Organizing on behalf of Howard Lee
Caldwell discusses his party, PRAD, and its expanding influence. Caldwell leveraged black votes to convince local political influences to back his candidate for mayor, Howard Lee.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Edwin Caldwell, March 2, 2001. Interview K-0202. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
It was an exciting time, here we are participating in politics and we are
not thinking small we are thinking globally, nationally. After the
election with Hawkins we decided to keep this thing going, that's how we
formed PRAD. I had mentioned that Howard Lee was the president. Howard
always had political ambitions, Howard said, "I think I want to
run for mayor." The group that we were involved in, let me back
up and say, by that time we had taken over all the precincts we had just
become that organized. We plotted and schemed and when it came time to
go in to have the precincts meeting we had that place packed with our
people. We took them over because we had more people there. Therefore,
we became a force. We had taken over all the precincts. We replaced all
the hostile judges and put our own people in there. There were some very
good whites that were still in some of the precincts, and when we took
them over. I know I was chairman of the Northside precinct for years, I
didn't really want to be chairman but they elected me chairman, this one
lady said she was the registrar and she said, "I would be glad
to continue to be registrar and I will work with you." So we
began to replace and registration began to be a little easier. Wasn't as
hostile. People didn't feel as uncomfortable about
going to register. We fine-tuned and began to work at turning out votes.
So when Howard decided he wanted to run-the Liberal Coalition
had already decided they were going to run their own candidate, who was
Gordon Cleveland. Gordon Cleveland had been in politics in Orange County
for a long time. He was on the County Commissioners but he was from
Chapel Hill. They had gone around and asked him if he would run, and he
reluctantly agreed that he would.
When we went into the meeting and they announced who their candidate was,
it was Gordon Cleveland. Gordon was a good man. We said, "you
already picked him but you didn't consult with us." I let them
know, "don't send nobody else back into the black community you
always pick these people and send them over for us to support. This time
we have our own candidate, Howard Lee." They said,
"nah, we think its to soon for Howard to run for mayor why
don't he run for Board of Aldermen." I said, "Howard
you want to run for Board of Aldermen?" He said, "no I
want to run for mayor." We had this strategy meeting, we were
outvoted in there we had about five people in there from PRAD. I guess
they must have had about twenty-five thirty in there from the other
organization. We just said, "Look, you are going to need us,
you need us. We may not have a lot but we can turn out people at
election." We said Howard was going to run, you don't run then
the business people get back in, because we control the elections, we
control a sizable number of votes. So we played the trump card. And they
said no- - I forgot a lot of the persons names, they no longer live
here, but they were shakers and movers. I just said, "come on
group you go your way and we'll go ours, but you are going to need these
black votes and we can guarantee all of them." Gordon Cleveland
said, "Well I really don't want to run
anyway. If Howard wants to run for mayor let him run." That's
how Howard got the chance to run.