Ramsey Clark, the former US attorney general who drafted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and played a key role in the civil rights movement, was the most principled person I have ever known. His death on April 9 at the age of 93 comes at a time of fresh reckoning for justice in the United States with the deaths of the protests of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, an attack by white supremacists on the US Capitol itself and one Pandemic that exposed social inequality in America.
His life offers some modern lessons and memories. He believed that the “rule of law” is absolute, guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and equally applicable to all. The day I last saw him I asked about democracy in America. On my way to the door he said, “You may never get there, but you have to get closer and you have to keep trying and having faith that we will overcome.” He looked at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the greatest American.
Woody Hanson [ Provided ]
Clark should be remembered for the courageous leadership he has shown in securing and protecting the emerging civil rights of America’s black citizens, restructuring the Federal Bureau of Prisons to focus on rehabilitation, drafting the laws that are to the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and issued a stand against what Ted Kennedy called “the incredible pressure of reaction”.
Even though Clark was 90 years old when I first met him, I never thought he would die. During these troubled times, he remained hopeful and optimistic, moral and compassionate, and expressed empathy for those who were less fortunate, marginalized, or persecuted. In his view, a good life had little to do with personal gain; It was about serving others.
In August 2018 I became a PhD student at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. American history was my subject, and Ramsey Clark is starring in my dissertation. Before going to Ireland, I visited him in New York City to record a two-hour oral history interview. The night before, I made index cards that he can use to remember events and experiences of the past few decades. He didn’t need her.
His house was on the second floor of a housing association in Greenwich Village. The leather-bound chair on which he sat as attorney general at cabinet meetings stood next to tall windows. On the floor were two piles of books and a copy of the New York Times. He read Randall B. Wood’s Prisoners of Hope: Lyndon B. Johnson, The Great Society and the Frontiers of Liberalism, and two other books on the 1960s, a tumultuous decade he was obviously still thinking about.
After a few moments he walked slowly down the hall, pushing an aluminum runner. He wore khaki chinos and a light blue short-sleeved shirt with a buttoned collar, reached out and shook my hand. He had a strong grip that contradicted his age. He greeted me with a Mediterranean flair and offered me a glass of iced tea.
Moments later, I showed the index cards to the man who accompanied James Meredith in 1962 when he was trying to become the first black student at the University of Mississippi to be named Dr. Martin Luther King, John Lewis and other voters kept human rights activists safe on their historic march from Selma to Montgomery, the man who helped draft the legislation that became the Suffrage Act in 1965. The man who helped quell the Watts insurrection later that summer by listening patiently and respectfully to angry black Americans who had lost the war on poverty and had no reason to believe in great society.
Later as attorney general, he suspended federal executions, cleared J. Edgar Hoover’s wiretapping of King’s phone calls, led the search for the men who killed King and Robert Kennedy, and warned Mayor Richard J. Daley that he and his police officers had been killed prosecuted for shooting looters or using inappropriate force to suppress the students who were in Chicago to protest the Vietnam War during the 1968 National Democratic Convention.
Without being asked, Clark told me that President John Kennedy’s “vision was inspiring”: “When he was killed, it was the only time in my life that I thought I would never be happy again.” When he continued talking about President Lyndon Johnson, he said he was “bigger than life, with all its flaws”. He insisted that “despite his pragmatism, he was an idealist and had an idea of what he wanted to do for the country. … He had limitless ambitions and a big heart. “
But in my opinion, Ramsey Clark had the greatest and noblest heart of all. Owen Fiss, professor emeritus at Yale Law School and former special assistant to the assistant attorney general who served under Clark, once said: “The idealism that characterized his tenure as attorney general never waned. Ramsey Clark was relentless in his pursuit of justice, whether representing the United States or the damned. He lived deeply in the law and set an example for all to follow. “
Aside from Edward Levi, the attorney general tasked with rebuilding the American belief in justice after the Watergate scandal, he has had other Justice Department officials on both the causes he fought for and life that he led set such a good example? As we mourn his death, we should be inspired by his courage and follow his example in striving to build a society of freedom and justice for all.
Woody Hanson earned his Masters of Liberal Arts in Florida studies from the University of South Florida at Saint Petersburg and is currently a PhD student in history at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. His email address is [email protected].
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