Abstract
Michael White is from the Glenville area. While studying at The Ohio State University he was Student Union President. White was campaign manager for Louis Stokes’ Congressional Campaign, also serving on Cleveland City Council. White was mayor of Cleveland from 1990-2002. This 2017 interview was collected as part of a yearlong, community-wide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Carl Stokes' election as mayor of Cleveland.
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Interviewee
White, Michael R. (interviewee)
Interviewer
Perry, Dee (interviewer)
Project
Stokes: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future
Date
1-20-2017
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
58 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Michael R. White interview, 20 January 2017" (2017). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 501026.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/1196
Transcript
Dee Perry [00:00:04] We are here with Michael R. White for the Stokes commemoration project on January 20th, 19th. I was going to say 1917, 2017. And Michael, M, I, C, H, A, E, L. And White, W, H, I, T, E. Michael, do you use R as your middle initial?
Michael R. White [00:00:26] Yes.
Dee Perry [00:00:28] Okay, so R period.
Michael R. White [00:00:32] Okay, R period.
Dee Perry [00:00:35] So I want to start by having you describe the first time you saw Carl Stokes.
Michael R. White [00:00:42] Well, Dee, I remember it like it was yesterday. This may be a little jarring for the people who will listen to this, but I was 13 years old. I had come in sometime between getting out of school and right before supper. And I'm walking past the living room and our 19 inch black and white television with the yellow wood around it was on. And I remember seeing this African American man being interviewed by someone and. And I stopped for some reason. I had actually gone past the room, backed up, he's being interviewed. And lo and behold, it was Carl Stokes who was running for mayor. And for some unexplained reason, I just actually started following the campaign. And at that time, I was probably following it as close as a person could in that year, at that age, which was mainly tv. So I'd come home every night, look at the local news. You know, in those days it was 3, 5 and 8. And I'd look at the local news, I'd hear every word he said. I'd watch him sometimes when he would be, you know, in a community activity or something. And one time I actually was on the outskirts of an event that he was holding. But not just the notion of this African American man running for mayor, but caught my eye. I think I began to realize even deeper than that what it was really all about. It was about having the ability through that office to really make significant improvements in your community. And that was my connection. And by the end of my 13th birthday, I knew that I wanted to be mayor of Cleveland.
Dee Perry [00:02:35] And so that was the 1965 campaign. I'm wondering if besides the campaign interviews that you saw on tv, if you saw anything in your neighborhood, in your life, in your family that paid attention to Carl Stokes running for mayor?
Michael R. White [00:02:54] Well, at that point in time, you know, the mid-60s, early-60s, mid-60s, I think life for any knowing African American who was concerned about where America was going, was concerned about their place in America, it was just a social jambalaya. Dr. King, Dr. Abernathy, Malcolm X, a whole range of other individuals were on the march, other mayors, African American mayors were beginning to sprout up. So it was, for lack of a better term, A target rich environment for a young person who was being captivated by the notion of using the political process for change, but really didn't have a grasp yet on how. Knew the what, but was still working on the how. Knew the why, but was still working on the how. So it was an exciting moment.
Dee Perry [00:03:57] Did that change? Did the "how" become more apparent by 1967 when Stokes ran and ultimately won? I mean, did you see neighborhood organizing, rallies? Were you involved in any way?
Michael R. White [00:04:17] Well, I wasn't involved a lot. Believe it or not, if they had had a category when I graduated from Glenville High that said least likely to be mayor of anything on any planet, they would have put me up because I was beyond being a social wallflower. I didn't. First of all, I got my first job at 13. By 14, I was working two jobs. I had also developed a split personality because on the one hand I wanted to be mayor of Cleveland. On the other hand, I actually, the first job I ever received was from an African American PhD male in agriculture, Dr. Johnson. So I worked for him for four or five years. And so I developed this career schizophrenia. On the one hand, I wanted to be a mayor of Cleveland. On the other hand, I wanted to own a farm, which is why most people don't know this. And I didn't tell anybody until probably after I came out of office. But I was actually an ag major at Ohio State. And so I was going down these two trails. And I look back now, I didn't know it at the time, but I was unwilling to give up either dream. I didn't know how I could make it work. I just knew I wanted to make it work. I wanted to pursue this course, this thing in my life that made me want to help everybody create a better community. And I wanted to indulge myself on a personal level with the magnificence of living on the earth, living on a farm, making that farm work with all the attended animals and problems and so forth, which have been well chronicled. And so I pursued them both. And I actually, believe it or not, did not take one political science course at Ohio State. The first political science course I ever walked in, I was the featured speaker. And I actually look back now and I didn't plan it this way, but I think it really helped me because I think the, I think political science courses are the art of politics. But I think when you really, at least in terms of my being, it was the art of service, it was the art of selflessness. Because the people that I admired, that I looked up to were all selfless, giving leaders whose pursuit was bigger than themselves. And so my mentality, my philosophy, my being was molded by that kind of thing, as opposed to a political science professor who probably had never run a campaign, never been in a campaign, the whole ball of wax. And so I think I came out of it more. I came out of that experience more as a servant leader than looking at myself as a political leader. And I think that's in line. In fact, I know it's in line with the people that I admired. I mean, not just the household names that, you know, your production is going to chronicle, but people like John Thompson, Ike Thompson, Cesar Moss. I mean, these are men who probably didn't have much more than a high school diploma, but they found themselves caught up in these 60s serving people. And they were these servant leaders. And so that's kind of what I wanted to be. Didn't know how to get there yet, but that's the way I was trying to head. So I watched and listened insatiably. It was like you didn't have Kendall. You didn't have, you know, videos or one of those Talk Ted things they have now. You had to just watch. And so I would watch and I would absorb it and it would all kind of go into a collection for future use.
