Los Angeles Times Interview: John Mack : Fighting for Affirmative Action, Urban League Takes Off the Gloves

The National Urban League Conference, which opens a week from today in Miami Beach, is expected to attract 20,000 participants who will spend millions of dollars. Southern California was expecting this economic boost next year, but the historically genteel civil-rights group announced two weeks ago it was pulling out of the Los Angeles Convention Center to protest Gov. Pete Wilson’s rollback of affirmative action.

California is the new civil rights battleground. Wilson and the other UC Regents are expected to vote Thursday on ending policies that have opened campuses for decades. A civil rights initiative, which would further erode affirmative-action policies in state government and on state campuses, is expected on the state ballot. Affirmative action, if not dying, is on the ropes. Yet, John Mack, president of the Urban League’s local affiliate, refuses to believe these assaults signal the end of fairness and equality.

Mack, 58, has been fighting for equal rights all his life. He grew up in segregated Darlington, S.C.; he organized an NAACP youth group on the campus of North Carolina A&T; State University--also the alma mater of Jesse Jackson. During graduate school at the historically black Atlanta University, Mack, along with Marian Wright Edelman, now head of the Children’s Defense Fund, and Julian Bond, later the first black member of the Georgia state Senate, were fellow warriors in the student civil rights struggle. Martin Luther King Jr., fresh from his victory in Montgomery, Ala., and new pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, advised their student group.

With the Urban League since 1964, the year the Civil Rights Act became law, Mack moved to Los Angeles in 1969. At that time, more than 95% of the group’s constituents were black. Today, nearly 40% are Latino. The league serves 100,000 people annually in 22 programs, including Head Start, the Michael Milken Youth Center and the Toyota Automotive Skills Center, a program created after the riots following the first Rodney G. King-beating trial.

After the unrest, Mack was asked to give President George Bush a tour of the destruction. A board member of Rebuild Los Angeles, he is also a member of LEARN, the education-reform group, the UCLA Chancellor’s Board of Visitors and the L.A. Convention and Visitors Bureau, which has lamented the loss of the Urban League’s national conference.

Mack lives with Harriett, his wife of 38 years, in Lafayette Park, a gracious area in the Crenshaw District. They are the parents of three adult children: Anthony, in training to own a Denny’s franchise; Deborah, who works in public relations, and Andria, who works with NetNoir, the new black on-line Internet service, and keeps her father informed about the next civil rights battleground--access to cyberspace.

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Question: The National Urban League pulled its 1996 conference out of Los Angeles. Why?

Answer: Removing the conference from Los Angeles was a direct response to Gov. Pete Wilson’s executive order, and the rollback on affirmative action. That is an assault on equal opportunity and fairness. It was a matter of principle that goes to the heart of the Urban League’s mission . . . .

This was a difficult decision. We estimate it will cost the city $10 million. That loss will send a powerful message to concerned and fair-minded civic leaders.

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Q: Won’t the removal of the conference hurt minority workers and vendors?

A: That’s short-term pain against long-term gain. The attack on affirmative action is a bigger hurt inflicted upon African Americans and Latinos and women. The assault on affirmative action at the UC system, the loss of job opportunities and contract opportunities is a bigger hurt.

If Nelson Mandela had bought into that philosophy, sanctions would have never been tried, apartheid would never have died, and Mandela would have never become president of South Africa.

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Q: Do you expect a majority of the UC regents to vote against affirmative action on Thursday?

A: I hope and pray for same last-minute sanity, a sense of decency and reality. I expect a close vote. Obviously, Gov. Wilson has a lot of influence on the UC Board of Regents. I’m encouraged by the position of [University of California President] Jack Peltason and the nine chancellors. Chuck Young, chancellor of UCLA, has been absolutely first-rate on this issue.

As a public institution, the University of California has a responsibility to prepare California’s leadership for the future in this, the most diversified state . . . . This decision will strongly impact the future direction of California. A “yes” vote would be irresponsible of the regents.

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Q: For decades, California provided a refuge from Jim Crow. How did the state get to this point?

A: Too many people in California, especially in the ranks of our leadership, have continued to buy into the old mores and folklores that if you are a different skin color, you speak a different language, or you are from a different culture, there is something inherently wrong and unequal with you . . . . Much of this is grounded in the white European model and mind-set.

Beyond that, we have gone through some serious economic setbacks. In many ways, this is where affirmative action is being made a scapegoat for some other ills . . . . White men, in particular, who were previously economically secure and felt they could chase the American dream, educate their kids and look forward to retirement, are threatened . . . .

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Q: You gave President Bush a tour after the civil disorders. What did he promise?

A: He promised a whole lot and delivered nothing. It was a nice tour. Former President Bush is an amiable individual, friendly and outgoing. At that time, he promised he would go back and seek to work with Congress to develop an enterprise zone to try to rebuild the economic infrastructure of South Los Angeles. He also made promises to go back with Congress and create more jobs as a result of incentives for businesses.

The reality is George Bush delivered on none of that--in part because he was running for his political life and he had the right wing of the Republican Party nipping on his heels. He got back and probably lost his nerve and lost sight of this major event. Los Angeles no longer became a priority on his agenda.

