Tag Archives: #politics

Interview with Henry Cleage about the Freedom Now Party

After writing about politics in my childhood yesterday, I remembered this interview I did with Henry in 1993 about the Freedom Now Party and decided to run it today.  Scroll down for an easier to read transcription of the article. There are several corrections.  Did I not fact check in those days?!

This article first appeared in 1993 in “Umoja * Unidad *Unity, A Newsletter for Homeschoolers of Color”

Our Stories

Freedom Now Party – 1963 – 1964

In the last several weeks black “leaders” have been speaking out against the treatment of Lani Guinier while at the same time saying they had to stick with the Democratic Party because “there’s nowhere else to go.” Aside from the obvious answer that they could go fishing and do the Race less harm, it brought to mind 1964, the year the Freedom Now Party got on the ballot in Michigan.  I was a freshman at Wayne State University that year.  The year before, the six children (Correction: 4 girls were killed, not 6) had been murdered during Sunday school in Birmingham, Alabama and over 100,000 had marched through downtown Detroit in protest. (Correction: the march took place before the bombing.) The March on Washington had taken place. The movement against the war in Vietnam was growing.  That summer, one of the first riots had rocked New York and the Freedom Democrats from Mississippi were not seated at the Democratic Convention.  Malcom X had spoken in Detroit at the Grass Roots Conference.  Ossie Davis, James Baldwin, Odetta and others called for a boycott of Christmas gift buying to protest the violence in the south.  Atty. Henry Cleage, along with family members and several friends had put out the Illustrated News for four years.  It was a biweekly Black Nationalist paper that was distributed through churches, baber shops and other places black people gathered.  Recently, I asked him to tell me about the founding of the Freedom Now Party.

Interview – Henry Cleage

Kristin: Henry, I’ve been trying to remember how the Freedom Now Party started.

Henry: Well, do you remember Worthy?  William Worthy was in New York with those two brothers, I can’t remember their names, and they started talking about the Freedom Now Party.  That was about the time the group in Detroit began to be black and quit trying to integrate.  I remember sitting in my office talking about it.  The question everyone had, you know, there weren’t enough Negroes to win.  The answer that was being made by Rev. (Note: Rev. A.B. Cleage Jr.) was you can’t win anyway.  The point was you could punish the Democratic Party.  And that’s the way it started. Then they sent Worthy and those two brothers, they were all over New York hollering about freedom, they came and we started the Freedom Now Party.

The important thing about it, I think, was after all that, it was supposed to be nationwide, but Michigan was the only place it got on the ballot.  Getting on the ballot in different states had different rules. In Michigan we had the Struther sisters and Boggs and one or two others.  You had to get so many names from different counties – so they went up to the counties and got them.  You know the way women will do, they just do stuff.  And, of course, they had yours truly pointing out the laws and stuff – they did it and they got on the ballot.  Of course they stole all our votes though.

Dunbar worked at the county building.  He got drunk at one of the parties and he said, “If you knew what they did with your votes…!”

You know, the votes come in at night.  It was on the radio.  The Freedom Now Party had 40,000 votes. Next day, they didn’t have but about 200, you know.

He, Dunbar, said, “If you knew what happened to your votes, you would really be drugged!”

I said, “Well, you’re black, tell us what happened.”

“No, no, I’m not gonna mess up my job.” And, of course, he wouldn’t tell.

The FNP had challengers at the precinct, but Dunbar worked down at headquarters, at the Clerks office, where the votes would come in.  I don’t know if we could have had somebody down there we didn’t.  The votes came there from all over the state.  There were Flint votes and Grand Rapids and…I remember that night they reported so many votes for the Freedom Now Party, on the radio, and we figured out that it was 5%, which means you get on the ballot next year without getting the petitions.  The next morning they said we didn’t have 1/2 of a percent.

Kristin:  Did the Freedom Now Party just go to pieces after that?

Henry: Yes.  After that it generally fell to pieces.  I think it finally dawned on everybody, like it dawned on me with the court case, we aren’t going to do anything quoting law here. Like Lani Guiner.  She said something with a whole lot of sense to it, you know, and they act like she’s crazy.

For another post – The Freedom Now Party Convention.

To read more about Lani Guinier and the 1993 controversy read “‘Quota Queen’ or Misquoted Queen?”.

Politics – Earliest Memories

Week 46. Politics. What are your childhood memories of politics? Were your parents active in politics? What political events and elections do you remember from your youth?

My sister  and I – 1952
 

My first memory of politics is the 1952 presidential campaign.  My parents supported Adlai Stevenson and I remember waking up the day after the election and asking who won.  I was quite disappointed when I found it was not Stevenson.  

For more about my family and politics, click on these – 1965 Cleage for Congress and Elections Past.

More from Elections of yesteryear – 1965 Cleage for Council

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.

My father did this himself using a stylis on a blue stencil. It would be run off on a mimeograph machine.

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…

Printed at Cleage Printers on the large press.
Printed at Cleage Printers on the small press.