Good old days: Often a mirage
Herschel Walker, that 15-watt bulb of Trump Republicanism, came close but lost his election for the U.S. Senate. Some say Walker being in contention for so lofty an office proves America has declined.
Has it really? Is it possible the good old days were overrated? Or are we in worse shape at the end of 2022 than we were in 1962, the year Walker was born?
Democrat Ernest Vandiver was governor of Walker’s home state of Georgia in 1962. An ardent segregationist, Vandiver tried to prohibit public school districts from levying any taxes if the money would support racially mixed schools.
O.D. Johnson, a Democratic Georgia state senator, proposed a $2 tax on anyone trying to register to vote. He insisted it wasn’t a poll tax. Of course not. In Johnson’s words, the tax would be a way
“to keep our voters’ list in a good, clean condition.”
Johnson also introduced a bill to prohibit demonstrations on or near state property unless the governor granted a permit. Johnson’s proposal came after more than 100 students, Black and white, marched around the Georgia Capitol to protest segregation.
In Washington, the House Committee on Un-American Activities began an investigation of peace movements.
The New Mexico town of Roswell made the national news wires for a topic other than UFOs. Roswell hosted the Harlem Globetrotters, who filled a high school gym for an exhibition of basketball wizardry. Afterward, the Chew Den Restaurant refused to serve the Black manager of the Trotters and one of the players. The all-Black team decided to leave Roswell without eating dinner.
Deal-making dominated the New Mexico Capitol. Gov. Edwin Mechem, a Republican, resigned from office so his lieutenant governor could appoint Mechem to a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate. Mechem’s stay in Washington was brief. He lost the Senate election in 1964. President Richard Nixon later appointed Mechem to a federal judgeship, evidence that politics in the judiciary is a longstanding deficiency.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was released from jail in Albany, Ga., after serving two days of a 45-day sentence for parading without a permit.
King urged Democratic President John F. Kennedy to outlaw segregation by executive order. The civil rights icon said Kennedy should cite the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing equal protection to all U.S. citizens.
Republican Gov. Elmer Andersen of Minnesota encouraged one of his state’s businesses to challenge Jim Crow laws of the South. Andersen wanted action because Minnesota Twins players Earl Battey, Lenny Green and Zoilo Versalles were banned from the hotel where their white teammates stayed during spring training in Orlando, Fla. Twins President Calvin Griffith said he couldn’t do anything about segregation in Florida, ignoring his option of boycotting the segregated hotel. After all, his displaced minority players had to bunk in private homes owned by Black people.
Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters union, remained a free man after a jury in Nashville could not reach a verdict in his conspiracy trial. Hoffa later was convicted of tampering with the Nashville jury. That crime and a conviction for union corruption led to Hoffa being sentenced to 13 years in prison. He served less than five years before fellow Republican Nixon commuted Hoffa’s sentence.
Two ministers, Fred Shuttlesworth and J.S. Phifer, were jailed in Birmingham, Ala., for challenging a 1958 bus segregation ordinance that was ruled unconstitutional.
The 12 football teams in the Southeastern Conference were all white. Nothing changed until 1967, when Nate Northington of the University of Kentucky broke the barrier. Herschel Walker would win the Heisman Trophy in 1982 while playing for another conference school, the University of Georgia.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People sued labor unions on claims of racial discrimination. George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, said his organization suspended its donations to the NAACP because of the lawsuits. Executives of the NAACP rebutted Meany, saying his umbrella operation never made any contributions.
No Black person was in the 100-member U.S. Senate in 1962. That was hardly a surprise given the difficulties countless Blacks had in registering to vote, much less running for office.
Walker lost this week to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in a matchup of two Black candidates. Skin color would have disqualified both from receiving a Senate nomination in the Deep South of the ’60s.
Walker’s rise was evidence of an unqualified candidate reaching for power. That’s politics. It’s no better than it used to be, but it’s probably not any worse.