DIVIDED WE FALL

AT A POLITICAL meeting in a black church, a black elected official is physically restrained from going to his car. His intent is to get his gun and shoot another black leader.

During an informal get-together, someone thinks aloud about state Rep. Paul Ragsdale’s white girlfriend and asks. “I wonder how long he can keep her hidden?”

A white public official receives a call from a black community leader who says, “[County Commissioner] John Wiley Price must be doing something wrong to drive all those expensive cars. Can’t somebody investigate?”

Late into a formal dinner there is a loud stage whisper from a woman who asks with a sneer of disgust. “Is [City Councilman] Al Lipscomb drinking again?”

City Councilwoman Diane Ragsdale, upset over Criminal District Judge Larry Baraka’s finding a young black perjury defendant guilty, declares to the world that Baraka “is not black enough.”

Baraka, a man accustomed to facing his accusers, goes to the basement of a black church and proclaims to a group of his fellow community leaders, “1 am a man, not a punk [faggot]!” A good sister in the audience waves her hand in the air and shouts, “Yeah, honey, you bad!”

And somewhere in the background of all this confusion-maybe just above their heads-ancient voices from gospel choirs through the ages sing another chorus of:

How I got ovah. Ovah-ah!

My soul looks back and wonder

How I got ovah.

For more than 100 years, black leaders generally agree, the Dallas white establishment artfully practiced plantation politics, keeping its black subjects under control and in their “place” by handpicking leaders to act as overseers and stooges. Then came single-member legislative districts in 1972, a judicial restructuring that was hailed as the great emancipator. Some blacks felt liberated, in a position for the first time in history to pick their own leaders without, they thought, any interference from the “ol’ massas” downtown.

Today, though most blacks feel that white decision-makers still attempt to rule black Dallas, it is clear the black community’s worst enemy now is itself, and the community is severely crippled by its leadership. It’s not that most of the leaders are incapable, for they are not, but several are ineffective and black leadership as a whole is terribly divided.

The Dallas black leadership is infested with “crabism,” ripe with tension, wounded by back-biting and jealousy, unable to work together on any one issue. To some extent, many still suffer from the “’house slave/ field slave” mentality in which neither side trusts or wants anything to do with the other.

“Naw,” one black official says, “white folks in Dallas ain’t got nothing to worry about ’cause the niggas are so divided.”

My soul looks back and wonder How I got ovah.

Why is there so much division now, after the Seventies had promised unprecedented unity? What happened after the days of political slavery in Dallas that, in the minds of some people, did not end until the newly redistricted state legislature began to seat blacks who did not have to be puppets for the downtown string-pullers? It was no secret (in fact, it was proudly acknowledged) that Dallas had come through the turbulent Sixties with its blacks as happy and complacent as the “darkies” at Tara; during that decade the city appointed its first black on the city council (C.A. Galloway, who filled the unex-pired term of Joe Moody, who resigned) and chose its first person of color for the legislature. Joseph Lockridge (Lockridge was killed in a plane crash and followed in office by the Rev. Zan Holmes.) Those were the days when certain black Baptist preachers, for a song and a $100 bill, promised to deliver black voters to the camps of certain white politicians. But the Seventies were to be a new day. a time of mavericks and a time for even young, more militant blacks to participate.

It was like Reconstruction all over again, with the freedmen (and freedwomen) running for office from predominantly black legislative districts. The early Seventies would see Paul Ragsdale, Eddie Bernice Johnson and Sam Hudson win seats in the Texas House of Representatives. Ragsdale and Johnson hit Austin with an energy and commitment black Dallas had rarely seen. They were consistently voted top legislators; Hudson was often voted one of the worst. But, then, two out of three good ones wasn’t bad for a leadership that carried the reputation of being a group of water boys for the white bosses of the Democratic party.

It was a time when Al Lipscomb would stand up in a public forum and bluntly tell an establishment speaker, “Aw, man, you bull-shittin’.” Today, as a city council member, Lipscomb votes more often with developers than with neighborhood groups, white or black. Accused of being in bed with big business, Lipscomb simply points out that he wants development in South Dallas and that means trade-offs, including voting for developers in Oak Lawn and North Dallas. Nevertheless, his critics (and their numbers are growing) say that when you lie with dogs you’ll get fleas-and Lipscomb has been seen scratching a lot lately.

