Lipscomb expects to get back in the game
Posted on 07/14/2002 6:05:52 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Lipscomb expects to get back in the game
07/14/2002
The already-storied life of Al Lipscomb started a surprising new chapter Friday. But how many people are interested in reading it?
Supporters say the elder statesman of Dallas civil-rights battles will rapidly resume a high-profile leadership role, now that a federal bribery conviction has been overturned on appeal.
CONRAD SCHMIDT / DMN Al Lipscomb interrupted media interviews to accept some cookies from his grandson, Albert Lipscomb III. |
Others say the taint of corruption charges may limit Mr. Lipscomb's effectiveness. And some of the younger generation may not know enough about the 77-year-old former Dallas City Council member to pay attention to what he says today.
But nobody doubts that Mr. Lipscomb wants to add to a biography that already includes a roller-coaster's worth of dramatic turns – from a childhood in Jim Crow's Dallas to a California prison on a drug conviction to a job in the executive dining room of Dallas National Bank to a seat on the Dallas City Council, and, most recently, the bribery conviction.
"As long as Al can breathe, he's going to be important," said his lead attorney, Billy Ravkind.
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"You say, 'Out of sight, out of mind.' That was not the case for him," she said Saturday. "He never stopped being a player. Now that this victory of sorts has come about, I think you'll be seeing a whole lot more of him."
That was surely the case at the celebration at his Oak Cliff home this weekend. Mr. Lipscomb joked and chatted with reporters. Friends and relatives filled the rooms with laughter. And political allies, including Dallas Police Chief Terrell Bolton and former Dallas City Council member Diane Ragsdale, kept the phone ringing.
Despite the jovial atmosphere, Ms. Smith pointed out that Mr. Lipscomb's celebration was only a victory "of sorts."
His conviction was overturned because the federal appeals court ruled that his trial had been improperly moved from Dallas to Amarillo. But the judges did not comment on the strength or weakness of the government's case. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to appeal, conduct a new trial or drop the charges.
Mr. Lipscomb admits that he failed to properly report thousands of dollars of donations while he was a Dallas City Council member, but he denies that the donations were bribes.
The ambiguous nature of his vindication leaves some people with mixed feelings.
Christa Mangrum, 34, a Dallas native who manages software contracts for a local energy company and volunteers for the African American Museum in Fair Park, said nothing can take away the good that Mr. Lipscomb has done.
But his acknowledged mistake creates a problem for other blacks who might want to follow Mr. Lipscomb's path to elective office, she said.
"It always casts a shadow on the rest of us," Ms. Mangrum said. "It creates an extra barrier, as if we needed another one."
On Saturday morning, a half-dozen teenagers volunteered at the museum. A few blocks away, on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, another dozen staffed a rummage sale, raising money for the James Madison High School girls' basketball team.
In both locations, in the heart of a community that Mr. Lipscomb has crisscrossed for decades, an inquiry about what Mr. Lipscomb meant to them was greeted with questioning stares. One girl asked whether Mr. Lipscomb had run for office.
But adults were more familiar with Mr. Lipscomb. And the older they were, the more they seemed to be tuned in to his legacy.
Helen Sorrells, a retired social worker, was volunteering at a fund-raiser for Mount Olive Lutheran Church, next door to James Madison High School. She recalled a meeting 25 years ago at her children's junior high.
"He's worked this area years and years and years," she said. "I think that among some of the older generation, they cannot help but look back and see he's been such an influence on public policy in a positive sense."
Mr. Lipscomb was born in East Dallas, in a home built by his parents and grandparents. He graduated from all-black Lincoln High School in 1942, joined the Army and served as a military police officer in California. That's where he had his first serious encounter with the law, serving 10 months for selling heroin.
He was so ashamed, he later said, that he told his mother he was working in Alaska.
But prison is where Mr. Lipscomb had his first taste of organizing – he set up boxing matches and softball leagues to encourage his fellow prisoners.
When he returned to Dallas, he got a job as the tuxedoed headwaiter at the executive dining room of First National Bank. He also waited tables at some of the city's toniest eateries.
One day he went to watch the pioneering civil-rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall – later a Supreme Court Justice – file a Dallas school desegregation case. His boss didn't like that Mr. Lipscomb had gone to the hearing wearing his work tuxedo. And the reprimand adjusted Mr. Lipscomb's attitude.
"I started getting away from table-waiting and more involved in street activity," he said later.
