Accenting the Negative in Cleveland

By ROLDO BARTlMOLE and cabinet members. Even a close Negro as- lar frustrations - indeed, as do executives of CLEVELAND-Nearly two years ago Carl sociate of the mayor remarks, "His appoint- private enterprises in these days of skills B. Stokes, then an Ohio state legislator, told ments have been anything but stirring." Adds shortages. a U.S. Civil Rights Commission hearing: a sympathetic political scientist and univer- Yet it is clear that Mr. Stokes considers sity teacher of the mayor's appointments, his position a significant milestone in racial "We have in Cleveland developed the art. "They're good, honest men, but I didn't say destiny. to some, however, his moderate of accenting the positive to the exclusion of qualified. " stance may seem a little out of style in a city remedying the negative. How difficult it is, Mr. Stokes seemed not to heed warnings where black militancy is the vogue. ~ut he s;mnned militancy during the campaign and but. necessary, to advocate as a remedy the by aides during the campaign that he begin lining up staff members in anticipation of vic- has never had a record of deep-seated black accenting of the negative. How else to strike tory, and this became a handicap when he nationalism. This makes some. supporters at and endeavor to dispel the deep, almost in- took office less than a week after election uncomfortable and even a white liberal aide digenous, false sense of security and accom- day. says disappointedly, "1 never believed he was plishment that pervades this city?" But Mr. Stokes may have reached the "so conservative. I'm only working for him be- How difficult, indeed. Now, as mayor of turning point on the 100th day in office when cause he's Negro," Cleveland-the first Negro to be elected chief he named a new urban renewal chief, Rich- His few early successes stem from his executive of a major U.S. city-Mr. Stokes is ard Green, a 37-year-old protege of the form- ability to rebuild trust in city hall, especially finding out, as he seeks to make what some er Boston renewal wizard, Edward J. Logue. among Federal and state officials. Here the have called "a model of urban social crisis" Close friends believe Mr. Stokes will rise or mayor's good sense of humor and personable into the "model city" he envisioned as a fallon his ability to revive Cleveland's urban nature make him partiCUlarly impressive. Democratic candidate. ;renewal effort, one of the nation's largest No "Flow of Funds" and most troubled. It is too early, of course, to assess his Federal officials are impressed by his in- eventual success or failure-he has been on Mr. Green has the respect and blessing of telligence and dete~mination. The U.S. De- the job a mere four months. But the exuber- the Cleveland business-industrial community ance of national acclaim in which the city that helped select him. This confidence may partment of Housing and Urban Develop- basked after the witty and personable Mr. induce business, wary of city hall in the past ment, formerly severely critical of Cleve- Stokes won the November election is no lon- and perhaps overly concerned with spif-inter- land's dismal urban renewal record, now ger nearly so evident. est aspects of renewal, to join in a total effort. sends teams of experts to aid Mr. Stokes, as Unquestionably, had his Republican oppo- Competent Negroes, though perhaps pain- do other Federal agencies. But' the "flow of nent, Seth Taft, won, he would be encounter- fully aware of the racial destiny test, have not funds" from Washington, strongly hinted by ing the same difficulties. But Mr. Stokes must felt the need to make personal sacrifices. One Mr. Stokes in his campaign, hasn't material- shoulder a unique additional responsibility. young Negro lawyer, for example, the firet of ized SUbstantially. But the release of one $12 Though his campaign sought to portray him his race to join a prominent Cleveland law million urban renewal grant, earlier with- as simply the best qualified man for the job, firm, refused a Stokes-proffered city post. Dr. drawn, may have signalled a thaw in Wash- his success at the' polls stemmed almost en- Kenneth W. Clement, a Negro surgeon who ington-Cleveland relations. " tirely from Negro voter support aided by put aside his professional career temporarily On the state level, Mr. Stokes enjoys long- whites sympathetic to the civil rights move- to serve as Mr. Stokes' campaign manager, standing, warm relations with Republican ment. He is, in short, a symbol of the ascen- declined an offered new post as "deputy" Gov. James . Rhodes. The governor pledges dant Negro electorate. mayor, though he serves as a part-time consultant at $l·a-year. pollution and highway funds, but on tough Boon Opportunity urban problems-housing and jobs-the stats Meanwhile, two incidents involving top has little to offer but advice. But this responsibility also holds a unique aides cast shadows on the administration. The opportunity for Negroes to demonstrate the mayor's executive secretary was quickly Mr. Stokes can claim some other gains too. essence of their rights to equality. A rousingly fired after it was disclosed she was secretary He beefed up police patrols in high crime successful Stokes administration could be a of a private club that sold liquor illegally. areas by shifting 250 policemen from lesser marked boon for the Negro political move- Another aide resigned after being shot in the duties, and crime is down; he pushed "legisla- ment nationally. A failure to lift Cleveland home of his assailant's estranged wife. More tion for a county-wide port ~uthority through from its civic doldrums could be a disappoint- mature judgment in the administration might council; he averted a suburban land grab that ing setback, perhaps even reason for cheer to have prevented such minor mistakes which might have curtailed airport expansion; he those who say N'egroes are incapable. "become extremely burdensome in public has awakened the public housing authority to \ So far, however, Mr. Stokes' most able print," in the words of one intimate. its responsibilities for lOW-incomedwellingll. ~Negro and liberal white supporters seem less Mayor Stokes' difficulties in recruiting His moderation has won the sy:mpathy and tllian enthusiastic. Disappointing to some has top-calibre advisers is not unique to be sure. some support from the business community. ~een the new mayor's inability to gather the Mayors of other major cities, inclUding Mayor But the cooperation has been mostly symbolic :yost competent assistants, department heads Lindsay of New York, have experienced simi- and on projects of vested interest to the busi· ness community. Unfortunately, the g\)odwill lends itself to the type oJ. misinterp~tion that perpetuates tha "false sense of p1'O~. ress" the mayor hit at two years ago. Mr. Stokes could perhaps make his most meaningfUl contribution by articulating and interpreting the alienation of the slum at the highest civic levels. But thus far he says blaclt militants want only "good government and that's what we're going to give them." This simplification maY\obelp explain the business community's lethargy on perpleXing city problems. Efforts, for example, in housing and jobs have been conventional and token at best. In- deed, recent attempts to create, with indus- trial financing, a non-profit corporation to spur low income housing construction havs reached the "frustration point," says one 01 the plan's promoters.~ • Another $5 ~1l1on fund to work on inner city problems, announced a year ago by Ralph M. Besse, chairmlJ,n of the Cleveland Electric muminating Co., fizzled. Mr. Stokes' reliance upon goodwill and prI- vate interest resources also keeps the city hall staff weak. This has been the case for the past quarter century and, though private instI- tutions often share in the decision-making, city hall takes the raps for failures. Renewal Debacle A good example is the industry-financed Cleveland Development Foundation, which secretly helped form Cleveland's multi-mil- lion dollar Erieview urban renewal project at the same time the City Planning Agency was introducing its own master plan for the same downtown area.· The foundation was repre- sented on a five-man task force, named by Mr. Stokes, to untangle the urban renewal de- bacle it helped create. Despite the slow movement on issues of concern to the slum, the support of Cleve- land's 280,000 Negroes doesn't waver. Mr. Stokes remains a figure of pride, accomplish- ment and hope. "Even critical Negroes are .profoundly hoping he will succeed," says a Negro councilman. A seven-year-old Negro boy best symbolizes the pride: Thumbs in his shirt pockets and chest thrust out, he ex-' claims, "I'm Carl Stokes." The militant minority is less enthralled, of course. Some black power advocates see Mr. Stokes' election as merely another method of pacifying the slum. Nevertheless, they are aware of his popularity, and personal criti- cisms are few. Indeed, some people credit Mr. Stokes' vic- tory to militants who helped keep Cleveland peaceful last summer. Militants, rationalizing or not. say they supported him knowing he could do little to help them. In their minds, however, his failure could help radicalize Negroes. "People will see it isn't the man, but the 5ystem. It's just another step in the revo- lution," says one. Mr. Stokes is betting again!'t the dangers of this feeling. But his very election and the pride it engendered are tending to mesmerize those who wlmt to believe him. Reprinted from NATioN lune 26. 1961 Cleveland: Recipe lor Violence

