Transcript

I joined the political club because that's what everyone did. I joined the Carver Democratic Club, which is where Ray Jones, known as the Fox, was the brilliant political strategist. He was the first black county leader of New York County, which in those days had been called Tammany Hall. Many people owe their careers to Ray Jones. He gave them a start.

And so this is maybe 1957 or '58, and then, in 1965, Ray came in to me one day and he said, "Boy, you wanna run for the Assembly?" I said, "Well, yeah, I guess." And that's how it started, I ran for the Assembly. I wasn't supposed to win, but I didn't know that. So Fritz Alexander, who later became the first black elected at least for full term on the Court of Appeals, our highest court, and Bernie Jackson, who later became a Supreme Court judge, they were my friends. And Bernie Jackson and I, as a matter of fact, had been classmates in law school. And so that was my campaign team under the direction of Ray Jones, and we went on to win. My opponent was Franz Leichter, and Franz and I have supported each other ever since.

We had to combat the entrenched, established political structure, and we did that. That's how Ray Jones became county leader, and the county leader is elected by the district leaders from around the county. And he was a pretty smart fellow, and he was able to do that. Denny Farrell of course is a county leader today, and does it. Not only is Denny county leader, that means chairman of New York County Democratic Committee, he's also chairman of the New York State Committee—same person holding two titles, wearing two hats. And he comes out of Harlem, out of Washington Heights, as a matter of fact.

Ray was from the West Indies. As a young man, he used to carry ice. In those days people had iceboxes as opposed to refrigerators, and the iceman would deliver ice, and you'd see men carrying these big blocks of ice. And that's what he did way back. Ray Jones was a genius, a political genius; he was very, very smart. And if nothing else, he knew how to count. Any politician will tell you, you need to know how to count. Some people think they're winning, and they haven't counted properly. Counting can be everything. And that's what Ray Jones was particularly adept at, as is Denny Farrell, I might add. Denny is very good at that, to accurately assess who's for you and who is not. And that's not always easily done.

It was Ray Jones who supported Charlie Rangel's notion to run for the Congress. But it was Percy Sutton really who first decided that Charlie Rangel should run. But Basil Paterson, Charlie Rangel, Percy Sutton were with and against each other over the years in Harlem politics.

There came a time when the four of us, Percy Sutton, Basil Paterson, Charlie Rangel, and I were known as the Gang of Four. It was meant to be a derogatory term, but we wear it like a badge of honor. Percy Sutton is in many ways a mentor to a lot of us. I am fond of saying that everybody stands on somebody's shoulders. And I make reference to Dr. King and Malcolm X and Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks, and I always include Percy Sutton, whether or not he is in the audience, because I truly believe that had he not run for mayor in the fashion he did in 1977 in a crowded field, I would not have been later elected. Some folks will remember there was Ed Koch and Mario Cuomo and Herman Badillo and Bella Abzug, and of course Percy, and it seems to me at least one other, but Percy ran with such class and distinction that even though the media ignored him largely no one laughed at me when I dared try in '89. So Percy's among those persons to whom I owe much in that regard.

I think that each of us was able to extend our influence, our ability to be elected beyond our small districts within Harlem, for a variety of reasons, one of which was that we were all players on the scene, and whether it was a state scene or a national scene, each of us has always been involved. Basil was very active in the Democratic National Committee, for instance. Charlie Rangel very obviously once he started to gain seniority in the Congress and with a seat on Ways and Means, he to this day is enormously influential.

And for me, I'm just lucky, I've just been very, very fortunate. Sometimes I look back and I'm amazed at what we've been able to accomplish, but we did it really as a group, and I think each of us appreciates that.

I think that the people were probably more active in Harlem in politics in the sense of voter participation in the '60s and '70s than they are today. I confess I haven't examined the statistics to see, but I have that feeling. And the reason I have it is that so many of us ran and fought hard to achieve what's called a party position, as distinguished from a public office, district leader, for instance. And people spent money and worked awfully hard to achieve these positions. And there isn't that much activity today.

I can remember there were knock-down, drag-out fights for what we call party positions, district leaders, county committee people. I mean I remember running for district leader. I was a district leader for almost twenty years, I first succeeded Ray Jones as a district leader, and he sort of engineered it by the county committee voting for me. And so I was the leader.

The so-called political clubhouse of yesterday isn't nearly as powerful today as it was then. Although clubhouses still exist, some are better than others. I can remember when I was a district leader. We'd come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays and among the first things I did was you had to sweep the floor and clean out the toilet, and if you were going to have many visitors I would go across the street to Bishop Norman Quick and borrow chairs from the church. He always loaned me chairs 'cause we always brought 'em back. And we really worked at it.

Today you still have clubhouses and whatnot. Some are less effective than others. Denny Farrell, Herman D. Farrell, Jr., is someone I've supported from the very beginning. His first run for the Assembly he went up against an incumbent named Mark Southall, who was black, and Mark was part of the old crowd, so to speak, and I supported him. And I remember the same year I supported Franz Leichter against Joe Zaretsky. And they both won, so I was some sort of a political genius 'cause I backed the right horses in two races at the same time. And Joe Zaretsky was the minority leader of the Senate, so it was not a small thing. This is the same Franz Leichter that I had defeated for the Assembly back in 1965.

But at any rate I have a feeling that there was more activity, more involvement then than there is today politically.

I suppose the issues of today are not much different than the issues of yesterday. The issues of my day were of course education, healthcare, housing, and whatnot. And always there's racism, which is always a factor with which one must deal. Percy Sutton in '77 was ill treated by the press. I remember on one occasion he had a press conference on the Empire State Building, or some place like that, observation tower. And the point being made was that tourism is big business to New York City. And it got covered by The Amsterdam News, a black weekly only.

But because of that I got a little more attention when I came along, because of the path he had helped to clear.