Spirit and Soul: Odyssey of a Black Man in America, Volume Ii

By Theodore Kirkland

The deputy superintendents remarks were degrading and insulting. He thought that my soul could be bought for being allowed the privilege to walk through the front door at Elmira Prison, a symbol of status in his mind, but not mine. The front door of the prison was only a symbol of influence in the minds of fools, not in the minds of free men with thoughts based on liberty and equality. As a matter of fact, the rear was where my ancestors were forced to enter, so there is a sense of pride to walk in the footsteps of ones ancestors.

Mr. Superintendent, I personally dont give a damn which door I come in. Apparently you didnt hear anything I said. Its not me I am concerned about. I am used to the back doors of America. Its those black women and children standing out in the cold, waiting to be processed and being denied the decency of using the restroom that concerns me. Its not about me. Its about decency and what is right, I assured him.

He then told me that he could not change the policy and do anything about the situation at hand but that he could take care of me and make it more convenient and comfortable for me when I come back to Elmira. I thought of the times I heard the line We can take care of you, but we cant do anything about all those others. As a police officer and head of the black police organization, I had heard this more times than I care to remember from police officials, elected officials, politicians, businessmen, and now a prison superintendent. But it wasnt until that moment, standing in the gym at Elmira Prison, that I realized how much their use of others sounded so much like niggers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543414479

Theodore Kirkland

Theodore Kirkland is a black man, born and raised in the United States of America. His experience as an American black is extraordinary, provocative, and well-resonant with today’s society. Being forever grateful for God’s grace, he is currently retired and writes periodically about the political climate, the criminal justice system, and civil liberties. He has a master’s degree in social science and is a Korean War veteran. A former Buffalo police officer, television host and producer, and radio host and producer, adjunct college professor, and former New York State Parole Board Commissioner, Kirkland frequently appears as a guest host or commentator. His first book, Spirit and Soul: Odyssey of a Black Man in America, Volume One, was published in 2012. During his career as a police officer, Kirkland received numerous awards and citations from citizen groups, prisoners, and youth gangs. Although he was the most honored police officer in the history of the Buffalo Police Department, he never received awards from law enforcement agencies. But in 1972, he received a commendation from the president of the United States, Richard Nixon, and recognition from the House of Representatives. As a black man, Kirkland not only writes about his difficulties as a parole board member, but he takes the reader with him through this life, it becomes easy to understand the conflict that develops between him and others. Spirit and Soul: Odyssey of a Black Man in America, Volume Two gives the reader a unique opportunity to explore a black man’s life on the New York State parole board. Appointed to the parole board in 1978 by Governor Hugh Carey, Kirkland’s appointment was controversial from the onset as a result of his nearly sixteen years in the Buffalo Police Department where his reputation of being a people person exceeded that of accepting the “them against us” psychology.

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SPIRIT AND SOUL

Odyssey of a Black Man in America,

VOLUME II

Theodore Kirkland

Copyright © 2017 by Theodore Kirkland.

Library of Congress Control Number:             2017905446

ISBN:             Hardcover                         978-1-5434-1449-3

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Rev. date: 06/29/2017

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CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1   A New Beginning

Chapter 2   The Message

Chapter 3   Snake in the Grass

Chapter 4   Parole Board

Chapter 5   Attica Revisited

Chapter 6   My People in Albany

Chapter 7   When Black Men Organize

Chapter 8   Auburn NAACP

Chapter 9   Black Solidarity Day

Chapter 10   Politics

Chapter 11   Great Meadow Prison

Chapter 12   Jones’s Last Day

Chapter 13   The Conference

Chapter 14 .   22-Caliber Killer

Chapter 15   Dannemora Prison

Chapter 16   The Chairman

Chapter 17   Bonding

Chapter 18   King’s Day at Elmira Prison

Chapter 19   Sojourn to Dakar

Chapter 20   The Defining Case

Chapter 21   Dreams of Demons

Chapter 22   Cuomo’s Prisons

Chapter 23   Testimonial

Chapter 24   Unchartered Territory

Chapter 25   Mitchell Case

Chapter 26   Senate Subpoena

Chapter 27   Farrakhan

Chapter 28   The Attica Ban

Chapter 29   Déjà Vu

Chapter 30   Paranoia

Chapter 31   Senate Race

Chapter 32   Malcolm’s Assassins

Chapter 33   Why Me?

