IN the summer of 1973, I traveled to Anaheim, California , as part of a delegation from the National Cable Television Association, where I was then employed as a summer intern.
We were traveling there to attend the National Cable Television Convention, our huge trade show and political exhibition for our then nascent cable industry. Cable was moving away from remote, hard-to-reach rural and mountainous over-the-air-television locations to the big cities, suburbs & to big money.
I knew and watched our lobbyists working from our 16th & K Street offices, but was essentially naive. I was going to the Howard University Law School at the end of summer, so was more concerned elsewhere.
Once in Anaheim, down the street from Disneyland in my Holiday Inn room, I called my relatives in Los Angeles, and skipped the Mickey Mouse revels that were scheduled.
A highlight of my experience at the convention was the opportunity to meet, be photographed with, and to interview Tom Bradley, LA's first black mayor. He and many other politicians of all kinds were there at our convention. My late Aunt Susie McDonald framed that photograph, of me and her newly elected Mayor, which I had sent to her in gratitude for their hospitality. She proudly posted it in her and Uncle Walter's dining room, for many years afterward. It was still there in 2004.
These thoughts came rushing back among many other recollections, as I read through the "Los Angeles Times'" February 2016's black history pull-out that was mailed to me by a friend, who knows of my love for that subject matter.
Funny is it not, or sad, that we once thought that black elected officials, even at the mayoral level, could surely leverage economic benefits, if not parity, for our people in those halcyon days, as was previously done when other minority groups rose up to assume political power.
We had thought that we would get the cable franchises and allied contracts among other spoils that had historically accrued to victors. Not for us! Empty offices no spoils.
The Supreme Court's Croson decision slammed that expectant door against our attempted entry in Richmond Virginia and elsewhere !
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…/City_of_Richmond_v._J.A._Croso….
Bygone memories of the way we were, then, these are. They were all dashed on the confiscatory altar of Reagan, Rehnquist, and Scalia's "conservative" U. S. Supreme Court. Those 1973 memories yet lie, forlornly, "moldering in the grave," with the stentorian refrains "John Brown's body!" battle song!
Friday, March 11, 2016
Los Angles, Black History & Me
Los Angeles, black history & me
IN the summer of 1973, I traveled to Anaheim, California , as part of a delegation from the National Cable Television Association, where I was then employed as a summer intern.
We were traveling there to attend the National Cable Television Convention, our huge trade show and political exhibition for our then nascent cable industry. Cable was moving away from remote, hard-to-reach rural and mountainous over-the-air-television locations to the big cities, suburbs & to big money.
I knew and watched our lobbyists working from our 16th & K Street offices, but was essentially naive. I was going to the Howard University Law School at the end of summer, so was more concerned elsewhere.
Once in Anaheim, down the street from Disneyland in my Holiday Inn room, I called my relatives in Los Angeles, and skipped the Mickey Mouse revels that were scheduled.
A highlight of my experience at the convention was the opportunity to meet, be photographed with, and to interview Tom Bradley, LA's first black mayor. He and many other politicians of all kinds were there at our convention. My late Aunt Susie McDonald framed that photograph, of me and her newly elected Mayor, which I had sent to her in gratitude for their hospitality. She proudly posted it in her and Uncle Walter's dining room, for many years afterward. It was still there in 2004.
These thoughts came rushing back among many other recollections, as I read through the "Los Angeles Times'" February 2016's black history pull-out that was mailed to me by a friend, who knows of my love for that subject matter.
Funny is it not, or sad, that we once thought that black elected officials, even at the mayoral level, could surely leverage economic benefits, if not parity, for our people in those halcyon days, as was previously done when other minority groups rose up to assume political power.
We had thought that we would get the cable franchises and allied contracts among other spoils that had historically accrued to victors. Not for us! Empty offices no spoils.
The Supreme Court's Croson decision slammed that expectant door against our attempted entry in Richmond Virginia and elsewhere !
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…/City_of_Richmond_v._J.A._Croso….
Bygone memories of the way we were, then, these are. They were all dashed on the confiscatory altar of Reagan, Rehnquist, and Scalia's "conservative" U. S. Supreme Court. Those 1973 memories yet lie, forlornly, "moldering in the grave," with the stentorian refrains "John Brown's body!" battle song!
IN the summer of 1973, I traveled to Anaheim, California , as part of a delegation from the National Cable Television Association, where I was then employed as a summer intern.
We were traveling there to attend the National Cable Television Convention, our huge trade show and political exhibition for our then nascent cable industry. Cable was moving away from remote, hard-to-reach rural and mountainous over-the-air-television locations to the big cities, suburbs & to big money.
I knew and watched our lobbyists working from our 16th & K Street offices, but was essentially naive. I was going to the Howard University Law School at the end of summer, so was more concerned elsewhere.
Once in Anaheim, down the street from Disneyland in my Holiday Inn room, I called my relatives in Los Angeles, and skipped the Mickey Mouse revels that were scheduled.
A highlight of my experience at the convention was the opportunity to meet, be photographed with, and to interview Tom Bradley, LA's first black mayor. He and many other politicians of all kinds were there at our convention. My late Aunt Susie McDonald framed that photograph, of me and her newly elected Mayor, which I had sent to her in gratitude for their hospitality. She proudly posted it in her and Uncle Walter's dining room, for many years afterward. It was still there in 2004.
These thoughts came rushing back among many other recollections, as I read through the "Los Angeles Times'" February 2016's black history pull-out that was mailed to me by a friend, who knows of my love for that subject matter.
Funny is it not, or sad, that we once thought that black elected officials, even at the mayoral level, could surely leverage economic benefits, if not parity, for our people in those halcyon days, as was previously done when other minority groups rose up to assume political power.
We had thought that we would get the cable franchises and allied contracts among other spoils that had historically accrued to victors. Not for us! Empty offices no spoils.
The Supreme Court's Croson decision slammed that expectant door against our attempted entry in Richmond Virginia and elsewhere !
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…/City_of_Richmond_v._J.A._Croso….
Bygone memories of the way we were, then, these are. They were all dashed on the confiscatory altar of Reagan, Rehnquist, and Scalia's "conservative" U. S. Supreme Court. Those 1973 memories yet lie, forlornly, "moldering in the grave," with the stentorian refrains "John Brown's body!" battle song!