Part Two: Changing Parties Isn't Easy

As a part of this Seven Part Series, I thought it might be interesting and insightful to also share a few of the shorter chapters from my book, Black Eyes Shut - White Lips Sealed. Enjoy!


CHAPTER FOUR

CHANGING PARTIES ISN’T EASY!

“The ability to change, despite the cost, is the divine wisdom possessed by only those who know not only the burden, but the power of positive change.”
Golden Nuggets of Wisdom to My Daughter LaShunda___jhh

I was born with politics in my blood. It was my call, and my passion. After my first year of law school, I had all the ingredients of a promising beginning in becoming a young African-American political success story.

I took a clerkship with the law firm of Crutchfield, Jenkins, Grantham, Teeter and Taylor. The senior partner of the firm, Ward Crutchfield was also the chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party. But actually my legal interest was not the only motive for my consideration in clerking for this particular firm.

I also took the clerkship because there was this handsome, debonair, single, black attorney who was a partner there named Rheubin McGhee Taylor. This presented an even better incentive for clerking with the firm. So with a little encouragement from my best friend, Naomi Davis [Jackson], I figured out a way to fulfill my “clerkship” and “manship” at the same time. But first, we had to check out the status of his being, i.e., “being” married or not.

I came up with the idea of calling to invite his wife to a Lady’s Tea. I knew if he was married, his secretary would pass the invitation on to his wife, and if he wasn’t, she would tell us.

Using my most sophisticated, and polished voice, I called his office, spoke with his secretary, and invited “Mrs. Taylor” to the Lady’s Tea. The secretary, Sharon laughed and in a deep southern draw replied, “Mr. Taylor is not married!” I had the scoop! There was no “Mrs. Taylor”, just like there wasn’t any “Lady’s Tea” to invite her to even if she did exist!

Hearing this, without any further ado, I crossed off the other firms on my list, and chose the firm of Crutchfield, Jenkins, Grantham, Teeter, and especially Taylor to further enrich my legal education. Of course this was done with a more than slight hint of a personal agenda on the side.

Upon further investigation, I found the brother was on his way to the altar. It was fun while it lasted, but so much for the brief romantic encounter.

For Bobby, he was very happy that what could have happened in the past didn’t work out, because this gave him a straight shot into my heart. So was I because what God had for me was a wonderful gift who became not only my husband, but my king, my lover, my partner, and my very best friend. He was a man that stood tall above all the others in love and character, and was strong in his personal and spiritual resolve. He was the perfect father for my child. Bobby was more than any girl could ever ask for.

Once that was resolved, I was able to focus solely on the most important reasons for my clerkship, which had sort of gotten lost within the romantic pursuit and matters of the heart. But what I did not realize was that God was using Rheubin to lure me into a place in politics, where I would begin a journey which would eventually fulfill the call that was upon my life as I became involved in politics, first as a Democrat, and then later as a Republican.

It was not difficult to become involved within the Hamilton County Democratic Party while working for the firm. Ward Crutchfield, the party chairman was a very warm and likable person, who welcomed everybody, and tried to give everyone a chance to be involved in the Party. He became my political mentor, my friend, and was like a political father to me. I had the highest respect and regards for him. Missy, his daughter and I became hangout buddies, sisters, and best friends. Ward gave me every opportunity to be politically groomed. I watched him, even when he did not know that I was observing him. He was a political boss who ruled by making everybody seem needed. With a certain southern draw, which is unique only to him, and a cigar clinched between his teeth, he spoke his piece, followed by a disarming smile that kept you from knowing that he knew that he was the boss.

At that time, around the mid 70s, there weren’t a lot of “us” holding elected office in the Democratic Party, and none of us held anything in the Republican Party. Johnny Franklin served as Commissioner of Health and Education. Rheubin and Rev. Paul McDaniels had been elected as Representatives to the Tennessee Constitutional Convention. State Representative C. B. Robinson had already made political history in being one of the first blacks to serve in the Tennessee Legislature. Later Rev. McDaniels and Rheubin went on to serve as Hamilton County Commissioners. Other than that, there were no other black flies in the bowl of buttermilk in either of the parties.