Chapter 34   February 21, 1985

Chapter 35   Letter to the Senate

Chapter 36   The Albany Press Corps

Chapter 37   Persona Non Grata

Chapter 38   The Long Awaited Letter

Chapter 39   Good-bye, Albany

Chapter 40   Paradox

Chapter 41   The Cabin

Chapter 42   Searching

Chapter 43   A Letter from Mosley

Chapter 44   Behind the Scenes

Chapter 45   From City Hall to Classroom

Chapter 46   My Last Political Race

Chapter 47   Investigative Journalism

Chapter 48   Masiello’s Administration

Images_747266_10-28-2016-1.jpg

In Memory of Cynthia Theodora Kirkland

Loving Daughter

Mother of Joshua and Dedicated Teacher

Gone Too Soon

September 17, 1963 –July 27, 2015

I further

dedicate this book to my family, especially my wife, Winona. I could not have written this book without her. I also dedicate this book to my daughters, Sharon E. Kirkland Gordon (husband Patrick) and Adrianne D. Kirkland, and my grandson, Joshua J. Hargrave.

PROLOGUE

When, I walked out of the federal court building in Buffalo that spring morning in 1975 after testifying against the City of Buffalo and my employer, the Buffalo Police Department, regarding racial discrimination in the department and its biased hiring policies involving people of color and women, I knew that my time in the Buffalo Police Department was numbered. Within it, there would never be any peace for me as a police officer; I would be constantly looking over my shoulders, suspicious of every police officer, Black and white, every arrest, and every stranger trying to make friends with me. I had become the victim of my own device.

But it’s difficult for me to actually pinpoint just when this started in my life, this challenge to the racism that was every Black man’s companion in America from birth to his grave. It wasn’t something that happened like an unexpected rainstorm that caught me without my rain gear. No, this was different; this had become a permanent part of me and every Black man in America, whether they realize it or not. As such, I was constantly at war within and without. There was no peace for me as I carried with me this double consciousness of being a Black man in America and having to act on occasion like a white man.

*     *     *

I was fresh out of the police academy, twenty-eight years of age, an air force veteran of the Korean War where I received training as a military police officer, later becoming a supervisor. At the conclusion of my four years in uniform, I received my honorable discharge with medals inclusive of the United Nations Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, and the Korean Service Medal. I was American through and through.

But none of this made me equal in the eyes and minds of the white policy makers of the police department. The most ignorant of white officers in the department were assigned car patrol, which was denied to Blacks who had to walk beats, most of whom were veterans. This began my career in the Buffalo Police Department; a calling which I do not regret for it prepared me for that next stage in my life.

*     *     *

Volume 2 is a transition from the Buffalo Police Department to the executive department of the governor of the state of New York where I am introduced to a whole new world of coworkers including the governor, parole board commissioners, parole officers, elected officials, prison guards, and inmates. Most of what the reader becomes exposed to in Volume 2, they may never have heard of before since most of it occurred out of the public arena.

Spirit and Soul Odyssey of a Black Man in America, Volume 2 can stand on its own without having read Volume 1, which was published in 2012; but to better understand the historic trials and tribulations of the author, since one’s life does not begin in the middle of life, reading Volume 1 can be helpful, but not necessary.

*     *     *

At age forty-four, I thought I was well-seasoned when I made the transition from the Buffalo Police Department for a commissionership on the state parole board. During those previous years on the police force and beyond, I thought I had experienced every level of racism America had to offer. But I was mistaken. What awaited me in Albany was a racism that was enmeshed in politics where one works hand in hand with the other.

I would be awakened to a whole new set of rules in a game that was predicated on the survival of white supremacy and its perpetuation by any means necessary. It is here that conspiracies are not uncommon, for there are no rules other than to preserve white supremacy in its entirety.