Dee Perry [00:08:08] Before you went off to Ohio State University, did you watch what Carl Stokes was doing in the city? Were you paying attention to what his programs and policies were?
Michael R. White [00:08:21] Not much more than what a teenager would do. But for me, I wasn't focused on what I would call the micro level, because when you get down to, you know, is it going to be public housing in Lee Harvard, or how are the benefits of infrastructure improvement going to be shared in the broader community? I mean, those are all fairly large policy questions, which quite frankly, adults don't. A lot of adults don't understand. So, you know, here I am, a 16, 17 year old introverted kid who's schizophrenic between a farm and the mayor's office. You know, so I didn't get it. But the thing I will tell you is there are two things that I remember most. First of all, and I carry this with me throughout my political career. First of all, the overwhelming creation of hope that this election was more than an election, that it was a movement, and that tomorrow was going to be better. Didn't know how, didn't know when, didn't know what the issue was, but tomorrow was going to be better. And then secondly, how it sparked individual responsibility and engagement, street Clubs, you know, springing up, the 21st District caucus coming into fruition, using it as a vehicle to basically challenge entrenched political interests that just weren't all that great for inner city people. And so those are the two things that I came out with. Inspiring a feeling of hope and spurring people to want to improve their lives. Not sitting at home saying, well, you know, the Stokes brothers, they're, you know, losing weight. Washington, Carl's at City Hall. They're going to make everything all right. I'm going to go back and watch I Love Lucy. And so I think. And I think that's different, quite frankly, than what we have today. And that's not. I don't think that's a good thing, because at the end of the day, and I think President Obama said this in his last speech, you know, we all have to be responsible for the democracy. You know, we all have to be responsible for the community. We all have to be responsible for. For the city. And I think it was an easier thing to understand than it is to embrace today. And that's unfortunate.
Dee Perry [00:10:45] At Ohio State University, there came a point early on when you stepped out of that wallflower role and became an activist. Talk about first what the culture shock was for you, from Glenville neighborhood to the campus of OSU.
Michael R. White [00:11:09] Well, here you have this kid, this African American kid. Neither of his parents went to college. Neither of them had the foggiest idea what it really meant in terms of the experience, knew that their son was going to be better off. There was no one in my circle of communication that I could talk to about, you know, hopes, fears, what does the landscape look like? So the best way to put it, it was basically like flying over the horseshoe and being parachuted into Ohio State with nothing other than what's on your back. Now, the good news was I had a friend that I went to Glenville with. We both went through Ohio State together, so I had a little bit more. But most just had, you know, their grit and determination to fall back on. And I think what compounded it was I came out of a 99% African American community. The only white people I ever saw were policemen and teachers. And, you know, neither one of them I really wanted to spend a lot of time with. So the first few months were. And at the same time, these white kids were being, you know, bumped, parachuted into the same environment. For them, it was a little different because out of 50,000 students, there were only 250 Black students in the whole school. So. But when you wake up One morning and there's a Black kid, you know, sleeping on a bunk below you. Then your world becomes very small. So in some respects I can look back on it now and have a different perspective. You know, they were almost as wide eyed about the whole experience as I was as I look back. So that's the macro. And then on top of that for me you have this kid from Glenville sitting in the AG101 course where the students were more conversant with cows and pigs and chickens than they were with Black people. And actually, to be quite frank with you, as an aside, it was an agriculture professor who saved my college career. I was going to every class studying, you know, burning midnight oil, but I wasn't doing well on the tests. And so he asked me to stay aside one day. He said, Mr. White, you're here. It was a 7:30 AG101 course. I mean, farmers get up early, they still do. And he says, you come to every course, every session, every class. He said, you take copious notes. I had this ream and ream of notes and you don't do well on the test. I basically was flunking the tests. He says that means you don't have good study habits. He says, here are your choices. You can drop out of my class, but it won't help because you'll probably flunk out of Ohio State. He said, or I can help you develop better study habits. Which is what he did. Professor Marshall and I, I basically credit him with giving me the extra skills I needed in order to get through. But anyway, I'm in this environment that is so new. I came face to face with a overt act of racism that was not directed at me but was directed at two women. And I happened to be in a meeting in a room where how to address it was being discussed. And I'm sitting on the back row d just kind of where I always sit in the corner. And I just, I just kind of exploded and I said, no, this stuff is not going to work. What you want to do? I said, we have to get the clear evidence, we have to