ROLDO S. BARTIMOLE are up 300 per cent. A white policeman, part of the de- and MURRAY GRUBER partment's tactical force, the "Green Ber~ts," was killed Mr. Bartimole, formerly welfare and housing writer for the by gunfire this month. Fire bombings are nightly occur- Cleveland Plain Dealer, is now with the Cleveland office rences, with white businesses, vacant houses and schools of The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Gruber is a member of all prime targets. On one balmy April evening, more .than the Community Organization faculty. School of Applied Sci- fifty fires were set in the Central area, south of Hough. ences, Western Reserve University. He was a planner with One school was completely destroyed; the replacement Hough's Community Action. for Youth during Ulst year's cost will be more than $1 million. Teen~agers on a ram- riots. page smashed windows in stores along a 20-block area Cleveland in Hough. Between September and March, fifty-nine The United States is the only Western democracy in which teachers have been assaulted in schools. economic and racial problems produce riots in major Traditional cleavages in the community are more bitter cities. Here, the array of urban problems that test the via- than ever. The Ku Klux Klan and the North American Alliance of White People plan summer programs. Whites bility of the city and the patience of I the ghetto can be found in most metropolitan communities, but Cleveland fear that guerrilla warfare will spread to them and Ne- points up most clearly the inevitability of violent rebel- groes anticipate gangs of white toughs. Apartment dwellers lion when peaceful change is aborted. -black and white-at the edge' of Hough take turns In April, 1966, the Civil Rights Commission ripped keeping armed guard on rooftops; the cultural center of away Cleveland's carefully nurtured facivil rights movement is a shambles; and there by private groups, including the Rotary Club and Group is little organization in the ghetto. 66, a young businessmen's organization. __ Cleveland is a recipe for violence. Already three white One minister predicts the imposition of "emergency grocers have been murdered in the ghetto, arid robberies apartheid" to seal off the ghetto this summer. "Those of