In this environment, white males were able to be appointed to the parole board without any substantial education or qualifications entitling them to make decisions involving the release or hold of people they knew nothing about and no desire to know them. Their inbred biases were obvious in their decision making, biases formed in their predominately white communities.

As a Black man in America, I brought a different perspective to the parole board that from all indications was missing; in this regard, I may have had no equals. I brought neither a godfather nor a political party. I brought me and all that I had learned as a Black man in racist America. I brought my spirit and soul to a patronage position. I brought my beliefs; I brought conflict.

I had no intention of being the quiet one like many of my brothers; furthermore, I never learned how. My objective was to be the provocative one, the one asking and answering questions outside of the norm. My intention was to be as fair as possible to those imprisoned, at all times remembering that it could have been me, saved only by the grace of God. I made no prior deals with the governor, politicians, prison guards, parole officers, nor their unions or godfathers. I bowed only to my God, and not to man

But like in so many other positions under white supremacy, Blacks who are employed as a means to integrate are expected to integrate in color and not in thought. They are expected to be seen but not heard. This has followed me throughout life in America from the lowest jobs to the commissionership on the parole board.

In the finality of my tenure as the snakes gathered around me, I felt the presence of God, like that night on the military base when they came for me Ku Klux Klan style, minus the hoods (Volume 1). But conditions had changed; hoods were no longer necessary. In state prisons, they dressed in three piece suits, or uniforms.

*     *     *

A special acknowledgment and thanks to Dr. David J. Hodges of Hunter College and Lucille Banta (deceased) for their idea of a book and for their encouragement and continued support in this endeavor. I further thank Dorothy Teryl and Dorothy Shields (deceased) for their generous support. Through their mentoring and guidance, my résumé reached the governor’s desk and later their guidance, through the senate confirmation process.

Thanks goes out to Melvin Watkins, a retired librarian; John Eberhart, a retired police lieutenant; and Dr. Willie Underwood, of Roswell Cancer Institute, for their support. I also acknowledge every person mentioned in this book as well as those alluded to, be they friend or foe, for without their active part in my life, Volume 2 would have been impossible. Therefore, it serves me no purpose to hold malice against anyone regardless of the role they played in my life, regardless of their purpose. This is my odyssey as I lived it.

CHAPTER 1

A New Beginning

Buffalo’s associate city court judge, the Honorable judge Barbara Sims, administered the oath of office declaring me as the newest commissioner of the New York State Parole Board (NYSPB). The ceremony was held in Calvary Baptist Church following its regular Sunday morning service on May 14, 1978. In addition to Judge Sims, several others spoke on my behalf, including the pastor, Rev. L. T. Boyce; New York State assemblyman Arthur O. Eve; Councilman George K. Arthur; and other elected officials including James Pitts; David L. Collins; County Legislator Roger I. Blackwell; president of the school board, Florence E. Baugh; and Herbert L. Bellamy Sr. My mentors, Dorothy Shields and Dorothy Teryl, also attended. But all was not well.

I was well aware of the resentment and comments of others, wondering how I deserved this plum position considering my activism, outspokenness against racism in the police department, and the organizing of Black officers to file racial discrimination charges against the city (Volume 1). As a matter of fact, most Black police officers, during their careers in the department, who went along to get along felt they were more deserving than me because they never openly complained about racism, although they were its victims.

*     *     *

On Monday morning, May 15, 1978, the day after the ceremony, I left Buffalo, driving my new 1978 Buick, the first new car I ever owned. I was on my way to meet the parole board members at a retreat in Poughkeepsie, New York; this would be my first opportunity to meet them as a group.

As I drove east on Route 17, a route I had taken many times to the New York City area, the warmth of the morning sun was comforting as it filtered through the windshield of my car. Surrounded by the warmth and heady fragrance of my new automobile, I cruised down the highway, enjoying my first official day as a parole board commissioner. The euphoria of the moment caused me to daydream. With a six-to seven-hour drive in solitude, I had plenty of time to reminisce about what brought me to this point in my life. What led me to give up a secure civil service position as a police officer and a weekly television talk show host for what appeared to be so little?