In 1979, I got the political itch. Several years before that, I had designed, and implemented a program called Democracy In Action. It was a Civics program that taught a practical application of government and leadership to elementary, junior high, middle school, and high school students by allowing them to participate in government on a local, state, and national level in a real life and mock setting. The program was an excellent educational tool in teaching students how government functioned, and the roles and responsibilities of being citizens. The program was quite a success within the Hamilton County and City of Chattanooga Public Schools.
While educating students, I also received a Civics revival of interest in politics, which had always been a part of my calling in life. In fact, as early as seventh grade, I was running for office and serving as class president and student body president.

The “Little Politician” was the nickname given to me by my high school principal, Mr. Rumsey as I emerged in 1969-1970 as one of the first girls to serve as second in command of the McKinley High School Student Government and first in command of the Student Senate.

I remember my campaign as if it happened only yesterday. I ran against this really popular kid. I knew I had to overcome his popularity, so I decided to run an untraditional campaign, topped by an unconventional speech to the student body. I had one major advantage over him. I had grown up in the church, and could bellow out a note like an archangel!

I put together my campaign without telling anyone about the finale that was to come. Two of my closest friends Sharon and Janelle helped me to make confetti. I found just the right gown–the one I wore to the 1969 Girl’s State Cotillion and my Inauguration as the elected Lt. Governor of Girl’s State. The red satin porteswaue top, with horizontal layers of white lace that started at the waist and spiraled to the hem, made me look like a living replica of a little black African-American dream doll, minus the blue. My godmother, Ruth Alford had the gown especially designed for me, and it was simply lovely, thanks to the designer Madam Bertha Simon.

I then got with the school band, and asked them to play, Burt Bacharach’s “This Girl’s in Love With You”. Not even the band knew what I was up to.

On stage were all of the candidates except me. The audience grew with suspense as everyone wondered what had happened to me! I waited outside the auditorium to make my unexpected entrance from the back.

Finally the time came for me to make my speech. As soon as they announced my name, the band was cued to begin. From the back of the auditorium, I made my grand entrance, with confetti being thrown from each side of the aisles, singing to the tune of “This Girls in Love With you”:

You see this girl? This girl wants to work for you. Yes I am the one, who can do my thing and do it well, I can tell, you think I am swell. So vote for me and you will know. But how can I show you? Unless I get to know you now, I need your vote. I want your vote.

The entire student body went wild! Needless to say, I won the election overwhelmingly. From that point on, Principal Rumsey, and the rest of my teachers started calling me, “The Little Politician”. My first real life campaign as a political candidate certainly did not bear this same kind of Cinderella ending. In fact, it was quite to the contrary.

It was 1980, and I thought I was the lady! The free spiritedness I acquired from my early 70’s liberated days at Wheaton, and mostly from the tone of that time, intoxicated me with the feeling that I was young, gifted, black, free, and had the power to map out my own destiny! Part of that mapping was a conscious decision to enter the “real world” of politics.

Being fully intoxicated with making a difference, I returned to my hometown of Chattanooga, believing I had been called into politics, as an elected public servant, to change Chattanooga, Tennessee, the South and the whole world! I wasn’t quite as successful as my political ambitions led me to believe. But I did succeed in making one major change that impacted my life, and I guess in some ways, now impacts others.

I left the Democratic Party, and crossed over to join the ranks of the Republican GOP. How brave I was then to have made such a decision! It wasn’t until years later, that I assessed my move as being very brave, and very politically naive. Nevertheless it was ordained by God to be this way, and to be done at that time. Everything was done according to his divine schedule. Now I can see that clearly. But back then, I never in a lifetime expected my move to have made so many waves!
Immediately, I was surrounded by the media, which followed and covered every move of my candidacy. I became a political legend because I was the first black female Republican to run for a state office in the history of Hamilton County, and if elected would have been the first female to serve in the Tennessee Legislature from Hamilton County.

