WASHINGTON — Walter E. Washington was in some ways the Jackie Robinson of big-city politics — not necessarily the best qualified to run the District of Columbia under the too-watchful eye of a Congress led by Southern gentlemen, but arguably the best-suited for the job.
I say this hoping to convey some sense of the historical importance of Washington, who died last week at age 88. And then I recognize that it conveys nothing at all to those too young to remember him and the way things were in those days. Young people are apt to prefer the take-no-stuff "manliness" of a Barry Bonds or a Marion Barry to the more accommodating demeanor of Robinson or Washington, and it takes too much patience to explain why the one wouldn’t have been possible without the other.
All I can say is that when President Lyndon B. Johnson surveyed the landscape in 1967, looking for the person to lead the transformation of the nation’s capital from congressional fiefdom to major American city, Walter was the obvious choice — at least after he was chosen.
And he almost didn’t take the job. In those days, the city was run by a three-member Board of Commissioners appointed by the president. It had been only a half-dozen years earlier that President John F. Kennedy had taken the bold step of naming the late John B. Duncan as the first black commissioner, though not a president of the board. LBJ’s idea was to name a black candidate as head of the board. But in deference to Southern sensibilities, the new appointee wouldn’t have oversight of the white-run police department. Washington said he wouldn’t take the job with that limitation.
"President Johnson didn’t like hearing that," Washington recalled in an interview with Bar Report. "He became incensed, and the conversation was terminated." Washington subsequently moved to New York to become the first black head of the New York City Housing Authority.
When Johnson decided to move to a single commissioner, a post he hoped would be called mayor, he came back to Walter Washington, this time without the restrictions, and Washington said yes.
There was in this mild-mannered man of his time, I am saying, a certain Robinson-like pride. He had the capacity to swallow a lot on behalf of the people whose interests he represented, but there were limits. And he knew how — and where — to set them.
Even before his days as mayor — back when he ran the District of Columbia’s public housing authority — he used to open protest meetings, organized by tenants unhappy over one thing or another, with a seemingly innocuous request. "Let me see the hands of those who want to move out of public housing," he’d say. Thus reminded of their vulnerability, the protesters would assume a more cooperative tone.
It was a tactic he’d use again as mayor — and not always with people beholden to him. During a big anti-Vietnam War rally, thousands of boisterous protesters proposed to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, something the White House had made clear it didn’t want. Someone in the Justice Department suggested using a barricade of buses to divert the march down Constitution. Washington’s quiet question to the assembled planners: "Are you prepared to tear-gas Mrs. (Martin Luther) King when she climbs over the front of one of the buses?"
The president rescinded the order.
During the 1968 riots that in many ways marked his tenure, Washington is credited with defying the order from the redoubtable J. Edgar Hoover to shoot some of the looters, as a way of restoring authority.
Ben Gilbert, Washington’s long-time friend and my old boss as city editor of The Washington Post, says the story is a little off. "Walter indeed was asked to shoot the rioters, but not by J. Edgar," Gilbert recalls. "The suggestion — demand — came from that esteemed senator from West Virginia, Bobby Byrd.
"Walter’s reply was succinct: "You may be able to make that happen, Senator, but I won’t be the mayor who ordered it.’ "
The point of these small recollections is as a reminder, particularly to young people, of something that’s easy to miss. Walter Washington sometimes had to endure more guff than he should have, but he showed that he didn’t have to lose his cool in order to keep his dignity. As a man, he was neither better nor worse than other, more militant examples I could point to. He just happened to be right for the time he served. And in his own quiet way, he hastened history.
William Raspberry can be reached via e-mail at willrasp@washpost.com.
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