Several comments in response to a recent diary I posted, Collectivism and One Person, One Vote, has had me thinking about participation in the political process. Of course, the right and responsibility to vote is one way we all think about participation. For myself, I must vote. It is a sacred tribute and remembrance for James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. But participation in the process takes many forms, the importance of which is often hidden from view, revealed only in the fullness of time. Follow me below the page break to summer, 1970.
My father worked for a conservative industrialist, supervising the cafeteria and custodial staff for his manufacturing plant. As was the custom in this very conservative manufacturing town, these were the only two departments that employed African-Americans in any appreciable number. In the summer of 1970, the Republican party was trying to win over the young people they had lost due to their hawkish stance on the Vietnam War. So they had the idea of week long resident summer camps to jump-start the "Teenage Republicans." Strangely enough, in 1970, teenagers were not lining up for chance to attend. This is when the owner of the manufacturing plant told my father that he needed to "rustle up five kids to attend." As a gesture of good faith to the folks who worked under him and were about to be pressured into sending their kids, my father offered up on of his own. And so I was sent off to be indoctrinated as a Teenage Republican.
The first day, we were split into three groups, each with an adviser. I was in the group with the kids conscripted from the manufacturing company. The demographic breakdown was one white male (myself), one white young woman (daughter of a secretary as I recall) and three young African-American women who were the daughters of my father's kitchen crew. Curiously, the other two groups were extremely homogenous: lily-white sons and daughters of prominent businessmen. Our first activity was to hold a convention and elect officers for this new chapter of "TARS" (Teen Age RepublicanS, complete with insipid cartoon elephant logo). As we sat in a circle (Campfire!), I took the lead and said maybe we should introduce ourselves and find out something about each other. Seemed a good place to start. It turns out that the three African-American women were the Senior Class Officers (President, Secretary and Treasurer) from the high school "on the other side of town." (Yes, a federal court later found my hometown guilty of de facto segregation). I said, "If we are going to do this thing, let's do it right. With you three, I think we have our candidates, based upon your experience."
As I was trying to convince them to run, a member of one of the other groups approached us. With his adviser at his shoulder, he pitched a deal where he would guarantee his group's votes for our candidate for treasurer if we voted as a block for his president and vice president. I told him that actually, I thought we had some very strong candidates. He told me to accept the deal now, or he was walking over to the next group and offering them the deal, and we wouldn't get anyone elected. I took note of the smug smile of his adviser. I looked at them members of my group, read their faces, then turned to his adviser and said. "So this is how you want to introduce us to politics. The very first thing we do is learn how to craft a back room deal. No thanks. We'll take our chances."
The three young women acquitted themselves admirably with their speeches, impassioned pleas to fair and open politics. We got creamed. Then we mostly ignored everything else for the rest of the week, from time to time agitating for what we now call "progressive programs" just to let them know that they may have won the election, but that our hearts and minds were another issue altogether. Saturday arrived. The party bigwigs were coming to do a "meet and greet" and bask in the warm glow of what they had accomplished. Our congressman was the headliner. His name was John B. Anderson. Although he was a Republican, he was an honest, soft spoken man, intelligent with never a taint of dishonor about him. When I reached him in the receiving line, and he clasped my hand, I grabbed his with both of mine and kept shaking. And then I said to him, "Do you know what they are doing here? The first night they taught us how to cut a back room deal, to broker a convention. Is this what you want us to learn? That this is how you govern?" As his eyes grew to saucers, I released his hand and moved on.
The name John B. Anderson may sound a faint echo if you are a political junkie. He went on ten years later to run for President of the United States as an Independent, http://www.4president.org/brochures/andersonlucey1980brochure.htm and later was chair of FairVote (formerly the Center for Voting and Democracy). I have often thought about that encounter. Was it something that a shaggy teenager said that was the grain of sand in the cogs of the machine that moved him to reject the Republican Party? I like to think so. Was mine the grain of sand that tipped the scale? I doubt it. But this I do know. Without my grain of sand adding weight on one side of the scale, the last grain of sand that tipped the scale would not have been the last. More time would have to pass for the new "last grain of sand" to show up on the scene to tip the scales. Who knows how long or even if?
Since that time, I have always remembered that although my efforts may not tip the scales today, the tipping of the scales will be delayed without my contribution. And so when we talk of contributing to the process, there are many things we can do in our everyday lives to educate those around us. We can share old stories that maybe might inspire just one more person to speak out, or register to vote, or propose legislation... maybe even abandon their political party. We can drop the names of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in conversation, and then answer the quizzical looks from young adults with what the true cost of the right to vote can be, keeping the spirits of those three alive and their work at hand. In a sense, doing what we can whenever we can, is following the way of water, carving out canyons and building up beaches one grain of sand at a time.