Mr. Lipscomb became a professional activist in the 1960s. He was a neighborhood organizer for the Dallas Community Action Agency and the Dallas Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. And he got a seat on the board of Dallas Legal Services.
In 1971, he became the first black candidate for mayor of Dallas and finished third in a field of 10.
He threw his support to Wes Wise and took some credit for Mr. Wise's stunning victory over Avery Mays, the candidate pushed by the now-defunct Citizens Charter Association. The association, the political arm of the Dallas Citizens Council of business executives, had backed the winning mayoral candidate since the 1930s.
In 1984, after losing races for the county commission, Texas Legislature, Congress and the Dallas school board, Mr. Lipscomb was elected to the Dallas City Council.
He used his seat as a bully pulpit to argue for greater minority representation in city contracts, boycotts of South Africa under apartheid and more resources for his underserved constituents south of the Trinity River.
Much to the frustration of some other council members, he and Ms. Ragsdale extended the debates before council votes. The two black council members often found themselves on the losing end of decisions. But sometimes they found enough support to nudge city policy.
He was repeatedly re-elected to the council, forced out in 1993 because of term limit requirements and re-elected in 1995.
"I've been obnoxious, bodacious, unorthodox, and I have been strident," he once said. "That's what I have had to use. Those are my tools for change."
The legal system proved to be one of his more effective tools. He was the lead plaintiff in the landmark federal lawsuit that forced Dallas to elect council members from within districts rather than at-large.
Ironically, one of his most humiliating moments may have also been in a federal court. In 1999, he was accused of taking bribes from Yellow Cab executive Floyd Richards in exchange for favorable votes.
U.S. District Judge Joe Kendall moved the trial to Amarillo, citing "significant media attention" and Mr. Lipscomb's status as "one of the most influential and well-known" leaders in Dallas' black community for three decades as key factors in his decision.
During the trial, witnesses said Mr. Lipscomb accepted envelopes stuffed with cash.
"It smells. We can't deny that," Scottie Allen, a member of Mr. Lipscomb's defense team, said during the trial. "But we always conceded the fact that he got some cash."
Mr. Lipscomb has consistently maintained that he got money from friends who wanted to subsidize his work and augment the $50-per-meeting pay that council members received.
He said that his work as an activist required him to accept confidential contributions to help support his family but that the "donations" bought no favors from him.
The jury didn't buy that argument and convicted Mr. Lipscomb on all 65 counts. He resigned from the council in February 2000. He was sentenced that April to spend 41 months at home wearing an electronic monitor bracelet.
Friday's ruling reversed the conviction and raised the possibility he might run yet again for the City Council. He was coy with his answers on that subject Saturday but indicated he would work for James Fantroy, the current council member who represents his district.
As for the role Mr. Lipscomb might play – elder statesman, mentor, firebrand – his supporters say he'll bring plenty of credibility to the table.
Brenda Fields, a Dallas NAACP board member, said he can always tell his personal story as inspiration for present and future generations.
"Folks will really be able to see that he was a person who has been locked out and yet continued to fight," she said.
Staff writers Tiara Ellis, Joe Simnacher, Selwyn Crawford and Norma Adams-Wade contributed to this report.
E-mail jweiss@dallasnews.com
So is that another way for the DMN to say he's going to
get back to his stirring up trouble in the black community
in Dallas again? Sheesh!
Al Lipscomb and John Wiley Price. I've seen dirty tag team
wrestling matches with a lot more class.
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Texas ping list!. . .don't be shy.
No, you don't HAVE to be a Texan to get on this list!
I guess he has made a miraculous recovery.
Let's hope they try him again, but if the trial is in Dallas, his odds of conviction are non-existent.
...and keep the "dream" alive.
I could understand if SOME of the charges had been dropped or overturned - but not all of them.
Was this Judge an appeals court judge or what? If so, I didn't know his case was on appeals. I wonder if Ron Kirk figures into this at all?
Lipscomb isn't out of the woods yet. WFAA reported that he could still be retried on all of the 68 or 69 charges. Somehow I doubt if that will happen.
I remember that when I was growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, we had a couple of ministers whose names I can't recall, who were part of the SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference--Dr. King's umbrella organization--who did NOTHING but foment hate and division every time they got in front of a microphone.
"Ministers of the gospel," indeed. The satanic gospel of racial strife.