have witnesses and we have to take that information. We have to present it in front of the authorities with enough of a commitment so they know that if they don't act on this evidence, black and white, clear evidence that they're going to be. And I won't bore you with all the details, but we won. We basically stopped the bus transportation service at Ohio State on a Sunday night. We basically kidnapped the driver of the bus. I probably shouldn't be saying this on TV, but we brought the head of the service to our meeting at 10 o'clock at night on a Sunday, and they had to go pick him up. The police had to go pick him up. We not only presented all the evidence, but there were two white girls who agreed to be our guinea pigs and witnesses. Basically, what the driver was doing for the white girls, he wasn't doing for the Black girls. And true to form, you know, bigots are pretty predictable. True to form, he did it against the Black girls, he did it for the white girls, and the white girls testified. So you had this preponderance of information, all of it confirming what we did. And at the end of the day, we won. Three days later, this driver was fired. But for me, the organization on an effort and a successful outcome and the use of righteous power was. It was kind of like kindling the eternal flame for me. And it was a moment where I turned a corner and I never, ever thought about going back. Because to go back to your earlier question, it was the first time in my life that I connected the what with the how. And once I was able to connect those two things, by the way, I didn't know at the time this was going on. I mean, I'm in real time now, I'm looking back, so I sound smarter. But at that time, that's what happened. I knew the what, I didn't know the how, it. And once I got those two together, the how at Ohio State became a stepping stone to the what. And frankly, a lot of what I learned, a lot of what I did, a lot of tribulations up to and including being suspended from Ohio State and later on, in terms of the things that I applied in my own political career, I learned at Ohio State and also working for Mayor Moody.
Dee Perry [00:17:14] And before we get to Mayor Moody, I want to talk for a moment about one of the things you learned that put you into your first elected office as student body president at OSU, the first African American student body president, and you practiced something you called coalition politics. Politics, Right. Explain what that was in the way that you did it then and how it's been kind of a hallmark of what you've done later.
Michael R. White [00:17:48] Well, first of all, I want to say that it wasn't my origination. I didn't invent it. I think when you go back and look at the films of the civil rights movement, when you look at how slavery was finally upended, frankly, when you look at almost every great moment in the struggle for Civil rights and equal justice in this country for African Americans. But quite frankly, this applies to all protected classes, you know, transgender, gays, the handicapped, that while there is this group of people that are, for lack of a better term, set upon with this vast amount of unfairness, there always seems to be this other group of people who aren't gay, aren't transgender, aren't black, aren't handicapped, that for whatever reason, they feel a kinship with and they want to help. You know, in the civil rights movement, it was getting, you know, bit stoned and beat, just like black people were getting, and some being killed, and the list goes on and on. And so watching, you know, going back to, you know, the yellow wood, black and white television, by the way, was 19 inches compared to the 90-inch ones they're buying today. That was ingrained in me. And so while we were really talking about a series of concerns that apply to African American students at Ohio State, we wanted to make the tent large enough so that others could be a part of it. My first large engagement was as one of the lieutenants for the strike against Ohio State that closed Ohio State for more than a week. And that wasn't just black students. It started because of a core of African American students who couldn't understand why the largest state school had only 250 black students, almost no professors. I could give you the list. But then there were other groups of individuals who had equally significant, equally important questions that needed to be addressed. And somehow we all came together. We came together, we worked together, we developed joint action plans. And so in my early kind of social maturation, for me, that was the only way to go. Because I felt that if we sequester ourselves or pigeonhole ourselves, our concerns, our movement, then we aren't going to get very far. And at the end of the day, even if we win, what do we have? Because at the end of the day, we've all got to live in this society together. We've all got to find ways to be more open, more understanding, more willing to say that the world is bigger than what's at the end of my nose. And you only do that by working together. And you only do that, I think, by, I think when you are in the cauldron of change, that heated moment, and you are working with someone who doesn't look like you didn't grow up around anybody that looks like you, and vice versa. And if you can bridge that through your personal engagement, then that helps make the world a far better place. And so learning that at Ohio State, I basically always looked to that as I was going forward.
Dee Perry [00:21:23] And when you graduated from Ohio State with a Master's in Business-
Michael R. White [00:21:31] Public Administration,
Dee Perry [00:21:31] Public Administration? You went to work for Columbus Mayor Tom Moody, who was a Republican.