But everything has a beginning, and this account of my life is no different. It was a time of change and a time to benefit from that which had changed. It was a time of jubilation and a time of opportunity. I saw what looked like progress, and I jumped into it with all that I could muster. It was my time, and I was excited with the thought of a new beginning.

*     *     *

It began that spring of 1975 when I read Prison without Walls (PWW), a small green cover textbook of 212 pages. At the time, I was a part-time student at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and the book was assigned reading for one of my college classes. It described the NYSPB and its twelve parole board commissioners, their duties, and their $36,000-a-year salary. This was the first time I had read anything about the state parole board’s commissioners, and it held my attention.

The $36,000-a-year salary was a lot of money in 1975, more than double my $15,500 police salary. Neither the Buffalo mayor nor the police commissioner’s salary paid as much. It was more than double the salary of the school security chief position that I was pursuing in federal court after having placed first on a civil service examination, only to be passed over for a less qualified white male that placed second on the examination (Volume 1).

The only requirement for a position on the parole board was an appointment by the governor and confirmation by the state senate. There was no mention of education or experience qualifications. I knew these minimum qualifications were designed for whites and not for Blacks. My feeling was that whites would never pay a Black that kind of money without him or her showing some outstanding qualifications beyond that required of whites. This was America, and I was Black. Need I say more?

Yet I had the audacity to feel that I was predestined to be on the parole board as if it was waiting just for me. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized the caveat.

At the time, I honestly considered myself to already have the better of two worlds than any other police officers in the department, Black or white. In addition to being a full-time police officer and a part-time college student, I was also the host and producer of Kirkland & Company, a television program on ABC every Saturday evening at seven o’clock in Buffalo (Volume 1). Then there were my community activities, board member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Community Action Organization (CAO), and others. It would be late summer of 1975 before deciding whether I wanted to pursue a parole board position.

*     *     *

The firstborn of our three daughters, Sharon Elaine, graduated as valedictorian from East High School in 1975 with plans to attend Spelman College, the premier Black female college in Atlanta, Georgia. That summer, my wife and I drove her to Spelman in our big deuce and a quarter, the largest car we ever owned. It was my first trip south since 1954, to attend my maternal grandfather, Walter Boysie Alexander’s funeral, in Camden, South Carolina, my birthplace; and it would be my first time in Georgia since June of 1952 when I attended and graduated from the Military Police Academy at Camp Gordon (Volume 1).

Passing through Kentucky and Tennessee and finally arriving in Atlanta, we experienced a beautiful and hospitable South. We encountered none of the hostility that Blacks had endured as they passed through Southern states a few years earlier prior to the civil rights movement. After dining at a restaurant, we were welcomed back with that famous Southern phrase, Y’all come back now, you hear?

I neither saw nor heard the blatant racism of twenty-one years earlier when I attended my maternal grandfather’s funeral. We didn’t see the proverbial fields of Black cotton pickers or Black chain gangs that I witnessed as a child growing up in Camden or as an airman in Georgia. Yet naïveté did not overcome me in believing that the peonage system had ended in the treatment of Black people in the South no more than it had in the North.

Arriving at Spelman and touring that historical and magnificent campus that we had heard so much about and seeing the many happy faces of Black female students, we knew Sharon had made the right choice. It was enlightening and a reminder of what we as a race could do. In Buffalo, gang warfare seemed to dominate the minds of Black youth, which appeared to be perpetuated by city government in the quest for poverty funds, and as a result, the minds of too many Black youths were focused on their immediate survival instead of race pride and education.

We spent two days touring Atlanta and staying at a Black-owned hotel, something that had long disappeared in Buffalo where Blacks had opted for a dream called integration over economic survival. But I remember those days, and I still had a problem understanding how things changed in the South for the better while in the North for the worst.