It was also the first time the Hamilton County Republican Party had embraced an African-American candidate for an elected office! I felt like I had come home, and was carrying out the dreams of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the vows we had made in college to get the white man’s education, then go home, “kick butt”, and make a difference in improving society for all people, and especially blacks!
I was an infant participant in the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, and had been one of the recipients to reap the benefits of the golden years of the 70’s, where blacks for the first time flocked to college in groves, as predominantly white universities and colleges opened their doors to admit blacks. We were the cream of the crop, and were among some of the brightest, and idealistic young minds of that time. We were hungry for knowledge and hungry for immediate changes in society. We knew that the most visible evidence of our equality was to get accepted to the best of the white universities and colleges, excel, and prove that we too could earn the same degree, as anyone who was white. But during those years I held within my past a deeper incentive for achieving this goal.

I was the first out of my family to obtain a college degree. I also was a fourth generation descendant of a slave. I had witnessed personally the ugliness of discrimination growing up in the South. My Mom and Dad had been deprived of even a high school education.

My Mom began picking cotton at the age of nine. They had yearned and thirsted for knowledge and the opportunity to get an education, and wanted very much for the lives of their children to be different. I listened to the stories they told of how they prayed that the fall crops wouldn’t fair so well so that they would not have to work in the fields, and could go to school. Even when they were able to attend, they had to walk for miles in the cold, rain, and sometimes snow just to get there.

My mother’s mother, and my Big Mama, before she got off to an early start of a day’s work at the white folk’s house, cooking, cleaning, washing, and taking care of their kids until over in the evening, would pack a piece of last nights corn bread or biscuit, with a little syrup, in a bucket and send my mother, and her brother and sisters off to school. Some days they were blessed to get a piece of fat back to go with that. When that happened, they were truly grateful. Back then there was no such thing as a right to a public education for blacks.

My Mom loved reading, and was most grateful whenever she could find any kind of written material, including the Sears & Roebuck catalogue to use as a reader. Back then, it was a blessing to have even one book of your own in school. And if you had one, you carefully guarded it as a prize possession.

She learned to read by stealing away to herself with the newspaper and books that were discarded by the white people Big Mama worked for. As a child, I remember her joy in sitting all of us around her, as she read Snuffy Smith and other cartoons from the Sunday’s newspaper. She made it seem so real by imitating each character’s voice.

Segregation and discrimination were real during those times, and in many ways were just as bad as slavery itself. As I look back over my life, I realize that I also was a victim of educational segregation. More than half of my educational experience was spent in segregation. I remember as a first and second grader, walking to school in the rain and cold weather, and having to jump the ditches of the rural community of Shepherd to keep from being hit by cars on my little less than a mile walk to and from school. Because of ducking in and out of ditches to keep from being hit, we often left home clean, and by the time we reached school we were plastered in mud.

I also remember being passed, by the nice, bright yellow school bus filled with white children, being transported to school, while we had to make the journey to school on foot. The shouts from the windows of being called “niggers”, and having objects hurled from the bus on our heads was very frightening for a child who did not understand why she was so hated just because of the color of her skin.

Not only were the kids cruel, but there were even times when white school bus drivers intentionally drove close to the edge of the road, leaving us with no place to go except in the ditch. We could see the white kids laughing and running to the windows, and back of the bus to catch a glimpse of the nigger children jumping ditches, and struggling to pull themselves out after the bus passed.

The most terrifying of all, was having to walk through parts of the white community to get to school and being rocked by whites and being forced to take an alternative route through the cemetery and the woods.

One morning in the heart of the cold of winter, I arrived at school with nearly frostbitten fingers. My mother had tried to clothe us so that we could keep warm, but the long walk to school allowed the elements to penetrate our clothing and expose us to the cold. My teacher, Ms. Izetta Taylor [Thurmond] having such a concern for us, sent me along with two other girls to the bathroom to run water over our numb and frost bitten fingers. The more water I ran, the more my fingers ached. I was too young to understand that I could have suffered severe damage from the frostbite. But as the years have past, and I have begun to reach a maturing age, I now understand the impact of those cold winter days in my early childhood, when my fingers were excessively and continuously exposed to the elements.

After seeing us walk to school in such pain and agony, another teacher, Miss Margie Strickland who lived on the same street as we did, began to do her best to try to give us a ride to school on the extremely cold days. But her car could only hold four or five of us, which meant the others had to walk.