It was a time of selflessness when newly elected black leaders, especially Ragsdale, fought hard for other single-member districts for the school board and city council and the redistricting of justice of the peace and county commissioners court precincts throughout East Texas. The idea then was to make it easier to bring other black officials into the ranks. Today, there is a feeling among some leaders that the fewer the better; the fewer black leaders, the more power for those who’ve been anointed, even by themselves.

The mood of the Seventies, with its hope of unity and commitment, quickly gave way to selfishness, with blacks jockeying for position as the black leader in Dallas. Some leaders who had been effective grew lazy, then burdensomely ineffective. Moderate leaders gave way to more confrontational politicians, especially on the city council, and while they were heard and appreciated by their constituents, they were able to do very little.

Not counting the all-black Wilmer-Hutchins school board and the two or three token blacks on suburban city councils, there are 14 black elected officials in Dallas. Dallas is the largest city in the nation without minority representation in Congress, and it has the largest black population without black congressional representation.

With such a tenuous grasp on power, and with so many hurdles left to jump, black leaders should be a close-knit bunch. If nothing else, a community of 270,000 should force them to unify. But the Dallas black community in 1986 is similar to the black community of Montgomery, Alabama, before the 1955 bus boycott, a city described by Martin Luther King Jr. as “dormant and quiescent,” accepting ineffectiveness from its black leaders as it had accepted benign neglect from white leaders.

The deep divisions between Dallas black leaders are likely to manifest themselves in 1986 more than in any other year, and they will show up most vividly in two legislative races. State Senator Oscar Mauzy is vacating his 23rd District seat after 17 years to run for the state Supreme Court. For a long time, State Rep. Paul Ragsdale had been eager to move from the House of Representatives to replace Mauzy. As late as the fall of 1985, Ragsdale was considered the favorite. But by the first week in January, it was as if Ragsdale had been visited by the Magi over the holidays, Four days before his 41st birthday, he did the most unpredictable thing of his career: He announced that he was retiring from politics. Three days later two-term Texas House member Jesse Oliver announced that he was entering the Senate race, proving once again that nothing is ever certain among Dallas’ black leaders.

The fights for Mauzy’s seat (despite Ragsdale’s departure) and for Ragsdale’s 110th District House seat are likely to leave wounds that may never be healed. Those two races also may set the stage for the emergence of Dallas’ first black member of Congress.

In the middle of both races will be County Commissioner John Wiley Price, 35, at the moment the most visible and vocal black leader in town. For seven years his specialized license tag has read “TX NO 1 B” for “Texas’ Number One Benz,” illustrating his obsession with Mercedes-Benz automobiles. To this day, however, many blacks are convinced the license plate stands for ’Texas’ Number One Black.”

Price, who was attracted to Dallas by “the lights” after graduating from Forney High School, makes at least one speech a day; he’s heard weekly on not one but two radio stations-the two that have the largest black listenership; he shows up at numerous public meetings; and he may have nudged out Houston state Senator Craig Washington and Congressman Mickey Leland as the most sought-after black speaker in the state.

During his first year on the commissioners court Price has been much calmer than he was during his days of shouting at public officials across crowded meeting halls and cursing opponents in public. His persuasive- ness has gained him the respect of his fellow com- missioners and the county judge; he’s even taught the head of the Republican Par- ty in Dallas to use the term “African-American” in- stead of “black,1’ a term he refuses to use for people of African descent.

Price has come a long way in the last five years, from the days when his street-fighting politics were more evident than his diplomacy. The divorced father of a 15-year-old boy, Price admits to being “very emotional” in those days because he did not have a forum. Today the commissioners court is his platform; he can have his say there without being asked to be quiet or leave the room.

Price claims he is saying the same thing today that he said years ago, albeit in less fiery language, and he says that his critics refused to hear the substance of his message because they were too busy judging the form in which it was presented. He says the Dallas white community ought to be thankful that he was only cursing. “Maybe they should consider themselves very fortunate that the English language gave me a conduit where I would be able to express that as opposed to some other form.”