This new South treated us so well that after leaving Sharon at Spelman, we traveled to Forkland, Alabama, and Camden to visit kinfolk we knew little about, but they knew our parents and grandparents. Because of that, we received a Southern-style welcome with food, drinks, and meeting young and old relatives. This was something Northern city-born Blacks could never duplicate.

But it would be foolish to think that inbred beliefs had died. Segregation may have been outlawed by law, but racism was still the unwritten policy throughout the United States, guaranteeing a system of white superiority.

Born in Forkland, Alabama, my wife, Winona, was an infant when she left the South with her parents, James and Brunette Washington, and returned in 1941 at the age of five for a two-week visit with her maternal grandmother, Martha Pickens. She hadn’t experienced the institutional racism that permeated the South that made whites superior to Blacks by the white man’s law in all things, from human association to material actuation. Only God knows how many Blacks and whites lost their lives and property as a result of Jim Crow laws.

Although I was aware of the civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties, and the March on Washington that brought about the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, and the Edmund Pettus Bridge marches that ultimately led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, I was also aware that the mere passing of laws did not necessarily change ingrained racist mind-sets and attitudes in America. But the new Black South appeared to ignore those ingrained feelings as they went about their business, seeking their share of political and economic power.

While in Forkland, we met with Judge William M. Branch, the first Black probate judge of Greene County, Alabama, and Thomas Gilmore, the first Black Greene County sheriff, both elected after the passing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, just ten years earlier. We spent time in Camden with my mother’s sister, Aunt Coralee Whitaker, and a cousin, Clifford Alexander, who had been elected to the Camden, South Carolina City Council as its first Black councilman. He was a beneficiary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. We had a wonderful afternoon at his home, talking about the politics of the day with him and his wife, Daisy.

It was interesting to hear these prominent Blacks talk about their positions as first Blacks and not be afraid to say, Don’t be fooled, little has changed. In 1978, Sheriff Gilmore came to Buffalo as a member of the Greene County Alabama Family Reunion (see newspaper photo).

Although the signs of racism had been removed and the social interaction between Blacks and whites had improved somewhat and laws had been passed against segregation, the psychological damage to the minds of Blacks and whites would not be easily erased, if ever. Although the civil rights movement had done its mission in the South, Blacks in the North had yet to go through a racial political togetherness in seeking political power, for in 1975, New York State still had not elected a single Black sheriff in any of its sixty-two counties.

*     *     *

My grandmother Doshia Evans Kirkland died in the fall of 1975. She was ninety-two and had outlived Grandpa Jake by sixteen years. It seems that my life began with her. As a young child, she was the mother I knew. When death claimed her, I regretted that I never talked with her about her life as a Black woman born in 1883 in rural Camden, South Carolina, shortly after the Civil War. She had birthed ten children and undoubtedly carried a heavy burden in her bosom to the grave, harboring a history of pain, suffering, and secrets that only Black women of that era in the deep rural South of the United States would understand. I fondly called her Ma, and her spirit remains with me, along with the many questions I wish I had asked. But maybe it was best that I hadn’t; some things are often best left unknown and unsaid. Some things if known could make life just that much more difficult.

Looking back, I never talked to my grandfathers about their lives as young Black men sharecropping for the white men. I never asked them about their parents and grandparents and what they were told about slavery. My paternal grandfather’s father was white, resulting in his pale-white complexion; my maternal grandfather was black as coal. The contrast between the two anecdotes would have been a great human interest story and history lesson for me. And like millions of other Blacks, their individual narratives and their lives as children of white fathers and Black mothers living in that era will never be told nor will the stories of those pure Blacks who, for some reason, had escaped the rape of the white men.

*     *     *

By mid-September, through research, I found that since the state parole board’s inception in 1930 by Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt; only four Blacks had been appointed during its forty-five years of existence. Frank L. Caldwell and Ada Fisher Jones were two of those appointed, and they were still on the board. Caldwell’s appointment interested me most because he was from Buffalo, but throughout my travels and activities, I had never heard of him. Much later, I would come across his name in an old copy of the 1958–1959 Negro Directory of the Niagara Frontier, edited by Mrs. Essie W. Cannon, which was no longer a publication. Most of those cited in the book were from Buffalo, and had passed on.