I saw some of this on WFAA-TV and I'm here to tell you that something fishy is going on. Lipscomb said in a TV interview that he received a call from a Judge one night telling him that the 60 some odd charges of fraud and corruption had been overturned and that he was a free man.
I could understand if SOME of the charges had been dropped or overturned - but not all of them.
Was this Judge an appeals court judge or what? If so, I didn't know his case was on appeals. I wonder if Ron Kirk figures into this at all?
Lipscomb isn't out of the woods yet. WFAA reported that he could still be retried on all of the 68 or 69 charges. Somehow I doubt if that will happen.
I know. It does all seem so weird that all of a sudden he's been sprung. I have
no idea what might be brewing here.
From the article:
But adults were more familiar with Mr. Lipscomb. And the older they were, the more they seemed to be tuned in to his legacy. Helen Sorrells, a retired social worker, was volunteering at a fund-raiser for Mount Olive Lutheran Church, next door to James Madison High School. She recalled a meeting 25 years ago at her children's junior high. "He's worked this area years and years and years," she said. "I think that among some of the older generation, they cannot help but look back and see he's been such an influence on public policy in a positive sense."
Huh? This doesn't sound like the same Al Lipscomb I know. I think that the
DMN's LIBERAL bias must be showing here?
Kirk, Lipscomb, and Price. Would you play poker with these characters?
You seem to be singularly uninformed - of course the verdict was appealed, and the conviction was overturned due to the change of venue (thus all convictions on all counts were reversed).
Brownie74 sayeth:
Lipscomb said in a TV interview that he received a call from a Judge one night telling him that the 60 some odd charges of fraud and corruption had been overturned and that he was a free man.
I could understand if SOME of the charges had been dropped or overturned - but not all of them.
Was this Judge an appeals court judge or what? If so, I didn't know his case was on appeals. I wonder if Ron Kirk figures into this at all?
Well here's what the article says is going on here:
Hmm?? Why is it I feel that they will decide that he has already served 27His conviction was overturned because the federal appeals court ruled that his trial had been improperly moved from Dallas to Amarillo. But the judges did not comment on the strength or weakness of the government's case. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to appeal, conduct a new trial or drop the charges.
Mr. Lipscomb admits that he failed to properly report thousands of dollars of donations while he was a Dallas City Council member, but he denies that the donations were bribes.
The ambiguous nature of his vindication leaves some people with mixed feelings.
< snip >
U.S. District Judge Joe Kendall moved the trial to Amarillo, citing "significant media attention" and Mr. Lipscomb's status as "one of the most influential and well-known" leaders in Dallas' black community for three decades as key factors in his decision.
During the trial, witnesses said Mr. Lipscomb accepted envelopes stuffed with cash.
"It smells. We can't deny that," Scottie Allen, a member of Mr. Lipscomb's defense team, said during the trial. "But we always conceded the fact that he got some cash."
Mr. Lipscomb has consistently maintained that he got money from friends who wanted to subsidize his work and augment the $50-per-meeting pay that council members received.
He said that his work as an activist required him to accept confidential contributions to help support his family but that the "donations" bought no favors from him.
The jury didn't buy that argument and convicted Mr. Lipscomb on all 65 counts. He resigned from the council in February 2000. He was sentenced that April to spend 41 months at home wearing an electronic monitor bracelet.
Yes I am. That is why I am asking questions. I have bigger fish to fry than Al Lipscomb.
LOL! No, thanks. I'd rather take a tour of the Rattlesnake farm. I'd feel safer.
OK - I remember that now. I think they cited racial bias if he were tried in Dallas or something like that.
Interesting point. I watched every minute of the OJ trial from the freeway chase to the final verdict. I don't know that a change of venue would have mattered much. The "Dream Team" had the prosecution on the ropes throughout the trial.
I am not saying OJ is innocent but I don't see how anything but a not guilty verdict could have come down. Perhaps a Judge other than Lance Ito would have made a difference in the trial. That was one heck of a circus!!
Figures? And just what would you know about figures? Can you add them, subtract them, uglify them, or deride them? Seen any Sonny days lately?
My guess is that the political heat will be turned up not to retry poor Al because he's suffered enough already. He was forced to take those "confidential contributions" to support his family and just "forgot" to report them to the IRS.
If Kirk is elected, its more likely the government will pay Lipscomb millions of dollars to compensate for his "loss of freedom" while under house arrest.
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