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18. A Day of Reckoning
- University of South Carolina Press
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18 A Day of Reckoning Dayton, Ohio, was hardly the place where I would have expected to confront some difficult realities of my life and reach some crossroads decisions. But that’s where I was on October 31, 1985, when the world seemed to be converging on me from several directions at once. For one thing I was completing my tenth year as commissioner of the State Human Affairs Commission (SHAC), and while I was pleased with the professional progress and public status of the agency, I did not expect it to be the final resting place of my political career. I had run for the State House from Charleston County in 1970 and had not gotten enough votes. Then, in 1978 I ran for South Carolina secretary of state, a true leap of faith considering that no African American had held a constitutional office in South Carolina since Reconstruction. It was an enjoyable and in many ways blessed experience. Traveling to every nook, cranny, curve, and corner of our beautiful state accorded me rewards whose true value can never be measured. I met people of all persuasions, ilk, and status, who all in their own ways expressed an unquestionable, unconditional love for our state. Some of these expressions were favorable to my candidacy; some were not. I was bent on the idea of my state moving forward, but I was not so naïve as to deny the fact that some things and some people are steadfast in their persistence to maintain the status quo. In spite of all the rewards of my candidacy, the ultimate prize eluded me. I fell short . . . again. I felt like giving up on my long-held dream of elective office. But what does a person do after quitting? I have always had an inherent need to contribute to advancement, to make a difference, to act as a spoiler for status quo agendas, and to do so from a platform of progressive thinking against prejudice, contentment, and stagnation. For all the challenges of policing and promoting racial justice in South Carolina, I was beginning to feel the grind of administrative and management responsibilities. I had always considered myself a high-energy, high-profile guy, not a grinder. Ten years as commissioner of a controversy-prone agency was also taking something of a personal toll on me. A Columbia attorney had filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing an agency deputy and one of our investigators of improprieties during an investigation, and he charged that I did not have the best interest of the charging parties at heart. A federal judge had just 164 Coming to Grips with Reality dismissed a sexual harassment case brought against me by a young woman I hardly knew and to whom I could not remember ever speaking. A grievance panel had just ruled against me in the firing of an employee whose work record was replete with oral and written reprimands, an unpaid suspension, and a prior mutually agreed-upon resignation. The committee chose to ignore written documents, the employee’s own admissions during her testimony, and corroborating testimony of more than a dozen of her former and current coworkers supporting my decision. What kind of life was this? Is this what I had marched down Amelia Street to achieve? I was in a slump and I wondered—at age forty-five—if this was a time for me to change directions, maybe even leave South Carolina. I was in Dayton in my capacity as president of the International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies (IAOHRA). I was to participate in a program designed to address in a diplomatic way the growing rift between our member agencies who promoted racial justice and the White House, which had declared its opposition to Affirmative Action. President Reagan was completing his first term and had made the termination of the program a goal of his administration. Our host in Dayton, Jerald Steed, believed it would be beneficial to bring together appropriate spokesmen from both sides to discuss the issue. As the director of a state Fair Employment Practices (FEP) agency from South Carolina, I would make the case for Affirmative Action, including a defense of specific goals and timetables that program opponents found so onerous. Representing the opposing view, that of the Republican With the source of my strength, my wife and daughters, circa 1974: (front) Jennifer and Angela, (back) Mignon and Emily [3.17.154.171] Project MUSE...