Whether others like it or not, Price is a bona fide leader. Depending on who’s doing the talking, he’s either a great leader or a terrible one. Ragsdale, who has no love for Price (“but this ain’t no love-in,” he says), sees the commissioner as a false Messiah leading the people for his own self-interest. Ragsdale considers Price the Darth Vader of the black leadership, an evil force.

Ragsdale, who grew up in a rural black community near Jacksonville, never made it a secret that he wanted to run for Mauzy’s Senate seat. Two years ago Ragsdale had little significant opposition for the office, and some observers were conceding the seat to the seven-term representative once Mauzy retired or sought another post. Even when he was running, Ragsdale knew he would never have the support of Price, who from the start was backing Dr. Jesse Jones, a Bishop College chemistry professor and president of the Progressive Voters League, an organization made up mostly of black precinct chairmen who endorse candidates. Price is chairman of the PVL.

Also making a bid for the seat is Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ragsdale’s former colleague in the legislature who left the House to become regional director of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare under the Carter administration. She’s been divorced for 15 years and says her best friend is her 27-year-old son. Now an employee of the Visiting Nurses Association of Texas, the Waco native is a tough campaigner.

Johnson hit the ground running; Ragsdale hit the ground strolling. He had expected to raise the quarter of a million dollars he needed to make the race from special interest groups outside the district. Johnson is counting on downtown business leaders to provide her with the $200,000 she needs. “Downtown is in the district,” she says matter-of-factly. With Ragsdale out of the race, Jesse Oliver is likely to get the special interest money out of Austin and split the downtown money with Johnson. Jones won’t get much money at all, but he plans to cash in on his connection with John Wiley Price. Just how much that is worth won’t be known until election day.

For months several Dallas leaders-black and white-had tried to draft Oliver to run against Ragsdale. Oliver declined even though he wanted to run for the seat, felt he was better qualified than Ragsdale, and believed he would win if he ran. But Oliver refused to run against a friend.

“I won’t run against Paul,” Oliver, 41, said flatly in November. “It’s not only loyalty to a friend, but loyalty to the community also. I don’t think the community needs to lose either one of us from the legislature. If we both run, one of us is going to definitely be gone; maybe both of us.”

It did not take long for candidate Ragsdale to notice the cold shoulders (and presumably, empty pockets) from people he had counted on. There was continuous pressure for him to bow out of the race in favor of Oliver. Some think that while Oliver himself would not have been a part of such a push, some of Oliver’s supporters may have helped to undermine Ragsdale by turning his potential financial backers against him, stressing his negatives.

Ragsdale, prior to withdrawing from the race, admitted that he felt betrayed. He could not understand why, after 14 years of working for his district, other blacks would not let him go unchallenged. He believes he has done more for black people than anyone else in the state, and he feels that critics are uninformed about his accomplishments, such as his efforts for black economic development and his unsuccessful fight for gun control.

In his retirement speech, Ragsdale said he was “tired.” He complained about his low legislative salary and said that it was time to do something for himself. He also said physical threats against him played some part in his decision. He went on to urge the black community to stop electing leaders who only offered them rhetoric. And Ragsdale made it clear that Johnson and Jones did not meet his qualifications for public officials.

“You know sometimes you are supposed to wait,” Ragsdale said, obviously aggravated when reminded of Oliver’s pledge of loyalty. “That’s the problem now. People want a bird nest on the ground right now and don’t want to work for it, don’t want to wait in line. That is part of what’s wrong with our leadership right now. We bump each other off and discredit each other before any of us can become strong enough to really provide the community with the kind of leadership it deserves.”

When presented with that argument, Price looks puzzled. “So, he’s been there for 14 years. What is that saying? So has Sam Hudson. Longevity is no justification for anything. It has nothing to do with dedication, commitment and accountability.”

Explaining that 55 percent of Mauzy’s state senatorial district overlaps his commissioner’s district, Price says, “I couldn’t sit it out if I wanted to. I need someone who’s going to be aggressive and representative of both me and my constituents, I need someone I can work with. I’m definitely going to get right in the middle of that race.”

Some people think Price’s aggressive involvement in the race will make him more enemies-more enemies than even he can handle. Both Ragsdale and Johnson accuse Price and Jones of using the PVL for their own benefit.