Michael R. White [00:21:37] Yes.
Dee Perry [00:21:38] What did you learn and what did you do for him?
Michael R. White [00:21:43] Well, I learned a lot of things. First of all, I learned how to say yes, even if you didn't understand why. See, when I was a student body at Ohio State University, let's just say the president of student body didn't get along too well with the mayor of the city of Cleveland or the police force, because in those days, students were the new Black people. I mean, they were not treated well. They had their rights abridged from time to time. Not saying that they were all perfect little angels, but there were enough cases where police had overstepped their bounds. And from time to time, you know, my job was to represent students. And from time to time, that representation became fairly vitriolic, fairly loud, fairly. Taped on the news. And sometimes there were words used by me that my mother would not be very happy with. So I have my one year term, I graduate, I go to grad school, I'm sitting in a social action think tank working, and I get this call from the chief of staff to the mayor of Columbus, who I only knew, you know, just when we encountered each other. And frankly, most of those encounters weren't very good. He says, the mayor would like to see you. To make a long story short, the mayor had seen my work that I was working on. He asked me to come to work for him, to take my writings and operationalize them into a program that he wanted to undertake in Columbus. And you've got to understand that this man's reelection slogan was quietly effective. You know, I came out of Glenville. Anybody who runs in Cleveland for any office and their motto is quietly effective, they may as well not contribute because that person's not going to win. It's just a very different environment. But to make a long story short, I was shocked that he asked me to come see him. I actually asked him because I actually spent a couple nights in his jail. I actually asked him did he know who I was, because he wore these very thick glasses. I mean, I didn't tell him to his face, but if he looked up at the sun, he could burn his eyeballs out. They were just that thick. And so he says, of course I know who you are. And so I said to him, can I have some time to think about it? And he was a very not shy man. But, you know, we would have been the odd couple if he could have had a TV show. And he says, as long as you let me know tomorrow. I went outside. I was 22, I think. And I said, if this man has the guts to hire me, I'm not only going to have the guts to say yes, but I'm going to have the guts to make sure that in my little world, that is a part of his world, he is always going to be prepared. He is always going to have the answers. He is never going to be embarrassed. And I learned a tremendous amount very quickly about public service. He was a servant leader. He was not what I would call a typical politician. He really worked a lot behind the scenes in terms of trying to move things along. He was not a demonstrative, fist on the table kind of guy, unlike his predecessor. And so he taught me a fundamentally different way to lead than what you would ever find in Cleveland. And I actually learned it all, brought it all back, and kind of tried to integrate it into everything else I was learning. In fact, I will just tell you, it's a very quick, exciting. I tried to leave him once, and he asked me to stay. I stayed a little longer, and I went back to him six months later. He said, I've got to go. I got this great job offer to run this campaign for Congressman Stokes, and I've just got to go do this. He takes me over to the window. He says. He says, I don't understand why you're leaving. He says, there's rampant unemployment in Cleveland. Crime is sky high. It's dirty. And he takes his hand and he waves it across the glass because he could see a panorama of Columbus. He says, you would leave all this? He says, I thought you would end up being a part of our party. And I said, you know, Mr. Mayor, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. It was almost like he's trying to pass down the family jewels to his son. I said, but Cleveland's my home. And I said, I don't know if I'm going to be successful, but if I want to, I want to make change. I want to make my community better. I don't want people to say what you just said about my home. I said, that's why I've got to go home and I've got to try this. I can't tell you whether I'm going to succeed, but I'm really going to try the other thing. And I would just say this very quickly because I think it's Very important to Cleveland's political DNA. Mayor Moody taught me a lot of things, but one of the things he taught me was to never be afraid of young people. And he took a chance on a afro wearing 22 year old that had cursed him out on 15th and high because he got beyond that because he thought this kid might really know something about urban homesteading. And what I've always tried to do based on that experience is to never, ever be afraid of young people. And that is extremely important to, to our community. You know, we live in a community, unfortunately, too many times where we say, stay in school, Michael, get your diploma, Michael, go to college, Michael, get your degree, get two degrees if you want, get three degrees, come home. And then we say, shut up, Michael, just sit there. We'll tell you when your time comes. We'll never, ever get to where we want to be by stifling the young. And I happened to fall into a position because of the Stokes brothers that allowed this, that allowed me to be in an extraordinarily different place. Partly because of them and partly because I prepared myself to be there. I wasn't walking into the room unprepared. I mean, I had graduated with- I knew about running government. I worked for mayor in his office. I had been involved in community engagement. I mean, community engagement that got me arrested and thrown out of Ohio State, which, by the way, for your viewers, I got back in with no prejudice. But learning that last trait about not being afraid of young people was very important to me because that fear jeopardized. That was 19. So 15 years later I was going to run for mayor and that very fear, that phobic, that "youth-o-phobic" thing we have both in Cleveland or had in Cleveland and we have in our own community almost defeated me when I ran for mayor.
