Everett man’s dreams realized in Obama nomination

EVERETT — Former City Councilman Carl Gipson isn’t surprised a black man is heading the Democratic Party ticket for president.

Even so, he didn’t expect to see something like Wednesday’s nomination of Sen. Barack Obama happen in his lifetime.

“Having grown up in the South I never did think the country would advance as much as it has. I never expected it to move this far,” said the 84-year-old Gipson.

Gipson, a Baptist deacon and grandson of a slave, grew up in Arkansas and moved into an all-white Everett neighborhood in the 1950s.

Through the civil and women’s rights movements of the 1960s he witnessed a slow erosion of racial inequality in the country and inequity in its politics.

In 1971, he cleared a hurdle of history when he became the first black man elected to the Everett City Council. He served six terms before stepping down in 1995.

“Race did not really seem like a barrier at all because I had worked awhile in the city. People knew me for who I was and what I had contributed to the community,” he said.

At that time Gipson, one of only a handful of blacks in elected positions statewide, didn’t view his victory as somehow blazing a trail for minorities.

“Looking back at it now, yes, I guess it was,” he said. Today two of his three sons hold elected office — Ron serves on the Everett City Council, and another, Carlton, serves on the Brier City Council.

“From the time I was elected up until now the country has been moving forward little by little by little,” he said. “I never expected it to move this far.”

Gipson actually didn’t want it to happen this year, he said, because he backed Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for president.

“I was always a Hillary fan simply because I was born and raised in Arkansas,” he said.

To have the choice come down to Clinton or Obama accentuated his belief that “the whole movement is going forward and the whole country is being better served.”

And Gipson’s hesitant attitude toward Obama dissipated once Sen. Joe Biden was named his running mate.

“They’ll be all right,” he said.

Reporter Jerry Cornfield: 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.