I remember the anguish in her face, as she stopped, but tried to shut out who rode, and who did not get a ride, knowing she had left some of us behind to walk the cold roads to school alone. Even years later, when we did get buses to transport us to school, we still suffered the humiliation of having to pass through white neighborhoods, and the “nigger bus” being rocked by those who did not feel we should be given a ride to school.

We learned from outdated books, with pages ripped out or that had been written on by white kids, and then given to the “nigger kids”. We got the old torn and outdated books, while white students had the advantage of studying from the current text editions.

What was even more damaging to my psyche and sense of self esteem, was looking through my books, and never once seeing anyone that looked like me in any of them, and thinking what it would be like to see a “black Jane run” and a “black Dick jump”! The only black I ever saw was the black spots on the dog Spot.

I attended Chickamauga Elementary from grades one through six, and Booker T. Washington, where grades seven through twelfth were all cramped together into one small facility. There was always a lack of equipment, and a struggle for teachers to get the bare necessities needed to properly educate us. As a child this had a tremendous impact upon me.

It was the dedication, and determination of the black teachers who took those outdated books, and taught us not only what was in the books, but also went outside of that to make sure we learned what had been omitted or torn from the text. They used the black accomplishments of the Negro race to teach us pride and self-respect. Almost every black student who came through Chickamauga or Booker T. Washington was taught “I am Somebody”, by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and made to recite it and reduce it to memory. Even today, I can recite it. I am somebody as the days grow long. I am somebody, …. Without them, and what they put in us regarding our own rich heritage, not just as slaves, but as great inventors, educators, achievers and leaders, I would have never realized my educational dreams. They made sure we held our heads up high, and knew who we were! They are the ones responsible for placing within me that seed which inspired me to dare to dream the American dream.

Today, even with a law degree, this chapter from my history still stings and carries an emotional scar. It was not until I completed my education in Washington, D.C. that I began to overcome the institutionalized inequalities within the southern educational system, and began to strive to get an education beyond that of just graduating from high school.

Being accepted to and attending an ivy league all women’s college in Massachusetts proved that I did have what it took to compete academically with my white counterparts. However, as I competed, I realized that the meticulous teaching of my seventh and eighth grade English teacher, Miss Martha Edmondson, despite the inequalities of the system, and the outdated textbooks, had given me an edge.
My grammar was superior. My writing skills were exceptional, and my oratorical skills were as polished as the best of them, thanks to the drilling from Miss Edmondson and Mr. Epsey’s Debating Class.

In Mr. Epsey’s class we were trained to stand with poise and dignity, as we clearly articulated our position, and intelligently debated issues. This gave us the ability to become sharp thinkers on our feet.

Who I was, and the skills I had acquired were all due to the extra efforts these teachers had made to make sure we were better, because they knew if we were to compete and to survive in the hostile white environment of that time, we had to prove not only that we had the same intelligence, but we had to go beyond that, and strive to be better.

Despite this, I still had to struggle with the distorted images many whites had of blacks, and being racially stigmatized as being inferior. It took years of finding myself and building my foundation of self-confidence, that actually spilled over into my law school experience, before I was able to effectively overcome the racial indoctrination of my early years down South.

Not only was slavery cruel, but also discrimination within the separate and unequal South was just as devastating, and visible.

My Mom tells of those times when they didn’t have shoes, and only had one or two change of clothes. They wore one, while the other was being washed and dried.
There were many days when my Big Mama spent all day tolling in the white man’s house, and was sent home with only a jug of watered down sweet milk, a little flour, and a pound of butter as pay for her long day’s labor. Many nights you could hear Big Mama praying way over into the midnight hours, crying out to God to help them to keep the family fed, clothed and warm. There was no one to enforce fair wages, and to ensure that Big Mama or Grand Papa were rightly paid for their labor and toil. There was no one to complain to, but the Lord. Because back then, if you complained, made a fuss about it, or refused to take what you got, they just let you go, and found another “nigger” to take your place. So people like Big Mama and Grand Papa, just took their wages in whatever form and amounts they were given, and just tried to do the best they could with the good Lord’s help. Those times certainly built their faith, as they had to depend solely upon God for almost everything, despite their willingness to work hard for a good day’s pay.