Dee Perry [00:28:40] And I want to, before we get to the mayoral years, I want to talk about, about that first campaign for Louis Stokes. Had you had any relationship with George Forbes before you got the call from him or with Louis Stokes before you said, yes, I will do this?
Michael R. White [00:29:03] I actually don't think I even knew George Forbes. He wasn't on my screen at the time. And I was just sitting in my office in Columbus and I get this call and, you know, there's somebody on the other end. He says, hi, I'm George Forbes. We hear you know how to run campaigns. We want you to come home and run the congressional campaign for Lou Stokes. I actually think I said yes, just like that. I didn't ask how much money. I didn't ask how long. I didn't ask what comes at the end of the campaign. It was like somebody said, this is a one way ticket around the world, do you want it? And I snatched it and ran up the gangplank and I didn't know how to run. You know, I knew a little bit about running campaigns, so I came home. But the reality of it was not only did they want my skill, but I was a young guy and at that point the congressman was running against a young person. They had to have somebody young in the campaign. But I ended up running the campaign. I learned a lot. I met a lot of people that I still admire today. And so for me, my personality is, I'm all about the mechanics. I'm not about the end game, I'm about what happens at the end, but I'm about how you get there. So for me, learning how to run campaigns, what are all the pieces? You know, people are so focused so many times on the candidate. You can have a great candidate and you can have a lousy set of mechanics and you're going to lose. You know, you had President Obama up until the last few days of his second race, six to seven points down. But what he didn't, what they didn't, what his opponent didn't know is that he had an excellent set of mechanics which they now call analytics. And he knew that that would ultimately propel him at the last second across the finish line, which is exactly what happened. So learning the nuts and bolts of it, I don't know if it was because my father worked in a copper and brass factory or what, but was very important to me. And so that's what I did. And when it was over, you know, the congressman went back. I don't think he really needed me that bad, but I like to think I brought some different thinking. I was asked to go to Washington to be one of his aides and I had no interest in going to Washington. I've never ever, ever been interested in going to Washington D.C. because I was singularly focused on being mayor of Cleveland. Even after that, in terms of my own planning process, I never saw myself in Washington. So I said, I don't want to go to Washington. And I was offered the job to work for George, which I took. And I worked for him for about, I think, 18 months, two years, something like that. I came in one day, said I was going to run for councilman against one of his people. And he looked at me in a, you know, one of those moments, he looked at Me, kind of like a father, I think, looks at his son. He looked right in my eyes, and then he said, well, you got to get the hell out of here right now. And so I walked over, got my bag, and left City Hall. At that moment, In April of 1976 and January 2nd of 1977, I took my seat next to my mother as councilman of Ward 8.
Dee Perry [00:32:16] I want to back up just for a second to get a sense of. Of what you meant by the mechanics of the Stokes campaign. What were some of the specific things you did?
Michael R. White [00:32:34] I would say to you that the mechanics of the Stokes campaign in many, many ways were the mechanics of so many campaigns that would be running, that would be running across the African American community at that time. First of all, and I'm actually plagiarizing here from someone I know these weren't moments, but it was a movement, okay? This wasn't just Ike Thompson running for state representative or Cesar Moss running for city council, or Bob McCall running for City council, or Lou Stokes running for Congress. These were pieces of a bigger puzzle. And the puzzle was the description of a movement to obtain. No. To take political power and to wield political power on behalf of the people that they represented. And I want to underscore that this wasn't about, well, I've got a job now. I'm a congressman or I'm a state representative, or I'm a councilman. No, those jobs were not the end. Those jobs were a means to an end. And the end was how to rewrite the political process in a way that it's fair to everyone so that the Constitution and the charter are really lived up to. So this was bigger. This was not. Although there was a large part of it that was personality based. This wasn't Loustos goes to Washington. This was, we're going to Washington. This was, we're going to the state Capitol. This was we're going to City Hall. And I think in so many ways today, that's one of the fundamental differences that I don't think the electors feel as much a part of a movement, and they see it more as a moment and in those days. And it was because of the macro activity in the country, and it was because of the micro activity in places like Cleveland and Detroit and Flint, Chicago, where this was all going on at the same time. So winning was not the goal. It was the means. You're ill, I have to give you an operation. My knowledge is a means. The tools that I use are designed to make you better. And so the tool in this case became the attainment of political power for the express purposes of improving the lives of the dispossessed. So that's the cauldron that my politics came out of, and I am very. Humbled by it, especially in light of what we see more and more today. I think President Obama came out of that selfless leader as servant philosophy, and he's frankly been a person that I really, for me, really admired and looked up to. Because in my opinion, his philosophies, his approach, his demeanor, his grace under fire are completely indicative of what I was seeing in the '60s and '70s, you know, with the people in Cleveland, Stokes brothers and others that I admired. And so those. That's where I. That's where I got my training pants. And I don't. I can't tell you. I'd like to tell you that I made up my mind that I was going to be just like that. It was kind of one of those things that just kind of soaked in and that I couldn't be any other way. I mean, I still put sugar and ketchup on my macaroni and cheese because that's what I did when I was a kid. I didn't make up my mind to do it. It's just I always do it. So this is kind of the way I operated, and I hope one day we can get back to it.