~12) us who have read The Rise alld Fall of the Third Reich," one. And another: "If the police break skulls what will said the Rev. Charles Rawlings, director of the Council the reaction be'! Lefs find Ollt." A third said: "The best of Churches Metropolitan Division, "know well the early wav to leave these hoodlums is face down in the street." rationalizations advanced to the German people which Gh~tto militants warned: "Just let one of those cops start prepared them to accept the first excesses by govern- be~lting on a brother." Safety Director John McCormick, ment .... The thinking in some private circles in Cleve- anticipating charges of police brutality, said, "I don't land is that should violence erupt in our ghetto again, care." But Bertram E. Gardner. a Negro and director of we will seal it off, permitting no one to enter or leave." the Community Relations Board, takes another tack. He The history of police-community relations and current tells Negro groups that "if you see the police using a activities gives plausibility to Rawlings' fears. Detective little force, look up at the stars, look away." Sergeant John Ungvary. head of the subversive activities When tensions rise in other cities, officials cautiously squad, testified before Sen. James O. Eastland's' Internal avoid provoking the ghetto. Not so in Cleveland. Although Security Subcommittee that "What we need is a law that the "get tough" tactics are ostensibly aimed at a small would let us charge them all [black nationalists] as con- number of troublemakers, statements of public officials spirators ... before an overt act is committed. Wouldn't are manifestly racist and all-inclusive. Law Director this be far better than to wait for an overt act?" Bronis J. Klementowicz, second in command at city hall But the police are only willing functionaries; they de- and a confidant of Mayor Locher, recently warned a liver what public officials want. Mayor Locher ordered state legislative committee that "if the Cleveland police police to "fill the jails . . . put a stop to this rowdyism. department fails, crime will spill all over Cuyahoga This is no time for theorizing ... but for bold action:' County," hinting that Negroes would carry crime to the Councilmen were more blunt: "Shoot 'em dead," said suburbs. He added a gratuitous slur on Negro family life, claiming there were "10,000 women in Hough without editor of the Cleveland Press and an avid believer in his husbands." This implied they are unwed mothers. There ability to prescribe what is best for Cleveland, linked are, in fact, less than 10,000 husbandless females in several militants to the riots. The grand jury reported Hough, including more than 4,000 single women and that the riots were "... organized, precipitated and ex- some 1,200 widows. ploited by a relatively small group of trained and dis- Later Locher branded Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ciplined professionals at this business." It went on to " an "extremist" when the Negro leader came to Cleveland blame the Communist Party. The findings were refuted to preach nonviolence to youth in ghetto high schools. by the U.S. Justice Department, and even the FBT dis- Locher refused to meet with King, as "he has repeatedly agreed. Anyone who had read Seltzer's newspaper dur- rejected meetings with Cleveland Negroes. ing the Civil Rights hearings 'would have known that Negroes didn't need Communists to convince them to rebel. City officials find a well-tooled instrument for sup- Unable to indict any of the militants, the police have pression in the Cleveland police department. Testimony used harassing tactics, slapping housing violations on during the Civil Rights Commission hearings revealed that store-front offices operated by them. Efforts by white police often hold Negroes without charge; disregard state groups to maintain lines of communication to the ghetto law on the right to make telephone calls by those arrested; are stifled by police and community pressures, with con- make wide use of a "suspicious person" city ordinance to stant rebukes from the newspapers. haul Negroes into the station. Then. before releasing per- Last year some officials of the Council of Churches at- SO:1S held without charge, the pplice tell them to sign a "waiver," by which they forfeit the right to sue the city tempted to keep open the JFK (lomo Freedom Kenyatta) for unlawful arrest and detention. (One commissioner House, a youth center. JFK House was operated by Lewis called the waiver a "fraud.") The suspicious person law G. Robinson, labeled an agitator by police and "a re- was ruled unconstitutional by a municipal judge, but re- curring figure" in the Hough riots by the grand jury. The mains in use by the city's chief prosecutor, who avoids council has been accused of engaging in a conspiracy that particular judge. with violent militants, an accusation Rev. Mr. Rawlings In December, a team of experts" described the police calls "unspeakable insanity." Privately both police and department as "defensive, isolated, parochial and mis- city officials insist the council is diverting funds to be trustful of the public it serves." The department views used for violence. Tn business circles the council is re- any community relations work as "yielding 'to radical and garded with paranoid suspicion. Earlier this year, its subversive elements in the community." It rejected a prof- officials met in New York with Saul D. Alinsky to dis- fered $15,000 grant from the U. S. Department of Justice cuss a ghetto organizational drive this summer. Ralph to plan a community-relations program,· and to divert M. Besse, chairman of the board of the Cleveland Elec- criticism from this obstinacy created its own community- tric Illuminating Company and chairman of the lnner- relations division, naming as head a thirty-two-year vet- City Action Committee, a group of community dites eran cop who has been State Fraternal Order of Police formed after the Hough riots at Locher's request, said president for nineteen years! the ghetto "doesn't need an agitator." Another civic elite, Police also have a simple method of handling com- John A. Reavis, lawyer-businessman