My father is passed. He died three months after my husband’s death. My Mom is still living, and is as feisty as ever. She and my step-dad have worked hard to pay for, and own their own house, and cars without owing anyone a cent. Sometimes when I see her come out on a Sunday morning, all dressed up, with her hat sitting just right on her head, with matching shoes and purse, it moves me to tears to know all that she went through growing up as a child, and I am grateful to God that He has blessed her to have a much easier life now. She is one of the most precious mothers anyone could ask for. I cherish each time she tells, and retells us the stories of our history.

These stories are a part of my history that motivated me to make my parents, my Big Mama and Grand Papa, and my slave ancestor’s sufferings of the past count for something more than just bitter and harsh memories. I was determined that I would never be enslaved or prevented because of the color of my skin from reaching my goals, and that I would defy my history of slavery, and rise to be free, first in my mind, and in my thinking. It made me fight against racial inequalities even harder, and made me even more determined to get an education, and to make a difference.

Then there were the stories of the lynchings and cross burnings. Those stories struck a cord inside of me that was not the same as the other stories told to me by my father, mother and Big Mama. These stories struck a cord of anger.

It was hard to hear the story of how I came to be born in Anniston, Alabama, when Georgia was the place of my family’s birthright. After living in Lincolnton, Georgia, and the surrounding areas all of their lives, my father, mother and the rest of our family fled for their lives to keep the Klan from killing my father. Because of that one incident, we were uprooted from our Georgia heritage and homeland, and forced to live in Alabama, where I was born, and then to Tennessee.

While white Americans talk about immigrating to America, my history was one of being kidnapped, and forced to come to a land as a slave. Because of discrimination, and racial hatred my history was also further tainted by having to flee from one state to another under the fear of the racist terror of the Ku Klux Klan.

Knowing from whence I had come, I thought my move to the almost solidly white Republican Party, and me running for office were a milestone of racial accomplishment. At least this is the way I viewed it. I believed my descendants earned the right to be free Americans, which included the freedom to choose the political party I best aligned with. I saw my philosophy as an advocate of free enterprise, and economic empowerment, as a part of that freedom. Earl Graves, the publisher of Black Enterprise can take the credit for implanting this philosophy within me.

Mr. Graves was a mentor, and a model for many blacks during the 70s who looked up to him as “the father of black enterprise”. We all had copies of his magazine, and read them along with Essence, Ebony and Jet, from cover to cover. Finally there were magazines with people and stories inside about people that looked just like me! They were filled with rich information, about black entrepreneurship and black leadership in the “New Black American Era” after the Civil Rights Movement.

After graduating from college, I could have gone any place with the many offers of employment I had, but I was full of zeal and eager to return home and bring to my community, the place I loved, and where I had grown up most of my life, the knowledge, skills and information I had obtained. I was so full of freedom, and free choice that I jumped right into the political arena, changing my party affiliation from a Democrat to a Republican, never realizing the impact it would have on my future, simply because others did not share or understand the freedom I had drank of and had become a part of my being while I was up north getting this white man’s education that so many had longed for.

I thought my political move would send a message to the black community that it was time to reclaim our birth right within the Republican Party, and take our places in helping to shape and mold the political direction of the Party of Lincoln. It was extreme progress for an African-American in the late 70’s, early 80’s to make this kind of daring move. But sadly enough, many of the African-American Democrats in my hometown just were not on the same page and book as I was, and failed to understand my reasoning and my motives.

I was young and my lack of maturity may also have played a part in how I articulated my reasoning as well. I just did not even think twice about how the black community would perceive my change of party or the impact such a move would have had on my future. Again my ideological views of true freedom, and the right to choose whatever party affiliation I desired, tinted my vision. I was looking through rose-colored glasses of freedom that had not yet been prescribed to most African-Americans in my hometown.

In many ways the impact was good. For the first time, there were more African-Americans willing to give the taboo Republican Party of which they perceived as rich, callous and uncompassionate, a chance. But for me personally, it sealed my political fate.