Dee Perry [00:36:43] That said, once you were in Cleveland City Council, what did you see that needed that attention? What was the city of Cleveland like in those mid to late '70s?
Michael R. White [00:37:03] I think there were really two factions in Cleveland City Council at the time. You know, there were the people who just wanted to run government, and then there were the people who wanted to make government more responsive to people in need. Victims of police brutality, segregated housing, segregated education, substandard education. There was the whole east side, west side, failure to deliver services issue. And so the motivations were very, very different at the time. And also at that time, you had 33 councilmen. And these councilmen were basically ambassadors for whatever culture they came from. So, you know, you had the Hungarian councilman from Buckeye. You had the Italian councilmen from Little Italy. You know, you had the cadre of Black councilmen. You had the smathering of ethnic, usually Eastern European ethnic groups from the west side. You had a cadre of. Of the Irish. So it was more like the United nations than. It was probably very similar to New York and Chicago at the time. And so today it's somewhat different. So at that time, the motivations were very different. I look back now and I say, remarkably, everyone got along pretty well, especially on some of the hot button items like school desegregation. But I also saw one other thing. I saw, and I use the word men, because at that point in time, you didn't find a lot of women engaged, nowhere near what it is today. In what I would call the mechanics of politics, you saw African American men cheering committees because of an African American council president who were bending the arc. You know, President Obama has talked a lot in lately about bending the arc of history, the arc of time, but they were actually bending the arc. When you talk about Dr. King and Carl Stokes and Lou Stokes, Arnold Pinckney, George Forbes, all the other people, I mean, they spent their career bending that arc. And although I felt I spent some time doing it, I never put. I was never able to put it in that context. So I was living at a time as a young man watching my elders, who I deeply respected, bend that arc. And I was fortunate enough to have been trained in government. So when some of the tough stuff rolled around, they actually wanted me in the room. I mean, I was there as an observer mostly, never as a significant participant. But, you know, I represented the city council when it came time to talk on TV about the reasons for the default, I represented a number of political activities on behalf of them, because in their own way, I can look back now, although no one ever took me in a room and said, okay, we got to get you prepared as part of that next generation. But I don't know whether they planned it or what, but I was being placed in situations that forced me to learn or fail. And I just was lucky enough to have succeeded in order to be better. But I soaked up so much from them. I mean, I'm in meetings with the Stokes brothers, George Arnold and W. Walker. You know, I'm younger than. You know, I'm not much older than their kids, but I'm sitting in that room, I'm watching them labor over these huge questions, over these political questions, over these dangerous questions, which if you take. It's kind of like being that family on the trapeze in the Ringling Brothers circus. One bad step and you're heading down. If you don't have a net, you're in deep trouble. So I absorbed all that, and I was fortunate enough to be in those rooms at a time, absorb it, and I tried to learn from it and apply it as I moved along.
Dee Perry [00:41:25] And as you moved along, you became part of the Ohio Senate. And following that came your final run for mayor.
Michael R. White [00:41:39] Yes.
Dee Perry [00:41:39] Starting from the dream of age 13.
Michael R. White [00:41:42] Right.
Dee Perry [00:41:44] I'm wondering, as you began that run, if you looked for or received any support from Lou Stokes or the men of his generation, or if you were out there on a different track?