Congress has to take its share of the blame. They were going back and forth and arrived at a stalemate. As a result, hopes and expectations were built up and there was little or no delivery.

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Q: When you gave President Bush the tour, weren’t you viewed as giving comfort to the enemy?

A: Clearly, some African Americans and some highly partisan liberal Democrats accused me of treason. I’m partisan toward fairness and opportunity for the constituency of the Urban League. I’m not an elected Democratic politician . . . . The President of the United States, whether you voted for him or not, happens to be in the most important position in this country. It’s naive and dumb to refuse an opportunity to try to influence the President when the opportunity presents itself.

Some of my critics may believe the Urban League and I are not militant enough. But it’s not about calling people racist or cursing them out. I’m about getting things done . . . . Those who know me well acknowledge that behind closed doors, I’m a pretty tough negotiator . . . . I can go to sleep at night knowing that I have not sold my brothers and sisters down the river.

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Q: Did business leaders make good on the promises made after the riots?

A: Some did. The Toyota partnership with our automotive training center was made . . . . Arco committed many millions of dollars--$1 million made it possible for the Urban League to develop our entrepreneur business and development center in Inglewood that is helping to develop viable, community-owned businesses. In addition, Arco made a significant investment in Founders Bank, which stimulated some greatly needed capital.

In the supermarket arena, Boys and Food 4 Less, the one supermarket chain that always remained in this community when all the others--Ralph’s, Vons and Alpha Beta--abandoned it, were quick to rebuild and did not lay off one person in the process, even when it cost them money, even when the stores were closed. They are a major employer and deserve high marks.

Two weeks ago, Earvin Johnson, in partnership with Sony Pictures, opened the fabulous new Magic Johnson Theaters in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall.

These are outstanding examples of individual corporate commitment, but too many others are standing on the sidelines as cheerleaders. This is not a spectator sport.

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Q: Does discrimination still exist?

A: . . . Those who believe discrimination no longer exists are wrong . . . . Gov. Wilson and [UC Regent] Ward Connerly and other people of this world who are talking about this colorblind society should know that’s great thinking for Disneyland and Hollywood and the world of fantasy--but it’s not reality . . . . There may be an individual example of [affirmative action] abuse, but you don’t throw out the entire law or back away from the legal commitment. You make mid-course corrections.

Indeed, there is redress. Now, if a white man believes somebody has gotten a job or a contract that he should have gotten, he can go to the courts.

. . . Unfortunately, a lot of people have come to believe diversity is a dirty word. It’s almost synonymous with divisiveness. We need to reverse that, to create a city in which we do, indeed, respect each other to a greater degree.

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Q: What’s your beef with the mayor?

A: It’s not my mission in life to beat up on Dick Riordan. First and foremost, I want to commend Mayor Riordan for playing a key leadership role in one recent significant accomplishment: the Community Development Bank. Under his leadership and cooperation with members of the City Council, Los Angeles [received] $450 million from the federal government and the Clinton Administration. An additional $200 million was committed by four local banks.

Dick Riordan deserves high marks for pulling that off. That represents the first really significant, substantive leadership action by the mayor that is going to have the potential for a far-reaching impact south of the Santa Monica Freeway. . . . That’s some of the best news we’ve had in a long time from City Hall.

Let me cite a couple of examples of disappointments. Mayor Riordan has only been lukewarm in his support of Chief Willie Williams. While he has verbalized support, it has been grudging . . . . One doesn’t really sense there is a true spirit of commitment to work together with the chief to make sure that there is a total commitment to the full implementation of Christopher Commission recommendations and to make sure they work closely to implement the mayor’s important priority of adding several thousand additional police officers to the LAPD.

This is one area that most people agree on, no matter what section of town--whether it is the San Fernando Valley, the Westside, the Eastside, Crenshaw or South-Central Los Angeles. That should not be the only priority of the LAPD. In the African American community, once you get those new officers, you need to make sure you do not have a new generation of Stacey Koons and [Laurence] Powells [the officers convicted in the federal civil-rights trial stemming from the King beating] and that crowd being developed. We need to have a new LAPD.

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Q: Do you have other concerns about the mayor?

A: Mayor Riordan has been conspicuously silent on the affirmative-action issue. As mayor of all the city, his leadership is needed to persuade all Angelenos to remain legally and morally committed to inclusion and fairness.

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Q: Is affirmative action dead in California?

A: Absolutely not. It’s taken some serious body blows--the governor’s repeal of various affirmative-action executive orders, which did not remove the legal mandate. We are awaiting anxiously, and with great concern, the UC Board of Regents action. There is the anti-civil rights initiative.

We have a big job ahead of us. To the extent we can educate people and explode the myths about affirmative action, we can defeat this initiative . . . .

The opposition is painting this as a black issue . . . . White women have been greatly aided by affirmative action, Latinos, Asians . . . . many have benefited . . . and not just middle-class professionals. The union halls were opened up. The entry-level jobs were opened up. The City Hall jobs were opened up . . . .

How far would we have come if Martin Luther King had listened to all the naysayers who gave him all the reasons why he should not pursue his dream? . . . . There are lessons to learn from history. I refuse to resign myself, on behalf of my people, to defeat. We have to dream impossible dreams. Can that initiative be beaten? The answer is yes.