Caldwell was appointed after Nelson A. Rockefeller, the Republican candidate for governor of New York, defeated William Averill Harriman the incumbent Democrat in 1958. But Harriman, trailing in the poles, desperately in the eleventh hour, attempted to attract and galvanize the Black vote by appointing Herbert Evans, a Black attorney from New York City, to an unexpired term on the state parole board (Parole Annual Report, 1958). Evans became the first Black New York State Parole Board commissioner, which was a big deal among Blacks during that period.

Appointing a Black to any influential-sounding position in those days stirred the souls of the Black masses, but this appointment was different. The Rockefeller family had a history of stirring Black souls as philanthropist to Black causes, and the Rockefeller name was well-known among Blacks and at Spelman College. At that time, the most influential Blacks were Republicans; whereas the Democratic Party was primarily the party of the slave masters, Southern segregationist, Ku Klux Klan, and other racist organizations but not exclusively in the South since the North and New York State particularly had its share of segregationist, segregated institutions, Klansmen, and slaves.

Shortly after Rockefeller took office in 1959, Commissioner Evans’s term expired on the parole board. Rockefeller appointed Frank Caldwell to replace Evans. Caldwell was a Black Republican attorney employed at the Buffalo Urban League and became the second Black appointed to the board and the first Black from Buffalo New York appointed by Rockefeller.

In 1967, Howard A. Jones, from New York City was Rockefeller’s second Black appointee to the parole board; and like Evans and Caldwell, he was also an attorney. After a short period on the board, Jones left to become a judge in New York City, as had Evans. Rockefeller’s third Black appointee to the parole board was Ada Fisher Jones in 1972, no relation to Howard Jones. Ada Fisher Jones, a former Rockefeller political aide from New York City, was the first female parole board commissioner.

But Buffalo did not benefit from Caldwell’s commissionership since he moved to Syracuse, New York, shortly after his appointment, along with the prestigious image his title held in those days. As a result, Caldwell became out of sight, out of mind; and his position of parole commissioner, a visual role model, never materialized in Buffalo.

Notably, all Black male appointees to the parole board had been lawyers. However, this distinction for Black males did not apply to white males, and being the person that I was, I noticed this difference immediately. I could not find evidence of anyone challenging this policy, which appeared to apply only for Black males.

Without further investigation and since Evan and Caldwell were lawyers, the assumption may have been, by Blacks, that this was a position for attorneys, which would have discouraged non-attorneys from applying. This was and is rather common since the average Black considers it much easier and safer to follow than to independently research or challenge the system. It also could have been an unwritten qualification set by the governor’s office or the state senate, which would have made it a case of racial discrimination. Although I held no law degree or any other degree at the time, this did not deter my interest, especially since whites on the board didn’t have law credentials. But there was one thing that bothered me, one thing I thought about years after I had desegregated the police car (Volume 1).

I had accepted what I was told by Black officers, and seeing no Blacks in police cars as proof that Blacks were not allowed patrol in police cars because of racial discrimination. But was that enough proof? Was their word and my observation enough? Now years later, a bigger question emerged in my mind, a question that I should have asked prior to any other action. The question: did any Black officer actually approach their supervisor and ask to patrol in the police car, or did they assume they couldn’t because of what they saw and heard from other Black officers? At this stage of my life, I had grown in the knowledge of my people; there were those who disliked responsibility and would lie to look good. And there are those who wait patiently for their supervisor to acknowledge their good work and promote them or ignore them. I identify with the more aggressive person who feels qualified and is assertive. So to avoid what could be a serious mistake, I decided to ask for a position on the parole board.

In view of my background, recognitions, and honors from community groups, students, organizations, the president of the United States, and the House of Representatives, I believed that I had adequate credentials to impress the governor to appoint me to the parole board. From what I had read, no commissioner came close to having my kind of experience and credentials, white or Black.

