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Gov. Harris McCain accepts Georgia Powers Klan infiltrator
campaigns for top award plugs Cor tells story
Black Judge from ACLU into sa Vl ' c
J- 7- ' - «
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VOLUME 14 NUMBER 10
The double
of Detroit flMfl
Detroit’s court system will never
be the same follwoing the sue- WkJ
cessful in-roads made by the twin at- | '"fl
torneys Leona and Leonia Lloyd,
reports the July EBONY. fl ’
The beautiful and brainy twins
are the motor city’s only female at- 1 'fIBMH
torneys practicing entertainment
law within their own firm. A large \ t
number of their cases consist of
contract negotiations for recording fl
artists, disc jockeys, concert k
promoters and athletes. They also B .
handle civil cases including f f
medical malpractice suits and f F
divorces, averaging 40 clients per flfl *
month. 4
The Lloyds also share interests '
in other areas of their lives. fl
Previous to their law practice, they B
had careers in modeling and
teaching. They both have outgoing »'*-’-Wtf
personalities and parallel tastes in SMe!R "SL«4rf’-
clothes, companionship and food.
How do they
“We have ourown distinct per-
sonalities within our similarities.”
I
Ex- NA A CP board chairman
Margaret Wilson loses
suit for vacant board seat
NEW YORK - A New York State
Supreme Court judge dismissed a
lawsuit by Margaret Bush Wilson,
former chairman of the NAACP
National Board of Directors,
which contended that she was elec
ted a director of the Association
last January. She thus sought an
order to install her on the
NAACP’s National Board of
Directors.
Mrs. Wilson maintained that
one of eight candidates who was
elected to fill at-large seats on the
board, James Kemp of Chicago,
died during the six weeks that
NAACP branches throughout the
nation were voting. Since the
.NAACP’s constituion provides
| that only members in good stan
? ding are eligible to serve as direc-
( tors, she maintained that Kemp’s
| candidacy was voided and she
should have been awarded the
position he won. Kemp was eighth
Augusta Neuis-feuteui
in the elections and Mrs. Wilson
ninth. Only eight positions were
open in the category for which she
sought election to the board.
In his decision issued on May 31,
Judge Burton Sherman noted that
“Courts have been reluctapt to in
terfere with election irf private
association,” so “mere
irregularities will not justify setting
aside or dictating the result of
association elections.” Alleged
misconduct in elctions, he said,
“must be material and must affect
the voting rights of the member
ship.”
Beyond dispute in this challege,
he said, “is that the petitioner only
received sufficient votes to place
ninth.” So, to declare her elected
in this situation “would, in effec
t, not take into consideration the
intent of the voters.”
A member of the board since
1963, Mrs. Wilson was first elected
chairman in 1975. In each suc
ceeding annual election of officers
through 1983, the board elected
her to head that body.
Last March, however, she
suspended, then reinstated,
NAACP Executive Director Ben
jamin L. Hooks without con
sulting with the board. As a result
of her unilateral action, the Board
stripped her of her powers and she
was not made an official member
of the board’s slate that ran for the
eight available seats in the late fall
election. Mrs. Wilson, whose
three-year term as a member of the
board was up in December, never
theless sought reelection after she
obtained enough petitions.
While the suit was active, the
National Board held off from
filling the contested seat. Barring
any further challenges, it is now
free to do so.
July 7,1984
Governor Harris
campaigning for Black
Appeals Court judge
from The Atlanta Constitution
It’s like sliding a newly
christened ocean liner into the sea
without making any waves. But it’s
being done, quietly and carefully,
by a governor out to see that a
Black is elected to statewide office
for the first time.
State Court of Appeals Judge
Robert Benham is gently being
eased into predominantly white
water.
Guiding him is the machinery of
Gov. Joe Frank Harris, the leader
ship of the state Bar and virtually
every Black leader in Georgia.
Together they have fashioned an
influential, integrated campaign
designed to assure white voters
that it’s perfectly acceptable to cast
their ballots for a Black man.
“This is history in the making,”
said Harris aide Tommy Lewis. He
said it none too loudly. For
jrenham is being sold on his
credentials, and though the judge’s
“first Black” status is mentioned,
it is not advertised.
“We’re not hiding him,” said
Lewis, who is keeping tabs on the
campaign for the governor.
“We’re showing him off every
chance we get—as a judge who
happens to be Black.”
The breadth of Benham’s cam
paign was reflected in the two
public appearances he made
Saturday. First, the 37-year-old
graduate of the University of
Georgia Law School shared the
stage with Jacqueline Jackson, the
wife of Jesse Jackson, at an award
ceremony sponsored by the
Georgia Coalition of Black
Women. Later in the afternoon, he
attended a down-home Southern
barbecue, populated primarily by
white politicos, in Davisboro.
Harris appointed Benham to the
nine-man Court of Appeals in
April to fill the unexpired term of
Arnold Shulman, making him the
first Black to hold statewide office.
This is
history
in the making
—Tommy Lewis
The governor immediately threw
his weight behind the election of
his fellow resident of Cartersville,
one of four men vying for the slot
in the August 14 primary.
Throughout the state, Benham
has been putting in more personal
appearances than most statewide
judical candidates have in the past.