The one thing going for Price’s man Jones is that he ran against Oscar Mauzy in 1982 and garnered about 46 percent of the vote. Ragsdale would not challenge Mauzy, whom he views as a friend who did a great deal for blacks at a time when no one else in the Senate would speak for them. Ironically, that loyalty has come back to haunt Ragsdale. Some observers feel that Ragsdale’s allegiance should have been to the black community and that he should have run against Mauzy regardless. After all, they say, if a Jesse Jones could get 46 percent of the vote, could not a Paul Ragsdale have won the election? Ragsdale may have been shaken when Mauzy did not endorse him. (One of Mauzy’s staff members is on Eddie Bernice Johnson’s steering committee.)



Ragsdale’s loyalty to white Democratic leaders, particularly during the 1981 redistricting battle for con-gressional districts, is part of the reason he and Price have been at odds for years, long before Mauzy announced that he was leaving the Senate. Price and a del-legation of blacks, along with white Republicans, wanted a majority black congressional district. Ragsdale in the House and Craig Washington in the Senate thought it was impossible to draw a “safe” black district based on the 1980 census; besides, they were not willing to draw lines that also would create a Republican district at the expense of two “good Democrats,” Congressmen Martin Frost and John Bryant.

It was during that 1981 legislative session that Price told Ragsdale in a public meeting, “I’ll kick your ass.” The threat was repeated several times, and Ragsdale still takes it seriously. During the session, Ragsdale was escorted to and from the Capitol and guarded by a Department of Public Safety trooper. In public meetings in Dallas he had friends serve as bodyguards. To critics who say he rarely attends public functions in his district anymore, Ragsdale says they don’t understand that his life is in danger.

“I don’t particularly care for being threatened with physical violence,” he says. “To strong-arm one’s way around the community is a tactic that I don’t support. I don’t support violence, and I think it’s a dead-end street because violence begets violence.”

Price laughs off the “ass-kicking” threats and maintains that he has tried on several occasions to mend the fences with Ragsdale, but to no avail.

“I’ve made a number of overtures,” Price says.

“That’s a lie,” Ragsdale retorts.

More animosity is inevitable during the campaign. Eddie Bernice Johnson says she doesn’t plan to make it a dirty race, but she aimed several darts at Ragsdale. She says the voters know her and her work in the community and in the House.

“I didn’t spend my time in the bars drinking beer and playing basketball,” she says, obviously referring to some of Ragsdale’s pastimes during his early House career.

As for Price’s support for Jones, Johnson describes the commissioner as a marketing director. “You can put on a good marketing campaign, but you’ve still got to have a product,” she says.

Some early independent polls reportedly show that while Johnson has not been in office since 1976, her name identification is equal to Ragsdale’s. Jones was barely recognized even by those who voted for him in 1982. When Ragsdale dropped out and Oliver entered the race, some of Oliver’s supporters were preparing to ask Johnson to quit the contest. They did not expect her to greet them warmly.

As for the House seat left vacant by Ragsdale, Price has not said which candidate he will support. That bothers candidate Charles Rose, a member of the Wilmer-Hutchins school board who has run for the state legislature four times (once against Ragsdale) and has long been a supporter of Price.

Price is leaning toward Rose, but he also owes a favor to former Dallas councilman Fred Blair. Blair and former council member Elsie Faye Heggins resigned from the council in 1984 to challenge Price in the commissioner’s race. When Blair was knocked out of the race and Price and Heggins faced each other in a runoff, Blair endorsed Price. Blair’s biggest liability is that he and Heggins resigned from the council at a time when several issues of interest to the black community were on the agenda; their resignations left the council without a minority representative. Rose also will see that Blair answers for having supported a DART plan that virtually bypasses South Dallas.

Not surprisingly, Rose, 39 and a Dallas native, accuses Price of forgetting the people who worked hard to get him where he is today. Others say that Price can never repay all the people who have worked for him, that he doesn’t have enough favors to go around and therefore, some of his close friends may one day turn against him.

Of course Price already has his enemies, who come in all colors. There are those who are simply jealous of him-the attention he receives, his flashy clothes and fine cars. People-especially white people-still wonder how he manages to drive $40,000 and $50,000 cars, first on a county salary of $25,000 as an administrative assistant to a justice of the peace and now on his $60,000 annual commissioner’s salary. {“If there was something wrong about that, it would have surfaced by now,” he says.) He has a reputation as a womanizer and scoffs at the rumors of an impending marriage. Many Price supporters think there will be continuous attempts to discredit their man. They fear he will never be able to achieve all that he wants because the “big boys,” aided by some jealous little black boys, will “get something on him.”