My move was viewed by some blacks, as a tragic demise of one who had so much potential for political success, but because of me changing parties, had just committed political suicide!

I not only changed parties, but at the same time, I threw my hat in the race for State Representative for the 29th District. To give an example of how naïve I was, I thought the same people, Democrats of course, who encouraged me to get involved in politics, would automatically support me on the Republican ticket! After all I had not changed! I only changed parties. You are talking about being naïve! Those supporters ditched me so fast, in support of my white Democratic opponent that it made my head spin.

I faired well in the election, particularly in light of my party affiliation, and the then present political climate. But there were so many other factors working against me.

The personal letter of endorsement from President Ronald Reagan that I used to campaign with was an honor to have received. But it was perhaps my biggest mistake within the black community. To me, it was historic, and a great honor to have the president of the United States take the time to send a letter of personal endorsement and welcome into the Republican Party. But it was not viewed in this manner by those blacks who were leery of Republican politics at that time.

Ronald Reagan was seeking a second term in office, and many blacks just had not seen any evidence of his “trickling down” economic policy, and were running scared that under his administration, they would find themselves in the same stead they were in prior to the Civil Rights Movement. Many blacks feared he was Goldwater, incarnated in the flesh.

Also the NAACP had extended an invitation to President Reagan to speak at its national convention. He had declined that invitation, on the advice of those around him, and black folks were highly pissed off!

To top all of this off, there had been a random, but intentional shooting of a black woman on Martin Luther King Boulevard, a solid black community in Chattanooga, by a Klan member, and Jessie Jackson had come to the city to raise hell, and rightly wage protest over this incident.

In the midst of all of this, I was courageous or dumb enough, depending upon whose perspective you viewed it, to change parties, and join the Republican ticket as a first time, Black Republican candidate! …It was interesting!

Mostly because he cared about me, and did not want to see me destroy my political future, my mentor, and friend Democratic Party chairman, Ward Crutchfield attempted to dissuade me from making the move. I was assured that if I would just wait, and run as a Democrat that my opponent would render me his support when he stepped down.

Despite his best of advice, I still felt within me that I was being called by a higher power to make this drastic change, and to do it then. After not being able to persuade me to stay and pursue my political ambitions with his blessings as a Democrat, Crutchfield concluded his political fatherly talk by telling me that no matter what I decided, we would always be friends, because our relationship was not based upon politics, but friendship. What he didn’t know is those last words he said to me endeared him to me for life, and had he asked me one more time to stay, I probably would have given in and remained a Democrat.

Also had I known at that time that my opponent was terminally ill, I never would have opposed him. Unfortunately, no one told me this until after the election was over. Nevertheless, it was predestined that I should leave the pleasant and familiar waters of the Democratic Party, where I knew there were many who would always be there for me, and where I knew I had my greatest chances for pursuing my political career in public office.

My ultimate political dream since I was a child was to one day serve in the United States Congress. This was something that had been prophetically spoken over my life since I was very young. Throughout my political life, I never shared this with anyone. Not even Bobby or my mother. However, as to my political move at that time, now that I had become a Republican, I wasn’t so sure that my change of political parties would afford me the same opportunity I would have had as a Democrat.
Nevertheless, I had consulted with God, and His answer to me had not changed.

Therefore, I lost hope of that dream being realized, and was led to stick to my decision that day, not only to begin my political fate as a Republican candidate, but to give up my “democratic birthright”, and enter into uncharted waters, where horrific political storms would continue to originate with me often being in the eye of the storm.

I was assured of this one thing, that I had been called, and ordained by God to enter the political arena, to make a difference in the lives of not only African-Americans, but in the lives of Republicans, Democrats, and people of all races, backgrounds and walks of life.

God had given me a servant’s heart, and a deep compassion, love and concern for people. My only heart’s desire was to be a true servant. I knew regardless of where I was or what my lot was in life, elected, appointed or just as an ordinary citizen, nothing could prevent me from serving others, inside or outside of the political arena.

There was one other thing that was for sure, …changing parties certainly had not been easy from where I had sat,viewing both political sides of a sometimes less than kind political landscape.