and head of the plaints against themselves. Complainants are told that the Businessmen's Interracial Committee, formed after the police officer charged will take a lie-detector test. If he sc~ool riots in 1964, said it would be a "tragedy" if fails, appropriate action will be taken. However, the com- Almsky were to come. Reavis indicated that financial plainant must also take a lie-detector test, and if he fails, pressures would be brought on the council. must serve a six-month jail sentence and pay a $1,000 Recently Floyd McKissick, of CORE, met with Besse fine for filing a false complaint. That usually eliminates an? other business leaders. He was startled by their in- the complaint, a police official said. abilIty to understand the need for ghetto organization. Symbolizing police contempt, Police Chief Richard McKissic~ .said privately that Cleveland was the first city Wagner rode into Hough during the riots armed with his he had VISIted where he could not find a few high-level personal hunting rifle, which he used against snipers. business leaders who understood that the ghetto needed When a woman, searching for her children, was killed to develop its own economic and political strength. by gunfire, Wagner remarked, "There was a similar oc- currence in the Chicago riots. They sacrifice one person As the war fever mounts, a three-way conflict and blame it on police brutality." has developed among business interests, city hall and the Even with the problems and the police-state tactics, federal government. Business interests are feeling the violence might be avoidable if some safety valve existed. pinch of the inept renewal program. Cleveland's credit But there is almost no communicatior. between officials r~ting has dropped from "Aa" to "A," already costing the and the ghetto. (Gardner. in answer to a question about the cIty $70,000 in higher interest rates on improvement police chief, told reporters this May 21, "I don't know bonds. The main downtown shopping center has been in Chief Wagner. I know what he looks like, but I don't a decline that is reflected in some $4.4 million in tax re- know him.") Beaten down, seemingly without hope, the duction for the downtown core since January. The grass-roots people have not organized viable protests. County Board of Tax Revision blamed the drop on the Militants are pushed to extreme positions by a South- "complete deterioration" of the area. For two years prior ern-type community response. After the Hough riots, a to some recent activity, there were no acquisitions or special grand jury, headed by Louis B. Seltzer, former disposition of land in the $16-million downtown Erie- view project. Interest on Erieview bonds has exceeded and Besse severed relations with the city administration. limitations and is pyramiding at $50,000 a month. Dur- In a bitter letter, Besse said: "The causes of the frus- ing the last eleven years the city has failed to complete tration of the mobilized effort of the community to assist a single urban renewal project; it is now stuck with more you are identical with those which have frustrated the land under renewal projects than any other city in the federal government. . . . These causes are to be found nation. In the Hough area, part of the largest rehabili~ primarily in the inadequacies of executive personntlf and tation project in the country, only 15 per cent of the almost complete lack of effective coordination .••. " planned work has been completed after four years of Locher hit back, charging the business community construction. with an attempt to take over city hall. With considerable By January the urban renewal bungling had forced truth, Locher declared: "I have not yet seen one real HUD Secretary Robert C. Weaver to take the unprece- constructive action taken by the [Inner-City] committee. dented action of denying new funds· for Cleveland (six So far we have heard some cries from them and they more projects were 'in planning stages). Weaver also have made some demands on us. Where's their action?" turned down a request for $23 million more for Hough (Besse subsequently said if he had it to do over, he would renewal and withdrew $10 million already committed exchange the word "Action" for "Coordinating.") for the second stage of downtown commercial renewal. While Locher and Besse play politics, decent housing He warned that if "substantial progress" was not made is a top priority for ghetto residents who also want to by July, HUD would cut off funds for the administra- know where the action is. Last year they answered with tion of projects which have been in execution since 1956. fire bombs and called it "instant urban rene).Val." In March, One of the jeopardized projects is Cleveland State Uni- a black nationalist, Fred (Ahmed) Evans, made national versity, a downtown· complex which business sees as es- news when he predicted riots for May 9 to coincide with sential for revitalizing the area. a partial eclipse of the sun. That date passed quietly With business interests threatened, Besse offered to enough, but the police can take no credit. With loaded assist the city administration in urban renewal. But after shotguns, they burst into Ahmed's astrology store front a meeting with him a Locher aide reported to the Mayor, in Hough, arresting him and others on "housing viola- "All in all, I was not encouraged to believe that the por- tions." That same night two police detectives visited the tion of the business community represented by Mr. Besse Plain Dealer editorial rooms, searching for N.B.C.- TV would be willing to offer any real assistance except on cameramen from New York City because they "know its own terms." Again in March, Besse offered the as- where the riot's going to start tonight." sistance of the business community. The quid pro quo All the elements for tragedy are now present in this was the replacement of Locher's urban renewal director city, self-proclaimed "The Best Location in the Nation." with Maj. Gen. Stanley Connelly, director of Besse's In- It may be too~ late for Cleveland,but there are lessons ner-City Action Committee. Locher rejected the offer here for other clties that want to avoid disaster.

