Family  and church members accompanied my father as he signed up to run for City Council in Detroit, MI in 1965.  We all have on our Cleage for Council buttons.  That’s him in the front with the bow tie.  I am looking melancholy over on the left.  My cousin Ernie is in the striped sweater.  Rev. Hill’s ( assistant pastor) wife in the back with the hat.  My grandmother (Pearl Cleage) looking happily proud on the right.  This followed the Freedom Now Party loss in 1964 and the 3 + 1 campaign in 1963  and preceded the run for the 13th District congressional seat in 1966.

These campaigns were run as educational, not to win.  Not that that wouldn’t have been a welcome surprise.  My family talked politics morning noon and night.  Not just talked, lived.  Two of my uncles started a printing business and for years the family and friends put out The Illustrated News, an eight sheet pink paper where they wrote  about the issues of the day, mostly local but as this was the time of the civil rights movement, bombs and demonstrations and riots, there was also some national news.  I remember riding in sound cars, passing out information at the polls, silk screening posters, leafleting.  The summer of 1966 I spent lots of time with Jim, who is now my husband, campaigning. We capped it off by attending a “Victory Party” for Ken Cockrel, who hadn’t won. Those were the days my friend…