But I needed someone to advise me of the protocol to have my résumé placed on the governor’s desk without channeling it through any of the local politicians. Buffalo seemed to be a closed society when it came to influential state positions. The Black and white elected officials weren’t making the Black community aware of these positions other than low-level positions, such as prison guards; only becoming available after the Attica uprising in 1971. If I hadn’t read the book while attending college, chances are I wouldn’t have known about this position. But it wasn’t just Blacks who were kept in the dark about the parole board, so were the whites in Western New York.

To my good fortune, I was on the Western New York Civil Liberties Union (WNYCLU) board of directors. I may have been the only Black board member, certainly the only police officer. Police officers usually viewed the Civil Liberties Union as an enemy until they needed their help.

Also on the board were Dorothy Shields and Dorothy Teryl. They were volunteers in the criminal justice field. Shields volunteered in Assemblyman Arthur O. Eve’s office; Teryl was an independent volunteer working the local jails, advising inmates of their rights, and assisting them in court appearances and representation. I knew of no one else who had as thorough a knowledge of parole and probation. She was also on the state board of directors of the Civil Liberties Union. Among their many interests in criminal justice, they worked with the Attica brothers (inmates involved in the Attica uprising in 1971) as volunteers following the Attica rebellion in 1971. They were surprised to meet a police officer volunteering his time to help the Attica brothers.

Do you really want that job? asked Teryl, sounding rather doubtful of my sincerity when I approached her for information.

Yes, I think I do. Although it wasn’t a definitive answer, it was the most honest I could give at the moment. This would be my first time applying for a state patronage position in comparison to my previous pursuits for jobs that were primarily to support my family. This pursuit was different, much different, and I didn’t know of any Black mentors, at least none that I could trust to give me information. My circle of acquaintances consisted of jobholders, with most having backgrounds working at steel plants, factories, and the police department but not as political patronage holders.

Teryl informed me that she was on the CIPCJ executive board, something I was aware of because her name appeared in the book as an executive board member, along with other influential people, such as Ramsey Clark, Herman Schwartz, Haywood Burns, and other prominent names of the season. Then there were powerful committee members, associated with CIPCJ, which included Roger Wilkins, Bayard Rustin, Kenneth Clark, Herman Badillo, Charles Goodell, Arthur Liman, and numerous others. But the name that captured my attention was Coretta Scott King, listed as one of its vice chairpersons. Teryl’s position on the executive board and the fact that I knew her were the major reasons I approached her first.

Well, I think you will make a good commissioner, and I will get in touch with Diana Gordon, the CIPCJ executive director, and let her know of your interest and that Dorothy and I support you.

We thought it best not to inform Eve of my interest in the parole board. I had no disagreement there since Eve had proven his deceitfulness with encouraging me to run for a city council seat in 1973 that I had no chance of winning and wasting my money gratuitously (Volume 1). Shields knew Eve best and had previously warned me that I didn’t really know him, which I didn’t. Eve she said, thinks he is the second coming of Christ for Black people.

But my primary reason for not involving any of the political officials focused on getting the appointment based on my qualifications and merit, not on being a toady of a politician. Anyway, I loved competition; I never wanted anything given to me or taken from me that was mine.

I gratefully accepted Teryl and Shields as mentors; this was a first for me, having mentors. We met whenever possible, often over coffee in Mattie’s Texas Red Hots or Your Host restaurant, to review parole policy and the laws governing parole procedure. They advised me to work through CIPCJ. At Teryl’s request I forwarded a résumé to Gordon. Putting together a résumé for a position was another first for me.

On October 21, 1975, I received a letter from Diana Gordon. Impressed with my résumé, she arranged for me to meet with two members of her staff, Kathryn Haapala and Don, whose last name I don’t recall. Teryl and I met with them in Niagara Falls at the Skyline Restaurant for lunch. They were Caucasian with liberal political leanings. Over lunch, we engaged in a conversation that was more about my ideology regarding prisoners and poor people than about the parole process. Later, I understood. One can be trained to follow procedures, but having a commitment of justice and equality for the unfortunate isn’t something the government requires in its qualifications for the job. This is something that is in the soul of a person; either you have it or you don’t. The lunch ended on a positive note; they said they liked what they had heard and would recommend me to Gordon.