When racial violence occurs in the city of Cleveland, bombing, and so are those. who live near him. When no one is surprised. Jobs are scarce, housing is poor, he told them, "I am sorry to have caused this to and the Mayor and police department lost the con- happen," the only reply was that of a neighbor stand- fidence of the Negro community long ago. But it is ing next to him, who said, "Please, sir, don't ever say a different story when racial violence occurs in Cleve- anything like that again, please don't." Later that same land Heights, an established and prosperous suburb morning, an estimated 500 persons met at St. Paul's to the east of Cleveland. Cleveland Heights has none Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights and pledged of the economic or the administrative problems of $4,234 as a reward for the arrest of the guilty party. the city, and although its population is more than In the gathering were the leaders of a number of 60,000, it has only about eighty Negro families. religious and civic groups, including the Heights Citi- Yet in the past ten years six bombings, all"traceable zens for Human Rights, a fair-housing organization. to racial discontent, have occurred in the northwest Unfortunately, it seems improbable that Hill's neigh- corner of this suburb. The target of the latest of these bors or the Heights Citizens for Human Rights will be bombings was J. Newton Hill, the first Negro to head able to guarantee that future incidents do not occur. Karamu House, an interracial theatre and art center Yet steps could have been taken to reduce their like- in Cleveland. [See "Art and Argot at Karamu" by lihood. The City Council of Cleveland Heights could Bennett Kremen, The Nation, September 19, 1966.] On by now have passed a fair-housing ordinance and estab- May 14, a time bomb containing fifteen sticks of lished a human relations commission with a profes- dynamite ripped the front of the Hill home, causing sional staff. Such action, while not promising miracles, an estimated $3,000 in damage. Hill and his wife were could have made it clear that an attack upon a Negro asleep in an upstairs bedroom and were unhurt by home in Cleveland Heights is an attack upon all homes. the blast, but there is no telling when they will move Instead, the Council has rejected a proposal to take back to their home. a more open stand on fair housing, and the only actien There is no doubt how Mr. Hill's neighbors and from all the talk has been a library exhibit on Negro many other residents in Cleveland Heights feel about culture. That will scarcely interest the bombers, and it the incident. Hill himself is confident that "it wasn't will certainly not intimidate. them. racial hatred in the neighborhood" that caused the NICOLAUS C. MILLS .l!ointofvi~w

