in this once Capital of the Confederacy. It ain’t Colin Powell sitting in the big white one, but it’s something.'”

Cassese worked part-time; the first black full-time black journalist, Bonnie Winston, arrived in 1979.

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New Orleans Called No Comparison With Third World  

“I’ve been thinking about that pernicious little phrase — ‘the third world’ — a lot lately, for it has been bandied about by commentators, journalists, ordinary people, even some New Orleans evacuees themselves,” staff writer Lynne Duke, a former Africa correspondent, wrote from New Orleans Sunday in the Washington Post.

“They’ve all been bemoaning how the crisis wrought by Hurricane Katrina reduced a bold and magical American city to ‘third-world’ status, or had been managed as if by a bungling ‘third-world’ government. Black folk said it. White folk said it. So many people said it so often that I realized this was some kind of civic moment, some kind of revelation of a fundamental, albeit troubling, American value.

“I have been to the hovels and huts of the impoverished world. I’ve seen its refugees scratching for food and powerless to help their sick, starving children. I should have known that it would take a whole lot more than Katrina to reduce our American life of plenty to the empty want that passes for life in so much of the rest of the world. As badly as New Orleans has been pummeled, it is an insult to those suffering people around the globe for us to compare New Orleanians’ travails to their own.”

August Wilson Laid to Rest Amid More Tributes

“August Wilson made a final visit to the Hill District yesterday as his funeral procession drove through his old neighborhood, the birthplace of the works that made him one of America’s greatest playwrights,” Bob Hoover wrote Sunday in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

“Sending him off on that last journey was trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ haunting version of ‘Danny Boy’ closing Mr. Wilson’s funeral at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland,” Hoover’s story continued.

“About 400 attended the two-hour program, a mixture of tributes, music and the playwright’s own words. Mr. Wilson’s dark-brown burnished casket lay center stage, surrounded by flowers, ferns and wreaths.

“He died a week ago today at age 60 in Seattle, his home since 1990, from liver cancer.” Columnists discussed how best to pay him tribute.

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