Posted on 01/18/2004 4:50:50 AM PST by summer
Blacks at Home Support a Judge Liberals Assail
By DAVID FIRESTONE
LAUREL, Miss., Feb. 15 — Back in Washington, his opponents have depicted Judge Charles W. Pickering as the personification of white Mississippi's oppressive past, a man so hostile to civil rights and black progress that he is unfit for promotion to a federal appeals court.
But here on the streets of his small and largely black hometown, far from the bitterness of partisan agendas and position papers, Charles Pickering is a widely admired figure of a very different present.
In funeral parlors and pharmacies, used-car lots and the City Council chambers, the city's black establishment overwhelmingly supports his nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which is heading toward a contentious vote in the Senate in the first major judicial battle of the Bush administration.
Though few black residents here subscribe to Judge Pickering's staunchly Republican politics, many say they admire his efforts at racial reconciliation, which they describe as highly unusual for a white Republican in the state.
"I have never seen Trent Lott open his arms to the black community the way Charles Pickering has," said Larry E. Thomas, owner of Thomas Pharmacy, referring to the Senate minority leader, who is Judge Pickering's friend and patron. "Over the years I've seen him work with black leaders and really try to make an effort to understand and help the community. That's a progressiveness that we need to see more of in this state."
Progressive is not exactly the description used by the national black officials who are making an intense effort to prevent the judge's appointment. "A vote for Pickering is a vote against civil rights," said Julian Bond, the national chairman of the N.A.A.C.P. Representative Robert C. Scott, Democrat of Virginia, speaking against the nomination with other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, said, "It's hard to imagine a person who is more hostile to civil rights." Judge Pickering has also been condemned by a variety of big-city newspaper editorial boards and columnists.
But such [hostile above] comments carry little weight among those who actually know the man personally here in Laurel, in southeast Mississippi. Judge Pickering, now a federal district judge in the nearby city of Hattiesburg, was praised by black city officials for helping to set up after- school youth programs here, and for directing federal money to medical clinics in low-income areas when he was a state senator. Black business leaders say he was influential in persuading white-owned banks to lend money to black entrepreneurs, helping to strengthen the city's black middle class.
"I can't believe the man they're describing in Washington is the same one I've known for years," said Thaddeus Edmonson, a former local president of the N.A.A.C.P. who is now president of the seven-member Laurel City Council and one of its five black members. "If those people who are voting against him because of some press release would just come down here and talk to the people who know him, I think they would have a very different opinion."
The judge's widespread popularity in his hometown has been frustrating to the many civil rights and abortion rights groups that have worked to portray him as an ideological relic of the Old South.
Several opponents of his nomination have tried unsuccessfully to get his supporters to change their minds, and their inability to do so reflects the distance between national liberal groups and many Southern blacks in small towns. In a city like Laurel, with a population of 18,393, one's personality and faith are often more important than a judicial paper trail or an adherence to an agenda.
People for the American Way, a liberal organization based in Washington, has criticized Judge Pickering for disregarding the separation of church and state by promoting religious programs from the bench. But many prominent blacks here say it is precisely his religious background — he was president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention in the 1980's — that they admire.
"I know Judge Pickering is a fair and impartial person grounded with Christian ethics and beliefs, who ought to be given this chance," said the Rev. Arthur Logan, the black pastor of the Union Baptist Church and a member of the City Council. "There are many people in Mississippi who made these same mistakes early in life, but their strong Christian character brought them closer to God and helped them change."
Four of the five black council members, in fact, said they enthusiastically supported Judge Pickering's appointment. The fifth, Manuel Jones, said he opposed the nomination, largely because he differed with Judge Pickering's efforts in the late 1980's to integrate the largely black city schools with the largely white county schools.
Judge Pickering, then in private practice in Laurel, was one of several white city leaders who argued that the city could not attract economic development with an effectively segregated school system. At the time, Mr. Jones was president of the Laurel-Jones County branch of the N.A.A.C.P., which maintained that consolidation would dilute black administrative power over the city schools. The consolidation plan was eventually overturned by a federal judge, who said it was not justified.
Mr. Jones said he rebuffed a recent telephone request by Judge Pickering that he write the Senate a letter of support. (He had publicly opposed the judge's original appointment to the federal bench in 1990.) Several other council members did agree to the judge's request, however, and their letters are on file with the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"It's hard to go against a sitting federal judge," said Mr. Jones, searching for an explanation of why his colleagues have taken a position that differs so sharply from his.
Many of the judge's critics have cited actions or statements he made in the 1960's and 70's. They have pointed to an article he wrote in 1959 that appeared to support strengthening the state's law against interracial marriages, and to his votes in the state senate that appeared to dilute black voting strength.
But his [Pickering's] many black supporters here — all lifelong Democrats — say they are more interested in his journey than his starting point. They say Judge Pickering, like many white Mississippians, has moved beyond his all-too-common origins.
"He grew up like a lot of white people here," said the Rev. George L. Barnes, a black minister who is pastor at two Missionary Baptist churches and owns a used-car lot. "But his daddy and my daddy used to swim together down in the creek, and I've never heard him say a racist thing. I would say, of people in his age bracket, he's probably come further than any white man I know of."
Local leaders' support for Judge Pickering has put them at odds with several black state officials and the Mississippi conference of the N.A.A.C.P., which oppose his appointment. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat who represents the Delta region on the opposite side of the state in Congress, has called the judge's black supporters "Judases." State N.A.A.C.P. officials say the judge's supporters in Laurel have succumbed to an effort to cover up his [Pickering's] feelings with small acts of kindness. This alternately angers and amuses local residents, who say no such masquerade can last for decades.
"If he's been putting on a show for us, it's the greatest show on earth," said Mr. Thomas, who runs the city's only black-owned pharmacy and who served with Mr. Pickering on the local economic development board in the 1980's.
Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, which is leading the opposition to the appointment, said many of the judge's supporters in Laurel simply did not know the full details of his record.
"We don't dispute that he has support from a number of African- Americans at the local level, and we have never said he is a racist," Mr. Neas said. "He may be a decent person on a one-to-one basis, but that's not the issue. It's his actions as a public official that demonstrate insensitivity and hostility toward basic civil rights principles."
People for the American Way said that as a state senator in the 1970's, Mr. Pickering voted for measures to reduce black voting strength and approved giving state money to the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, which became notorious for opposing the civil rights movement. On the federal bench, the group said, he has strongly criticized the creation of largely black political districts as a remedy for past discrimination.
Many local residents said they were not familiar with such statements. But they [local residents] do remember that in 1967, Judge Pickering testified against Sam Bowers, a Ku Klux Klan leader based in Laurel who was on trial for the firebombing death of a black civil rights worker. Several said that just as the judge broke with prevailing white opinion in the state to do so, they have no trouble differing with black opinion.
"What blacks have fought for is freedom, and that means the freedom of expression to differ among ourselves," said Johnny Magee, a black councilman who supports the judge. "So many people are still angry about the past. But if the judge has moved beyond his past, I think we should all try to do the same."
Come on Fox!!! Fair and balanced please!
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