ENDOFCARLSTOKESERA At a celebration of 25 years of Point of View I was surprised to see former Mayor Carl Stokes walk into the auditorium. He walked right up to the front of the room where the committee had hung above the stage a huge enlargement of the first issue of this pUblication.

It was entitled "Cleveland Now: another gimmick," and it was an attack on 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! was a program that was supposed to address the severe social ills of Cleveland. I had quoted Stokes' words, still apt today, from testimony he had given at the U. S. Civil Rights Commission in 1966 in criticizing it:

"We have, in Cleveland, developed the art of accenting the positive to exclusion of remedying the negative. How difficult it is, but necessary, to advocate as a remedy the accenting of the negative. How else to strike at and endeavor to dispel the deep, almost indigenous false sense of security and accomplishment that pervades this city?" Stokes had told the historic civil rights commission hearings that laid bare Cleveland's racial, school and economic problems.

It seemed to me that the business community and the news media which had given Cleveland Now! promotional backing were using it as another gimmick to hide the real need and costs of repairing a sick city. With the passage of time, all the problems have only become worse.

Cleveland Now! was developed by "experts" in 48 hours to take advantage of the positive feeling in the community after Stokes had kept peace in in the aftermath of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, April 4, 1968. Stokes took advantage of the good-will by asking the business leaders and news media to join in the Cleveland Now! program.

It was Cleveland Now! (CN) that led to Stokes's disenchantment with business leaders as they pulled back after the Glenville shootout in July, 1968. It was found that money from CN was used to purchase weapons used in the gun battle between militants and police. This frightened the business leaders who gradually withdrew support from CN.

What was not realized was that the programs for militants had a precedent in a secret under-the-table program in 1967 that saw the same militants paid weekly at the Call & Post via a program headed up by Ralph Besse, former chairman of the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. , and former partner of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey. (The Establishment, as you see, has tremendous staying power). This program to keep peace during the election summer of 1967 was ended oddly before the final election, a tipoff that it was meant to maintain peace so that Stokes would defeat Mayor Ralph Locher in the Democratic primary (Cleveland had partisan elections at the time). Indeed, some of the same business leaders, trustees at the Cleveland Foundation led by Jack Reavis, managing partner of Jones, Day Cockley and Reavis (Dick Pogue hadn't arrived yet), helped bankroll a third candidate, Frank Celeste, the former mayor of Lakewood and father of Gov. Dick Celeste. He was to draw white votes from Locher in order to insure a Stokes victory.

Then, it was the assumption of these business leaders, Stokes would be defeated by one of their own, Seth Taft, also a partner of Jones, Day, Cockley and Reavis, who like Celeste, had moved into the city to run for mayor. The assumption was that any white candidate would defeat Stokes because not enough whites would vote for a black ,candidate. 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 ma~net~sm. He was everything a deprived, oppressed constituency could. des1re 1n a leader: saucy youthfulness; movie star handsome; an ~ngag1ng public personality to charm even detractors; anger enough to 1nduce 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 pp1itics 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 League in 1966 that if blacks burn the cities "the white man's companies will have to take the losses." Robert Allen in Black Awakening in Capitalist America. wrote further of Bundy's warning, "'White America 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 drive 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 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 ••••"

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."

When 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.

But I found Stokes sympathetic despite the criticism. Though he left Cleveland at the time to be a TV newsman, he pretty much detested the news media, particularly the Pee Dee, a shared distrust. When he had TV press conferences televised by Ch. 3 as mayor, he insisted that I be included, something not relished by the brass at Ch. 3.

His long exile in New York unfortunately made his ability to come home impossible. He came back to help Dennis Kucinich run for re-election in 1979, a prelude to his return from New York. It always seemed to me that a deal had been made for his backing. In return he was able to form a law firm with business from the United Auto Workers, a strong Kucinich supporter. He showed me around his new offices at the time and said "You don't think I came back to be a city councilman, did you?" I took that to mean he had come back to make money and possibly be a power broker. However, this had become George Forbes' town.

It wasn't long before the ~irm 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 ability to energize people. That voice, often an outlet for the disenfranchised, has been absent politically for 25 years.

Stokes, after his death April 3, was in repose at City Hall where a steady stream of people visited. There were four days of repose and ceremonies. But there was something distrubing about both the ceremonies and 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 troub±ed about the plight of the masses." But the opportunity to voice their plight was essentially lost, avoided by those who had profited. 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.

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 Dick Jacobs baseball franchise.

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