| Clyburn's Pending Speech to Legislature Symbolic of Blacks' Progress
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
By Jessica Benton Cooney - CQ Politics
When House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn addresses a joint session of the legislature in his home state of South Carolina on April 10, he will do so with a sense of pride — and a sense of history.
The fact that Clyburn will become the first African-American congressman in more than a century to address the General Assembly is not because the legislators failed to invite any of Clyburn’s black predecessors: Between 1897 and Clyburn’s first election in 1992, there were none.
The Capitol building in which Clyburn will speak is the same one where statutes passed in the late 19th century — known as “Jim Crow” laws — essentially deprived the state’s large black population of the franchise and other civil rights.
Not until the enactment of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, when Clyburn already was 25 years old, were African-Americans able to vote freely in South Carolina. Not until that law, as amended, was interpreted in the early 1990s as effectively requiring the creation of more districts that would elect minorities to Congress did South Carolina create the black-majority district, the 6th, that enabled Clyburn to win his seat in the House.
His rapport with colleagues and skill as an inside political player were quickly evident. Elected as co-president of the House freshman Class of 1992, he later earned a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, served as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus and quietly but effectively moved up the House Democratic leadership ladder.
That put Clyburn in position to become majority whip after the Democrats won control of the House in the 2006 election. Clyburn now is the highest-ranking African-American elected official in the federal government and the second African-American to hold the third-ranking position in the House: Pennsylvania Rep. William H. Gray III (1979-91) was the only other.
His elevation to this lofty position was the occasion for the invitation he received to speak to the South Carolina General Assembly, which is controlled by Republicans. The concurrent resolution under which the invitation was issued was a sign of change itself: It was sponsored by two African-American lawmakers, state Sen. Robert Ford and state Rep. Bakari Sellers.
The resolution, approved Feb. 1, reads, “The members of the South Carolina General Assembly are pleased that one of South Carolina’s own has assumed this high position in the legislative branch of government.”
In his letter of acceptance to state Senate Clerk Jeff Gossett, Clyburn wrote, “There is so much we can accomplish in South Carolina by joining our efforts and striving to achieve a larger vision for the people of our state.”
Sellers said that Clyburn’s fight for justice would ring loudly in the General Assembly, stating, “He is an inspiration personally and to South Carolina.”
Sellers said the address will symbolize African-American progress in the state, while pointing out, he said, that the effort toward equality is not complete. “We have made it pretty far, but have a way to go,” he said. “We still have some fundamental inequalities to solve here in South Carolina.”
Ford, meanwhile, expressed a pragmatic approach to the legislature’s outreach to Clyburn. “We want to show we are willing to work with him on legislation,” Ford said. “We are reaching out and showing respect and trying to win some favors from the majority whip so he can help us out in Washington.”
Though the strong Democratic edge in the black-majority 6th District has enabled Clyburn to coast through his House races, his political climb was far from easy. In 1970, Clyburn made an unsuccessful bid for a state House seat. It was a close election: Clyburn has said he went to bed a 500-vote winner and awoke a 500-vote loser.
After his loss, the newly elected Democratic governor, John Carl West, asked Clyburn to take a post with his administration. He then became the first African-American adviser to a South Carolina governor since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.
Clyburn went on to serve four governors over 18 years as South Carolina’s Human Affairs Commissioner, but lost bids for South Carolina secretary of state in 1978 and 1986.
Nonetheless, his long service to the state’s black constituency and the state government gave him prominence that none of the other contenders could match in the crowded field for the 1992 Democratic primary in the newly created black-majority district. His victory made him a fixture in South Carolina politics and in Congress.
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