END OF CARL STOKES LS

t a celebration of 25 years of Point of View I was surprised to see ormer Mayor Carl Stokes walk into the auditorium. He walked riqht up o the front of the room where the committee had hung above the stage a uge enlargement of the first issue of this publication. t was entitled "Cleveland Now: another gimmick," and it was an attack n a program that had been dear to the heart of Stokes. I walked up beside him and suggested that he didn't want to look at that one. It's the only one up there,'' he responded with a laugh. Cleveland Now! as a program that was supposed to address the severe social ills of leveland. I had quoted Stokes' words, still apt today, from testimony e had given at the U. S. Civil Rights Commission in 1966 in riticizing it: "We have, in Cleveland, developed the art of accenting the positive to lusion of remedying the negative. How difficult it is, but essary, to advocate as a remedy the accenting of the negative. How e to strike at and endeavor to dispel the deep, almost indigenous se sense of security and accomplishment that pervades this city?" kes had told the historic civil rights commission hearings that d bare Cleveland's racial, school and economic problems. seemed to me that the business community and the news media which given Cleveland Now! promotional backing were using it as another ick to hide the real need and costs of repairing a sick city. the passage of time, all the problems have only become worse. veland Now! was developed by "experts" in 48 hours to take advahtage the positive feeling in the community after Stokes had kept peace in the aftermath of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, April 1968. Stokes took advantage of the good-will by asking the business ders and news media to join in the Cleveland Now! program. was Cleveland Now! (CN) that led to Stokes's disenchantment with iness leaders as they pulled back after the Glenville shootout in y, 1968. It was found that money from CN was used to purchase pons used in the gun battle between militants and police. This ghtened the business leaders who gradually withdrew support from CN. t was not realized was that the programs for militants had a cedent in a secret under-the-table program in 1967 that saw the same itants paid weekly at the Call & Post via a program headed UP by ph Besse, former chairman of the Cleveland Electric Illuminatinq , and former partner of Squire, Sanders & DempSey. (The ablishment, as you see, has tremendous staying power). This program keep peace during the election summer of 1967 was ended oddly before final election, a tipoff that it was meant to maintain peace so t Stokes would defeat Mayor Ralph Locher in the Democratic primary eveland had partisan elections at the time). Indeed, some of the e business leaders, trustees at the Cleveland Foundation led by Jack vis, managing partner of Jones, Day Cockley and Reavis (Dick Pogue roll a third candidate, Frank Celeste, father of Gov. Dick Celeste. He was in order to insure a Stokes victory. n, it was the assumption of these business leaders, Stokes would be eated by one of their own, Seth Taft, also a partner of Jones, Day, kley and Reavis, who like Celeste, had moved into the city to run mayor. The assumption was that any white candidate would defeat s because not enough whites would vote for a black Fandidate. s difficult, if not impossible, to recreate by word the feeling that accompanied the campaign and victory of Stokes in 1967. Maybe the cliche that it was an idea whose time had come, and like a raging flood, can't be contained by counter force, comes closest to explaining the emotion of those who joined together to produce the victory. Not only had Stokes almost won a three-way race in 1965 with Locher and Republican Ralph Perk, but Locher had suffered severe setbacks in the ensuing two years, much not of his making though it may have seemed that way then. The business community, which had forced upon the city a disastrous urban renewal program, then used its failures to undermine Locher, himself plagued by urban unrest and riot. Further, the civil rights movement and the wholesale movement of blacks because of poorly planned urban renwal exacerbated the city's and the mayor's problems.

Into this scene stepped Carl Stokes who exuded hope because of his animal magnetism. He was everything a deprived, oppressed constituency could desire in a leader: saucy youthfulness; movie star handsome; an engaging public personality to charm even detractors; anger enough to induce fear; brazenness enough to be a maverick and his own man; street smart enough to relate to the ordinary person; suave enough to . not be reserved among the elite; pained enough by life to be able to care for those at the bottom; egotistical enough to do the impossible.

This was not only visible here but at higher levels of the American establishment. Cleveland, eighth largest city at the time, was not the only beset by these problems. Urban unrest, riots, protests and ghetto demands around the nation signaled the disturbing problem of instability, a state unacceptable to status quo needs of American business. Among other desires, you couldn't build stadiums, you couldn't get on the with business of America, in destablized cities. The American nature to await crisis before acting is matched only by the American capacity to bribe off the ultimate of crisis. Carl Stokes played a central role in America's search for a way out of the dilemma of exploding cities. He provided an opportunity to test conventional pplitics as an alternative to violence. As President Franklin Roosevelt is said to have saved capitalism; Carl Stokes may have done the same for American cities in the 1960s. Cleveland wasn't the center of that experiment solely because of Stokes. McGeorge Bundy, then president of the Ford Foundation, told

the- Urban--.-- Leaaue- a ­ in 1966 that if blacks burn the cities "the white man's companies will have to take the losses.'' Robert Allen in Black Awakenin2 in Capitalist America. wrote further of Bundy's warning, "'White AmeTica is not so stupid as not to comprehend this elemental fact.' Bundy assured the Urban Leaguers. 'Something would have to be done about the urban problems...'" Thus, wrote Allen, the Ford Foundation "was on its way to becoming the most important, though least publicized, organization manipulating the militant black movement."