In a campaign that limits
discussion of specifics of issues as
a violation of judicial ethics, he
has espoused generalized,
traditional values.
“You have to appeal to them on
something that they hold dearer
than racial pride,” Benham said
last week, citing a rule he used in
dealing with white juries.
His short campaign biography
illustrates that approach: “His life
was greatly influenced by the
teachings of Booker T.
Washington, the founder of
Tuskegee Institute, and an out
standing leader and humanitarian
Less than 75 percent Advertising
who believed in basic principles of
hard work, community pride,
religious dedication and
patriotism.”
It also emphasizes his family’s
military background. Benham was
a captain in the Army. One brother
is a lieutenant colonel in the Air
Force, and another brother is a
civilian adviser to the Saudi Arabian
military.
“For all practical purposes, you
could be looking at a resume of
Sam Nunn or one of his associates
down in Perry,” said Sam Smith,
the president of Bartow County
Bank and chairman of Benham’s
campaign.
Shortly after his appointment,
Benham met with a group of past
I\e never
seen a governor
get behind a
candidate like
this before
William Skinner
presidents of the State Bar, which
represents 14,000 lawyers, in order
to prove that his credentials were
solid. Since then, Duross Fit
zpatrick, the current State Bar
president, has personally endorsed
Benham.
With his political and
profession bases well-covered,, the
incumbent judge now faces three
opponents, one of them an
unknown.
William Skinner, a Decatur at
torney, is making his first bid for
public office, and his chances are
not great. “I’ve never seen a
governor get behind a candidate
like this before. But then I’ve never
been in a judicial race like this
before,” said Skinner, who put his
name on the ballot after a com
puter printout showed that he had
taken five times more cases to
court than had Benham.
Yet his odds are not impossible,
and that is what worries Benham
campaigners.
The problem, they say, is that
state judicial races in Georgia are
so obscure that some voters don’t
make it to the bottom of the ballot,
and other voters close their eyes
and stab.
Nothing can be taken for gran
ted.
In a 1980 state Supreme Court
race, Jack Dorsey spent no money
and recived 48 percent of the vote.
He is running again, for the sixth
time, and Benham backers are
worried that Dorsey’s name might
look appealingly familiar. Also
running is Wyman C. Lowe, whose
name has appeared on a ballot
more than a dozen times.
Benham’s task is to make his
name just as well-known, without
tripping the sensitivities of white
voters or offending the pride of
black ones.
Since April, Benham’s people
have been attempting to defuse the
ticklish problems of interracial
politicking. The judge’s campaign
brochqres for not mention that he is
Black, and do not contain his pic
ture. The printed omission was
calculated; the lack of photograph
wasn’t according to campaign
aides.
“We didn’t have time to get pic
tures,” said campaign manager
Robert Kahn, an attorney and
former Harris campaigner.
Benham’s picture probably will be
on the next batch of brochures, he
said. Also in the photo will be Joe
Frank Harris.
As of now, advertising will be
'limited to newspapers and radio.
Black civil rights leaders are
supporting Benham, but only at a
grassroots level in Black com
munities. “I don’t need to be out
there on the firing line, preaching
Robert Benham to the white
media,” said state Rep. Tyrone
Brooks of Atlanta.
That job belongs to Harris, who
at a recent Georgia Press
Association meeting at Jekyll
Island asked the state’s newspapers
to endorse his candidate for the
Court of Appeals.
Wherever possible and ap
propriate, Benham appears as a
guest of a white community leader.
But Benham is also anxious not
to be perceived as a white man’s
candidate. So this Sunday, he
made handshaking appearances in
several Black churches in metro
Atlanta. And his strategists have
devised a campaign organization
that will match Black for white, or
white for Black, at every level
possible.
For instance, said campaign
chairman Smith, in Atlanta there
are two chairmen of Benham’s
finance committe: Tom Cordy, a
Elack mechanical contractor and
respected businessman, and
Lawrence Gellerstedt, the white
president of Beers Inc., the com
pany responsible for building
several Atlanta landmarks.
Together, they raised the largest
part of Benham’s $30,000 current
war chest . The campaign hopes to
eventually raise $200,000 to put
Benham’s name across to the
voters, far more than any other
opposing candidate can hope to
accumulate.
But the campaign’s greatest
asset may be the candidate himself,
a political novice who is not
flustered easilv and is accustomed
to walking the bridge between
Black and white society.
“I went to Tuskegee and had the
Black experience. Then I went to
Georgia and had the white ex
perience. I went to Harvard
(briefly) and had the Northern ex
perience,” he explained last week,
shortly after attending the lunch
time meeting of the Decatur-
Dekalb Bar Association. Os about
200 lawyers in the crowd, two were
Black and Benham was one of
them.
His role in Cartersville, where he
lives in a white neighborhood, was
that of a mediator in Black-white
disputes. The experience has left
him with a thick skin and the
demeanor of a diplomat.
Smith told one story, which
Benham refused to repeat, of a trip
the judge had made to a metro
Atlanta bar association meeting.
According to Smith, Benham
had shaken the hand of every
lawyer at the meeting save one,
that of a white, elderly barrister
who refused to cross the color line.
An irresistible crowd of his peers
pushed the immovable object
toward Benham, a short, constantly
smiling man with a high-pitched
see Black judge page 4
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