| Clyburn's rise comes as no surprise; Current and former colleagues - and his barber - say leader will do well
Thursday, November 16, 2006
By Roddie A. Burris - The State
Every two weeks or so, U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn gets a haircut at Toliver’s Mane Event in north Columbia, and regardless of what happens today in Washington, D.C., friends say that side of him is unlikely to change.
Clyburn, the state’s most prominent black politician, will tread rare water today as he is elected House majority whip.
And the people back home couldn’t be prouder.
“He always, in the past 32 years I’ve known him, has been in the position of finding a way to help people,” said Herb Toliver, Clyburn’s barber, “and never has he gotten the big-head, not once. But he did find that way to help.”
Toliver describes Clyburn as the “most lovable, humble, and smartest” person he has known.
With last week’s power-shifting election results, Clyburn, as whip, is poised to seize a top leadership position in Congress, the House’s third-highest spot.
With the Democrats’ sweep of Congress, Clyburn, who was relegated to back-seat status after the Republican Revolution of 1994, will be in a post that could bring status, prestige, and appropriations to South Carolina.
“It’s no mystery why his colleagues elevated him to such an important position,” said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-Seneca. “He is talented, smart, and easy to get along with.”
Though Clyburn and Graham have not always seen eye-to-eye on policy, Graham said Clyburn’s elevation to majority whip would be “enormous” in terms of clout for the state.
The only black to represent South Carolina in Congress since 1897, Clyburn has worked his way to chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, chairman of the Democratic Caucus, and now, whip.
“I’m not a bit surprised,” said Paul Beazley, United Way of the Midlands’ state campaign manager, who worked as a deputy commissioner under Clyburn for 18 years at the State Human Affairs Commission. “Jim is the consummate student of the political process. He loves it. He knows it. And he approaches it with a great deal of integrity.”
The road to power has not been easy. He first ran for the S.C. House in 1970 and was defeated. He then ran twice for secretary of state, losing both times, before Gov. John West appointed him commissioner of Human Affairs, an agency involved in advancing civil rights.
When the 6th District was changed in 1992, taking in the inner cities of Charleston and North Charleston, as well as Columbia, Florence, Orangeburg and many of the poorest counties in the state, Clyburn was elected to Congress.
“He is a good man,” said Bobby Gist, who also served with Clyburn at Human Affairs, and now works for USC. “I’m just so proud of what he has been able to accomplish, and glad that he chose to stay in South Carolina. He could have gone to a New York or California and already would have been a U.S. senator. Unfortunately, the climate in South Carolina didn’t lend itself to that.”
Friends say Clyburn has long drawn together Republicans and Democrats, blacks and whites, to make government work for people.“This puts him right in position to be the first Speaker of the House in history from South Carolina,” said former 3rd District U.S. Rep. Butler Derrick, who has known Clyburn for 40 years and practices law in Washington. It all goes back to a story Clyburn told Toliver in 1992, the year he beat out four other African Americans for Congress.
“He told me he was traveling in a car with his father one day on a country road, and they ran up on a limb across the road. Clyburn asked his father, ‘Why doesn’t somebody move that limb?’
“His father told him, ‘You’re somebody. Why don’t you move that limb?’” Toliver recalled. “And he has been moving limbs ever since.”
Reach Burris at (803) 771-8398.
TIMELINE
U.S. Rep. James E. Clyburn
1940: Born in Sumter
1957: Graduates from high school, Mather Academy in Camden
1960: One of seven who organizes the state’s first sit-ins at a five-and-dime store on Orangeburg square
1961: Marries Emily England
1962: Graduates from South Carolina State, Orangeburg
1962-1965: History teacher, C.A. Brown High School, Charleston
1965-66: Counselor, South Carolina Employment Security Commission
1966-68: Director, Neighborhood Youth Corps and New Careers, Charleston
1968-71 Executive director, South Carolina Commission for Farm Workers, Charleston
1970: Runs unsuccessfully for S.C. House
1971-74: Assistant to the governor for human resource development
1972-74: University of South Carolina School of Law
1974-1992: Commissioner, South Carolina Human Affairs Commission
1978: Runs unsuccessfully for S.C. secretary of state
1986: Runs unsuccessfully for S.C. secretary of state
1993: Begins serving in U.S. House of Representatives
1998: Elected chairman Congressional Black Caucus
2006: Elected chairman Democratic Caucus
Children: Mignon Clyburn, Jennifer Clyburn Reed, Angela Clyburn; son-in-law, Walter Reed
Grandchildren: Walter A. Clyburn Reed (AC), Sydney Alexis Reed
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