The Ford Foundation had a great opportunity in Cleveland. Ford not only had Stokes, a possible moderate mayoral winner, but a solid association with Cleveland's foundation network. Ford poured money into Cleveland in an experiment to steer black anger to conventional politics. It was a crucial decision that helped guide black militancy out of the street and into conventional politics; away from radical action into the more acceptable conventional politics. It was interesting to note black leaders eulogizing Stokes. They were the beneficiaries of the conventional politics but they have the severe problem that they have left too many far behind. It was interesting to note Rev. Jesse Jackson in his eulogy of Carl Stokes briefly mentioned the voter registration drivp in 1967. Jackson took part in that drive with Martin Luther King, Jr. Jackson said, without using names, that the funds came from foundations. Indeed, the Ford Foundation and the Cleveland Foundation were instrumental in a number of programs that summer, in addition to ,the $40,000 under-the-table program of Ralph Besse, whose Inner City Action Committee got corporate funding. Ford gave $175,000 to CORE for voter registration; $127,500 to the Businessmen's Interracial Committee, headed by Reavis and essentially PAGE 2 run out of the Cleveland Foundation; $200,000 to an off-shoot of the Cleveland Foundation and, probably the one Jackson was referring to, a $230,000 grant from Ford for staff training for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Atlanta. An outline of expenses that came into my hands showed that $27,899 of SCLC's expenses in Cleveland came from the Atlanta office, presumably the Ford funds. Reavis donated $5,000 from his committee and CORE another $3,000. King at the time said he was aiming to register 40,000 voters. Stokes' election proved worth the money. The corporate community soon after bought a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal proclaiming that an old blue chip city had bright new leadership. The electoral victory encouraged the kind of political activity in other cities and more black mayors in other major cities, diverting black anger. Glenville damaged Stokes. Business backing for Cleveland Now! cooled as did the civil rights movement. CN never did prove more than a cosmetic approach to the city's poverty problems. In the final report Stokes himself said that it was meant to be only "a first step," and that "it did not correct the deplorable housing situation... It did not alter the city's unemployment problem... It did not solve the crisis of the growing number of old, young and handicapped people who find today's society continually harder for them... And it did not revitalize our antiquated neighborhoods, and has only begun to fill the many vacant lots that were bulldozed by urban renewal many years ago....I'

Privately, he was bitter at corporate Cleveland. "He felt (corporate leaders) had deserted him and Cleveland and that they simply didn't want conflict. With few exceptions, Stokes felt that they were more concerned about not rocking the boat rather than seeking solutions, said an aide. "He became more and more conscious of his blackness and this disturbed the business establishment," said his press secretary, adding Stokes said, "I'm not going to be their house nigger."

CWhen Stokes announced in 1971 that he would not run for a third term, I felt he could have won and had let those who had backed him down. I got a good dressing down from a subscribe, with some truth, for my "self-righteous piety" for my past criticism of him. t I found Stokes sympathetic despite the criticism. Though he left eveland at the time to be a TV newsman, he pretty much detested the ws media, particularly the Pee Dee, a shared distrust. When he had press conferences televised by Ch. 3 as mayor, he insisted that I be luded, something not relished by the brass at Ch. 3. s long exile in New York unfortunately made his ability to come home possible. He came back to help Dennis Kucinich run for re-election 1979, a prelude to his return from New York. It always seemed to hat a deal had been made for his backing. In return he was able to a law firm with business from the United Auto Workers, a strong nich supporter. He showed me around his new offices at the time said "You don't think I came back to be a city councilman, did 'I I took that to mean he had come back to make money and possibly power broker. However, this had become George Forbes' town. It wasn't long before the firm broke up. He then ran successfully for municipal judge. That office of judicial silence on issues was a deadly office for a man who could champion causes. It was a great loss that Stokes, who had become a U. S. Ambasssador, could not use his people. That voice, often an outlet for the been absent politically for 25 years. ath April 3, was in repose at City Hall where a of people visited. There were four days of repose and But there was something distrubing about both the news coverage. Stokes' eulogizers primarily were those who have benefited with wealth and power from advancement of blacks since the 1960s, though as Jesse Jackson said in his eulogy, "He was trou-d about the plight of the masses." But the opportunity to voice light was essentially lost, avoid by those who had profited.

PAGE 3 The content of media coverage of tragedy rang hollow with a gush of trite accolades, particularly in the TV coverage. The reporters and anchor/actors have a way of making themselves the story by the oh, so expressive concern rather than simply reporting the story. Their telling becomes the message and after three days the phoniness takes from real meaning making everything just another TV spectacle. By reducing everything of real content TV news prepares one to eagerly move the next eviscerated TV event. The tribute at City Hall and the public hall were well deserved. Like Jackie Robinson, Carl Stokes, in the words of Jackson's memorable eulogy, "was our wind-breaker," enduring the pain of the trail blazer. No one can take that away, though some may want to disparage it in the future, as some do with Robinson today. But it wasn't enough. The problem is that for true meaning the event would have had to take an impossible direction. As when Stokes became the first we need another first. That would mean those on the dais would have to be removed. They've become the comfortable. The afflicted again await leadership. 0 * * * *

-JOHN NUSSBADM The question asked by former Plain Dealer reporter John Nussbaum at the City Club forum where he collapsed was a testimony of his concern for others. It was so well put and so poorly answered. The question referred to the continued use and heavy merchandising of the Chief Wahoo logo by the Cleveland baseball team. "It occurred to me, it's just a matter of courtesy. When my black friends tell me that they don't want to be known as Negroes, but as African-Americans, I respect that. When my Scottish friends don't want to be English but British, I respect that. It's a matter of common courtesy. Can you tell me, can you explain to me why ... in an activity in which you would expect some sportsmanship and fairness, there is such a total lack of courtesy?" It was good to see the PD use the exchange in John's obituary. Team general manager John Hart, who has enjoyed high acclaim for his baseball executive talents failed as human being by answering a sincere question dismissively, "I really can't explain that. Sorry." answered Hart. The pathetic response expresses well the corporate coldness of the Dick Jacobs baseball franchise. * *

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