On December 5, 1975, I received a letter from Haapala notifying me that Parole Board Commissioner Milton Lewis had resigned; a position was now open on the twelve-member board. Gordon was sending my résumé to Joe Olgiati, the parole board chairman, and advised me to get letters of support and have them sent to Gov. Hugh Carey. She suggested a few individuals whom I should solicit for support, such as the Democratic Party leader and Congressman Charlie Rangel of New York City, who had defeated Congressman Adam Clayton Powell in 1970 for the congressional seat that encompassed Harlem.

Shields said to forget Rangel, and she would get a letter of support from Assemblyman Eve. She and Teryl felt it safe to contact Eve at this time. Although I didn’t fully trust Eve, I accepted their advice. In political parlay, Eve owed me big time for serious favors that I never collected. I saw no reason why he wouldn’t send a letter supporting me. It wasn’t a request to secure the job for me. I hadn’t contacted Eve about the position; this I left to Shields. Later, I found out his reluctance in repaying IOUs to Blacks. He was known, at times, to have a kind of condescending attitude when dealing with Blacks, getting into the Jesus bag instead of being their political servant. But this, I felt, was partly the fault of Blacks, for not understanding that elected officials were their representatives, not their leaders nor their Black slave masters, that is, unless they allowed them to be.

Shields never mentioned Eve’s name to me again, and I received no indication that he ever sent a letter. Chances are he didn’t, and Shield’s participation in assisting me became discreet. Much later, I heard that Eve felt disrespected that I hadn’t contacted him first.

When I asked Councilman George K. Arthur, the most popular Black councilman in Buffalo, for a letter of support, he was less than optimistic about my chances.

"You will never get that job," he said, echoing the thoughts and sentiments of many Black politicos in Buffalo, that feeling of waiting until the white Democratic Party decided it was time for a Black to move into a position and then only a Black they select whether qualified or not. But I understood this: Blacks were not accustomed to such influential positions and certainly not for someone like me who lacked political party commitment.

George was a great guy, a likable guy, and I loved the brother, but he was not known to challenge the system. George was a political team player focused on Buffalo politics. He was, as were others, aware that I wasn’t a supportive member of the Democratic Party, nor did I pay any dues to the party, which created a lot of ill feelings among some Blacks. I was only a registered Democrat, the way I wanted it. On occasion, I did help certain elected officials and candidates, particularly George and Eve. And I voted for candidates regardless of their party affiliation.

But to me, never didn’t mean eternally. I belonged to that class of individuals where one man’s never is another man’s challenge. So George’s use of never inspired that spirit and soul within me, saying it must be something worth struggling and fighting for.

Just send the letter supporting me, George, and let me worry about the rest. That is all I want you to do. The letter was sent and acknowledged by Thomas H. Lynch, appointments officer of the governor. I sent George a thank-you note.

Later, I received notice that Commissioner Lewis’s position on the board went to someone else; I was assured of being considered for a future board position with no time given. So the wait began, and my soldiering intensified.

CHAPTER 2

The Message

It was a warm spring afternoon in 1976 when I walked into the Twelfth Precinct station house from my Genesee Street beat for lunch. The desk officer gave me a message.

Call Ennis Joe Olgiati, chairman of the New York State Parole Board, he said, while handing me a piece of paper with Olgiati’s name and telephone number.

After several months of anxiously waiting to hear from someone regarding the parole board, my heart was pounding like a sledgehammer as I hurried to the pay phone in the rear of the station, away from the eyes and ears of the other police officers. Although they probably knew that I was looking forward to an appointment to the parole board, they said nothing to me about it. Olgiati personally answered the phone on the first ring, indicating this may have been his private line.

How soon can you come to Albany for an interview?

Two days later, I drove to Albany, nervous, eager, and surprised at the quick response from the chairman. Although I was fairly optimistic about getting the job, this was the first time I definitely felt that it could become a reality; a commissioner on the parole board.

After driving the 290 miles to Albany,