Cochran Gets Standing Ovation From Black Caucus

He entered to a rousing standing ovation, drew the Congressional Black Caucus audience to its feet two more times, was besieged by fans afterward who thrust their prayer breakfast programs up toward the dais seeking his autograph, and moved through the Washington Convention Center in a brisk flying-wedge cordon of hangers-on and security guards.

No, it was not Colin L. Powell, the retired general, best-selling author and award-receiving guest of honor at Saturday night’s banquet, nor was it that other fellow who dropped by to deliver the main speech, President Clinton.

This was the star of the nation’s most famous daytime drama, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., defense lawyer for O.J. Simpson who--only hours after watching his client make a dramatic courtroom statement--caught the red-eye from the West Coast to arrive in town on time to participate in a black caucus panel discussion on race.

The title of the Black Caucus legislative conference event was “When Race Isn’t an Issue,” but Cochran, like the other panelists, said race is always an issue. In response to his antagonists in the Los Angeles prosecutor’s office and other critics who have accused him of using the “race card” in his defense of Simpson, Cochran asked of his predominantly black and appreciative audience: “In America, how could we initiate the race card?”

The televised proceedings that have made Cochran famous represented more than a murder trial of a celebrity defendant, he said, but part of the long struggle for civil rights in America. In one sentence that ended to cheers and whistles, Cochran linked slavery, the Dred Scott decision, Plessey vs. Ferguson, Brown vs. the Board of Education, the Rodney King trial, and “yes, even the Simpson case.”

Americans view the Simpson case through the lens of their life experience, Cochran said. He argued that although many whites have difficulty with a key allegation of the Simpson defense--that Simpson was the victim of a police conspiracy, involving former Detective Mark Fuhrman and others--the scenario was one that most blacks could accept.