Death of a Trailblazer

Hardy Williams

If you didn't grow up in Philadelphia in the 70's, the name of this man probably doesn't mean anything to you. Pennsylvania State Senator Hardy Williams died yesterday of complications related to Alzheimers disease. He was 78.

Hardy Williams was a trailblazing African-American politician. He was the first African-American to mount a credible campaign for mayor in Philadelphia back in 1971. Though he lost, Hardy Williams paved the way for others, including Wilson Goode, John Street, and Michael Nutter. He also organized the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, served five terms in the State House, then moved to the State Senate in 1982. When Hardy Williams retired in 1998, Mayor Nutter says, "Philadelphia lost a warrior." Indeed! I guess you had to have lived in our city in those days... it was right after the turbulent civil rights decade. The Vietnam War was still raging on and the civil war, that was the racial divide in America, was in full effect.

Former Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo was running for mayor on the Democratic ticket (he would later switch parties and become a Republican). Frank Rizzo had been a tough street cop. Before I was born, he was known as the "Cisco Kid" because he carried two six-shooters instead of the one service revolver most cops carried. In South Philly, where he walked the beat, he had been known to be particularly brutal to African-Americans in the area. There were several men of my parents generation who had confrontations with him back in the 50's. They were still talking about him by the time I came along and was old enough to understand.

In 1967, Rizzo sicked his dogs and some billy club weilding policemen on some predominately black demonstrators who were trying to integrate Girard College and this made him infamous. So Infamous that under Mayor James H. Tate, a Democrat, he was made Police Commisioner. So in 1971, when this same ex-street cop, ex-police comissioner decided to run for mayor on the Democratic ticket, in stepped Hardy Williams, who was a West Philly attorney at the time. Williams ran a very well managed independent campaign... a forerunner to the type of grass roots organizing that would later characterize W. Wilson Goode's campaign and yes, even Barack Obama's campaign.

Barack Obama, Micheal Nutter, and I were just children then... known only to our parents and relatives. This man, Hardy Williams, inspired the same kind of hope in Black Philadelphia that Barack Obama would later inspire in an entire nation. Everybody's parents were doing something to help get Hardy Williams elected. As kids, we were wearing Hardy Williams buttons and passing out flyers on 52nd Street. There was so much hope, anger, and fear of Rizzo. (I should note that Blacks hated this man, Frank Rizzo so much that when he ran for re-election, four years later most blacks voted for the Republican challenger.)

African-Americans make up 51% of the total population of Philadelphia today. Then, we made up about 39-40% of the population (this was before the great white flight to the suburbs). Hardy Williams lost the election. My mother, who hated Frank Rizzo with a passion back then, was particularly devestated. I remember I said to her right after the election... "Don't worry. One day when I'm old enough to vote, we gonna have a black mayor and things are going to be different." I would like to tell her that things are better now but they are not. Although, I did keep my promise... when I was old enough to vote, I did help usher in our first, second, and third black mayors. I have been less than enthused with all three, sorry to say, but I did keep my promise.

Hardy Williams went on to become a state senator and a "mover and shaker" in Philly politics. I would often run into him in the streets at various functions. When I heard that he passed yesterday, I felt a kind of sadness. Another monument of my past has now gone the way of the buffalo... another monument of this city's past has gone the way of the buffalo.