dagblog - Comments for "Lion in the Lobby"

I wouldn't be surprised if it

artappraiser — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 06:22:04 +0000

In reply to Here's the link to Amazon.

I wouldn't be surprised if it this is what it's referring to:

In 1975, Mitchell took a leave of absence from the NAACP to become a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations headed by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a much reviled figure in the black community. "Clarence became an object of black opprobrium," says Marvin Kaplan, former director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, who is writing a memoir of his days in the civil rights movement. "He incensed legions of blacks at home by defending Moynihan for calling Uganda's Idi Amin a `racist murderer' when Amin denounced Zionism and called for the extinction of Israel. Clarence won few black friends when on his own he spoke out against the infamous U.N. resolution that equated zionism with racism."

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3812/is_199812/ai_n8821918/?tag=...

Later he faced some criticism in the black community for supporting Daniel Patrick Moynihan, see Assistant Secretary of Labor; controversy over the War on Poverty, and defending the state of Israel.

http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Clarence_M._Mitchell,_Jr.

Where conservative is being used more along the lines of the NAACP being considered an "Uncle Tom" organization, which was common during the waxing of the leftist black rage movement in the late 70's. I do recall Moynihan's report as very much being considered the work of the enemy in black activist circles, some even calling it a plan for genocide. To give you an idea, I remember seeing a daytime show like on Donahue or Oprah where it was argued that whitey owed it to the Afro-American to support young black girls having babies,as many as they want, along the line of reparations for slavery, plus that it was a deep part of African matriarchal culture and a good thing, blah blah blah. It was also common among those types to support any tinpot dictator in Africa as long as they made the appropriate sounds about white American being great satan. Though I must say I don't remember much support for Idi Amin.

Looking back on all of that, I think it has to be taken in the context of it being the infancy of Afro-American studies. And the first people were just doing the most basic most simplistic work. People just grabbed a few facts and spun all kinds of stuff about them, without any deep studies of any kind having been done. Same thing with Africa. (And not only that you have the context of the cold war in Africa, and lefties in the 70's might simplistically sympathize with the Soviets without knowing the facts we now know.) And we didn't really know shit at that time about the slave trade or its real history. Etc. Etc.

Remembering this brings back a lot of bad memories. When people attack political correctness these days, they have no idea how bad the related fights were back then and how much leftist cant was thrown around and amplified from academics and activists. I do distinctly remember the NAACP being very much looked down upon by lots of blacks with microphones or megaphones of some kind, as Uncle Toms aiding and abetting whitey. And Moynihan was despised by many liberals for the "babies having babies" report, I think it was a big business around that time in academia refuting it. And yes, in foreign policy at the U.N., he was seen as supporting imperialist Amerika against the struggling righteous third world nations.

Here's the link to Amazon.

Donal — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:55:53 +0000

In reply to Wiki says he received the

Here's the link to Amazon. Perhaps the term "conservative" was relative to younger activists, but in any case Conservatives weren't quite as toxic then.

There isn't much online about Clarence but his brother Parren, the first African-American elected to Congress from MD, also died in financial straits.

In the late 1990s following a number of strokes, [Parren] Mitchell moved into the Keswick Multi-Care Center in Roland Park. The retired congressman turned over his financial affairs to his nephew, Michael B. Mitchell, Sr., but by 2002, it became apparent that a number of bills--including over $100,000 owed to the Keswick Center--remained unpaid. Mitchell also owed $25,532 in state and federal taxes, and was being sued by General Motors for a $16,000 car bought by his nephew. Despite these difficulties, the Keswick facility remained supportive of the congressman. "He's very sick," Lionel Fulz told Walter Roche and Ivan Penn in the Baltimore Sun. "We're doing everything we can to keep him comfortable. There's no way we would put him out."

I just found that the author of Lion in the Lobby will be speaking about Mitchell on Monday evening, so I may learn more about it there.

Wiki says he received the

Richard Day — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 08:58:55 +0000

In reply to Mitchell was also called The

Wiki says he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Jimmy Carter four years prior to his death and wrote columns for the Baltimore Sun.

And the only conservative thing he ever did was back Moynahan for the Senate.

I wonder if you have the right Mitchell?

Mitchell was also called The

Orion — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 05:33:28 +0000

In reply to Lion in the Lobby

Mitchell was also called The Lion in the Lobby, presumably where he waited for legislators before and after important votes, and the title of an exhaustive biography of him. According to a Publisher's Weekly snippet on Amazon, Mitchell was Director of the NAACP's Washington bureau for 28 years (1950-78), ran unsuccessfully on the Socialist party ticket for the Maryland legislature, later became a political conservative, and died poor in 1984.

Hard to believe it took that

Ramona — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 03:41:44 +0000

In reply to Lion in the Lobby

Hard to believe it took that long to do what was constitutionally right. This caught my eye:

When this legislation is enforced, there will be no more flummery about how many bubbles there are in a bar of soap when colored citizens seek the right to register. After the stern restraint of a Federal injunction has been applied, those who used force, economic restrictions, and deception to keep the voting lists lily white will realize that the vote must be given to all without regard to race.

I remember hearing that they would ask dozens of unanswerable questions like that and then turn the blacks away when they couldn't answer them. It was well known at the time but it still took years before that awful practice was stopped.

There are shameful moments in our history, and the way blacks were treated was right up there at the top.