Price claims that the district attorney’s office and the Internal Revenue Service have taken him through ordeals that he never told anyone about, especially the community he i trying to serve. He says the Specialized Crimes Division of the DA’s office, using the power of grand jury, started investigating him in 1978. They began by subpoenaing all of his bank records.

“When they could not find anything,” Price says, “they went and turned over my records to Internal Revenue. The IRS investigated me for two years. Not until I got me a lawyer and got tired of them harassing me and filed on them in Washington did they send me a letter and say I was no longer under investigation. Then, they turned around and audited me. 1 can tell you I went through hell with the district attorney’s office for four or five years.”

Price says that while all the official investigations were going on. he received word from friends that Dallas police officers had been ordered to watch him. “That’s the reason I had that kamikaze attitude,” Price says. “So, when you saw me someplace and I showed up mad, I had a reason to be mad. I mean, people don’t realize the kind of shit they subjected me to here for years, and I never said a word to the community.”

According to Jon Sparling, then head of the Specialized Crimes Division, there was no grand jury investigation of Price, although the district attorney’s office did look into accusations against him. “We got some complaints and we investigated, as we do all complaints, but there was nothing there that was fileable. Perhaps the grand jury did subpoena some records, but it would have been in connection with the [DA’s] investigation.” Sparling denies turning over any of Price’s records to the IRS. “And I doubt anyone else would have,” he says.

Though he is now an authority figure himself, Price has not made his peace with the establishment. In December, police stopped the commissioner while he was driving a new BMW M-car borrowed from a dealer while his Mercedes was being serviced. The officers discovered that Price had four outstanding tickets and arrested him. Price insists that he was stopped only because he was a black driving a new foreign car and says that his arrest was further harassment from a police department angry because he continues to challenge their alleged misuse of authority.

Price denies he wants to be a political boss, but that’s how both admirers and detractors see him. Candidates want his endorsement; community leaders want to be seen with him; whites seek his counsel even if they don’t take his advice; and he may very well be the first black congressman from Dallas.

Even if it doesn’t happen before 1990, by the time the 1992 election rolls around Dallas will have a black congressional district. Price already has contacts in the governor’s office, and if he gets his people into the legislature, he is likely to have a lot to say as to how the new congressional district lines are drawn. He insists that is not his design, and while he would not mind serving a term or two in Congress, he says he is not planning that now. Of course, Price’s second four-year commissioner’s term, should he be re-elected, will be ending just in time for him to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

If he runs, Price’s opponents in 1990 or 1992 are likely to come from the same crop of candidates who will be in the 1986 senatorial race and 110th District House race. Johnson and Rose would not mind working on the Potomac. And there is Jesse Oliver, an attorney whom many see as the bright star on the black political horizon.

A hard worker, Oliver passed 11 major pieces of legislation in the House last year, including the Indigent Health Care Bill during the special session. He gets along well with whites and blacks, and his soft yet effective oratorical style is a plus. Still, Oliver is quick to admit that qualities that help in getting legislation passed do not necessarily gain points with the black community.

“Now if you’re well educated, literate and can deal with ideas and concepts and look at the bigger picture, you’re subject to being labeled a creature of the white establishment-you know, ’you think you’re white,’” he says.

Oliver is as interested in Congress as he is in the state Senate. Should he win the state Senate race this year, the stage would be set for a classic struggle in 1990 or 1992: Dallas’ First black county commissioner and the city’s first black state Senator, vying to become the first black U.S Congressman from the Dallas area.



THE PROBLEM OLIVER points out- the difficulty of black leaders being accepted by both the black and white community-is a real one. However, some emerging leaders are walking that tightrope. Judge Larry Baraka is certainly one of them. He has his detractors, but for the most part blacks see him as a capable, fair jurist who has their interests at heart. Baraka’s biggest liability with the black community may be his Republican affiliation, but with Dallas voters in general, the GOP label may be more of an asset than a liability in the near future. It certainly was in 1984, when Baraka won while black and white Democratic incumbents went down to defeat.