Michael R. White [00:42:03] I'm actually smiling a little bit because with all honesty, to people who are listening, I knew the question was coming. And I've actually been pondering how I was going to. But let me just. If I can just take one little liberty here. One of the things that came out of that moment on January 25, 1989, for me, I'm standing on my porch with both my parents, and it's snowing outside. I'm announcing I'm running for mayor. I think there were five members of the media. None of them wanted to be there. But the bigger issue really wasn't me announcing I was running for mayor. It was that every child ought to be able to have their dream, chase their dream and catch their dream. And that journey up until that porch on January 25th, that was me. I had my dream. I was allowed to chase my dream, by the way, as an aside. And nobody telling me I would ever fail. Not a teacher, not a counselor, not a principal, not my parents, not the people around me. And then catching my dream, which I was going to do 11 months later. And just that journey instructed me. And so January 25th, I'm running. I'm not going to bore you with all the details, but everybody was supporting me. It was just a beautiful time. You know, all the young aspiring people who wanted to have a better Cleveland. All my elders were with me. A couple of their children were supporting me. And I'm kind of moving along here. I'm working seven days a week. I'm a big believer that if you work hard enough, you can always achieve your goals working along. And then August 25th of 1989, I get a phone call. I'm sitting in Columbus. Phone call, said, George Forbes is going to announce tonight that he's running for mayor. And so who had committed to me? And so I told the person who called me, I said, you would think I just got in this business yesterday. So I drive back to Cleveland, probably broke every speed limit there was. I have this immediate meeting with a couple people. They all wanted to know what I was going to do. And I said, I don't understand. He said, well, what are you going to do? George Forbes is running. The Bears are at the gate. You probably won't run. That I know. But I said, I'm running for mayor. I'm doing the same thing tomorrow that I was doing yesterday. Nothing's changed for me. Now we may have to change tactics a little bit. I'm not going to be blind to the fact of who George is, but I'm running for mayor within 24 hours. Dee, every single elder I had backed out of my campaign less than 24 hours. And, you know, I didn't have time to be angry about it, but. It was an instructive moment. And so the campaign gets going. It's a really, really tough campaign. It was a grueling campaign, and I won. And one of the things that I wanted very much, by the way, which I didn't achieve, is I didn't want there to be another Mike White. I wanted us to find better ways to bring our young along. I wanted us to stop eating our young. You know, they would have eaten me that year if I had lost because they were so afraid of the future. And I never blamed them. I've never, you know, gotten angry about it. But I didn't want to be that because I understood where it came from. I mean, I understood kind of, you know, I've had a lot of time to think about it. I understood where that attitude came from. But we won't make it with that. We will not make it as a people if we eat our young. We've got to find our best and our brightest. We've got to give them every opportunity. We've got to got to stand in front of them and be leaders. But when it comes time to. There comes a time when we ought not be the leader, but we ought to be standing behind that individual. We ought to be their mentors. We ought to be their supporters. We ought to be the person they call at 3:30 in the morning and the person they tell things to, they can't tell anybody else, and they're safe. And we ought to promote that individual or individuals, men and women. That's how we're going to get stronger. That's how we're going to tackle these formidable forces that are amassing not only to rob them, but rob Black people of their inalienable rights. But quite frankly, anybody that doesn't look like them. And if you're not a white male, if you're handicapped, if you're Hispanic, if you're a Transgender, if you're gay, if you're different in any way, we are moving, I think, into an era where that's going to become suspect. And, you know, When you have a. I'm not a huge sports person. But I know enough about life, enough about politics that when you have a major game and everything is on the line, you put your best team on the field. Doesn't matter whether you like them or not. It doesn't matter whether you had to set down a 14 year veteran, you put your best team on the field. And if there's one thing I think I was very fortunate to have had, for whatever reason, Carl Stokes, Lou Stokes, Arnold Pinkney, George Forbes allowed me to be inside the room to really see what went in, to try to improve the life of a people. And I never forgot that. And so I came out of that. I think they may have done it unknowingly, but I came out of that wanting to do the same thing, which is why at this point in my life I'm doing the things that I'm doing. But I don't think I would have achieved politically and personally what I've been able to achieve if I had not had that experience. I mean, they grounded me in that. Now it was a. It wasn't one of those arms around the shoulder, come on, we're going to walk down this road to political Valhalla together. It was basically you go do it or you win this campaign or it was Arnold calling me at 3:30 in the morning asking me to run Jesse Jackson's campaign for the state. It wasn't kind of one of those soft things. It was like get your gun and shoot and I'll tell you how good you are after seeing how many people fail when you shoot. But I came out of, that's the experience I came out of. I think I could be considered from a different era more and more, but I believe it's the only era. I believe that we ought to be selfless leaders, that the things we do ought to be bigger than us, that it's not about us, that we've got to be as open as we can to everybody. Just because you sit with the president of Cleveland Clinic doesn't mean you can't say hello to the janitor when you go back to your office. I believe that we have to risk. It's one of the other things they taught me, whether it was the Stokes brothers or Arnold or George or the people in the Civil Rights Movement. To be willing to risk everything you have for others is something that I learned and I have cherished. I remember, I won't bore you too far, but I remember when I told Arnold Pickney that I was going to accept the Cleveland public schools. The legislature was trying to make it under. Put it under mayoral control. Here's a man who was the president of the school board twice. Great father, loved kids. I had known him since I was 14. I'm now, you know, mid-40s, mid-40s. So I had known Arnold for going on 35 years. And he asked me not to do it because he was concerned about whether or not he would bury me politically. And I turned to him, and I said, part of everything I am is due to the Cleveland public schools. I had teachers who never told me that I couldn't be whatever I wanted. I had principals. I had guidance counselors, Even the jan. I mean, the custodian. I mean, when I went to school, custodians were like, second under the principal. You needed to be right with the custodian to get along. All these people, preachers, fathers, mothers, never told me I would fail. And I said to Arnold, I said, if I looked in the mirror and walked away from these children who are really being screwed over and in my opinion, still being screwed over, what does that make me? How can I look in the mirror again by at this moment that the very institution that helped compel me to where I am, the very children that I am of. I'm just like them. I just got lucky. I abandon them at the moment where I can help them, even if it means that I might lose. Well, I learned that from them because I saw them risk it all. I saw them go into meetings and challenge the powers to be for something that was bigger than themselves. And the only way, in my opinion, that we're going to improve our lot is to be willing to risk everything for things that are important to generations who have not yet been born. And I was blessed enough to grow up around men who taught me that.