Some black political observers cynically ask why the white establishment has not found a “good” black to run at-large in some city race, particularly for a visible post like city council. Such an election would help to nullify charges of racism against the establishment and could help ward off the rumored suit to abolish the city’s 8-3 single-member district plan and replace it with a plan under which only the mayor would be elected at-large. It would be difficult for blacks to charge discrimination if one of their own was elected citywide. The next council election, in the spring of 1987, would be a perfect time for such a move. If rumors prove true and at-large council members Annette Strauss and Jerry Rucker run for other offices (like Congress and mayor), the white establishment could pick a black candidate and help get him or her elected. The candidate would not be under the total control of the white group, but neither would he or she be hostile to the establishment’s aims.

Two 31-year-old Dallas attorneys might fit the role of the Establishment’s Great Black Hope; Eric Moyé, an SMU undergrad and Harvard Law School graduate who chaired the Mayor’s Task Force on Housing and Economic Development of Southern Dallas; and Ron Kirk, a city attorney who is the city’s lobbyist in Austin.

Kirk has some political ambition. In fect, the Austin native considered running for Ragsdale’s legislative seat, but is committed through at least another legislative term to remain with the city attorney’s office.

Moyé, a New York native who has his own law practice, states emphatically that though he has been encouraged to do so, he will not run for office. City council still pays only $50 a meeting, and when he’s not at the office, Moyé says, he’s not making money; when he’s not making money, he can’t eat. He says he cannot be a full-time officeholder with no other visible means of support. But Moyé is liked by the mayor and he shows up (and speaks out) at all the right black issue meetings. He was present when 300 people went to the Dallas Times Herald to protest the Joe Bob Briggs column, and he was in the overcrowded city council chambers the day council members debated and passed Diane Ragsdale’s resolution for divestiture in South Africa.

Another possible candidate would be retired Maj. Gen. Hugh Robinson, a West Point graduate who is the former director and commander of the Southwestern Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He is now vice-president of The Southland Corp. and president of its subsidiary, CityPlace Development Corp. Robinson is the kind of black white Dallas can love and black Dallas can appreciate.

Though he denies any political ambition, Robinson would be the perfect candidate to run, with white support, for an at-large seat on the council. He is a board member of the Dallas Museum of Art, the Dallas Opera and United Way, Robinson also works with the United Negro College Fund and the Afro-American Museum of Art and Culture, as well as many other black organizations.

The most popular non-elected black leader is the Rev. Zan Holmes, the pastor of St. Luke Community United Methodist Church who served in the state legislature from 1968-72. Holmes understands compromise, but in the eyes of the community he has never sold out to the white establishment.

The dynamic minister with a voice like a cello is not likely to run for another elective office, but he doesn’t have to-he influences so many others who do hold office. St. Luke is rapidly becoming known as the church of Dallas black leaders, and Holmes is already the mentor of several black politicians, including Price, Kirk, Robinson, former Assistant City Manager Levi Davis and a host of other civic and community figures. He is the former pastor of Paul Ragsdale, who quit the church when he learned that Price had joined.

The jury is still out on Councilwoman Diane Ragsdale. She is knowledgeable about certain issues, especially planning and zoning. She usually votes the “right” way on issues affecting specific neighborhoods as well as the larger community.

But Ragsdale feeds on confrontation. She has called fellow council members “racists” and more than once she has stormed out of the chambers. That may win votes out in the district, but it wins few votes on the council. Still, Ragsdale is the Eliza Doolittle of the council, the one many think can be transformed into a “fair lady” palatable to both white and black leaders. Some say that Ragsdale can accomplish what Elsie Faye Heg-gins never could, but that as long as she imitates Heggins’ unyielding tactics, she will never do it. Ragsdale is learning the art of compromise and coalition politics, but some fear her lessons may come too late.

So it goes. A complacent black community whose only interest is that its elected officials shout out the issues and the problems whether (hey are adequately addressed or not…a divisive leadership that is so bogged down in petty squabbles that it finds itself too often ineffective…a white establishment that for the most part doesn’t give a damn about either. . .

And in the background, the choir sings another chorus:

How I got ovah. Ovah-ah.

My soul looks back and wonder…