Dee Perry [00:52:33] And there's so many other things I want to ask, but I want to leave. Probably one more question. Is there anything, Mr. White, that you wanted to address that we really haven't talked about?
Michael R. White [00:52:44] Actually snuck them all in while we were going.
Christine Hickey [00:52:48] Is there anything, Dee, that-
Dee Perry [00:52:50] Yeah, but I just have one more that's kind of tied together in my mind, what you look back as your favorite legacy to Cleveland. And if that's in any way tied to Carl and Louis Stokes and the legacies that they've left the city and the country, really?
Michael R. White [00:53:16] Well, if you recall, I talked about- You asked me about the things they may have done, and I talked to you about one of them, creating hope. I believe if you have hope, you can achieve anything. I mean, no matter how tall the mountain is. If you believe you can do it, then you have a real shot at doing it. On my second to last day in office, I was being interviewed by a young lady from a major news outlet. And you can tell what happens when you're leaving office, because this young lady might have been 24. So they never would have sent a 24 year old if I was going to be there for four more years. So I'm sitting there, she's sitting across the desk, she says, well, Mayor White, what do you think is going to be your greatest legacy as mayor of Cleveland? I said, I know exactly what it is. I said, I'm going to tell you in a minute, but you're never going to believe me and you're never going to understand it and you're not going to appreciate it and you're not going to report it correctly. I said, I think the greatest thing that I did as mayor was to bring people hope. I said, because if you bring people hope, they can take care of 85% of their life. Now, there's some things the government needs to help them with, but if they have hope that they can get their kid through school, that they can get them into a college, that they'll come home and get a job, you know, that their community's crime rate will go down if they believe that there are people there who are helping to get that done, that they can participate, that tomorrow is going to be a better day, a lot of the other things go away. And so I think, you know, beyond the housing, beyond the schools, beyond the Browns, beyond all the things that you people fixate on, the most important thing that I fixated on is whether I could help people in the community that I serve have greater hope for the future. I said, I think I've done that. And that's pretty important to me because hope transcends political terms. You know, just because in about, in a few hours, President Obama will never be, will not be the president, doesn't mean that the hope that he inspired evaporates like his POTUS phone number in the Oval Office. That's going to move on. That's going to inspire- I mean, if you look at it for just a moment, you know, the hope that the Stokes brothers brought inspired this kid at 9219 Kempton to want to be mayor. And it taught him about the importance of selfless service. And when he achieved a certain level of success politically, he was motivated to try to bring that same hope. And that's why I was saying to you earlier that not being afraid of our young is so important because you can't stop evolution. I don't care who you are. We're going to evolve now. We're either going to evolve with young people who have that same overriding commitment. The words may change. You know, you may have a Xerox machine and not one of those things we used to term when we were kids, rolling out political stuff. You may have Twitter as opposed to a phone call. The technology is going to change. But the core value of what I learned in those rooms with Carl and Lou and wo and George and all the rest of them, that core value stayed with me. And so the philosophy of my service to Cleveland, the foundation of it, was how to bring hope. And I was trying to explain that to her. And, you know, every now and then, I'll run into someone who's 25 years old. I met him in third grade. And they tell me what it meant for me to come to their class. I met a young man the other day. He's 33. I didn't know the man from Adam. He said, I grabbed him one day and told him to stop selling drugs. It was going to be bad for him. I don't know. This gentleman saw him on 79th and Superior. He says, you grabbed me. He says, why are you selling drugs? I asked him. He said, because I don't have anything else to do. He says, well, there's a lot of people who need the grass cut. Use my lawnmower. He now owns a landscaping service. He has three kids. They're all in school. My point to you is, when you're a leader, going back to the. When you're a leader, you never know who you're going to touch, and you're never going to know what the impact of that touch is. Carl and Lou touched me. I have had the great honor of trying to touch others. And I want so much for others who are now in those roles to think about who they are touching, because none of us get here by ourselves. You know, you show me a person who says, I got here all myself, I'll show you a big liar. We all have been touched. It's just a question of how you're touched and whether you learn from being touched.
Dee Perry [00:58:08] Thank you so much for touching us.
Michael R. White [00:58:11] My pleasure. My honor.
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