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Charles Williams
* * *
So I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned. Job 7:3
JANUARY, 2007—NEW ORLEANS
The Reverend Clarence Washington, senior pastor for nearly forty years at Gethsemane Baptist Church, shifted his three-hundred-pound frame in the swivel chair and tossed the stack of unpaid bills into a wire basket on his desk. Behind on just about everything, he thought. That hurricane sure did a number on us. He could pay the smaller bills but would have to continue to beg and wheedle for time on the bigger ones. He and his wife, known as the church prophet, would both have to continue taking just half of the salaries they’d received before the hurricane sent much of his congregation to live in places like Baton Rouge and Houston.
He stood and stared out the second-floor window just as he had, amazed and distressed, on that last weekend of August, 2005, when Katrina’s precisely aimed blow flooded all the low-lying areas of the City. He had prayed fervently then and God had finally answered his prayers, but only after the waters had stayed for weeks wreaking destruction throughout his beleaguered neighborhood, Bacauptown. In many ways, the seemingly interminable aftermath of the storm was proving worse than the hurricane itself. When would things finally start to get better?
Often in more recent months, he had gained strength and taken pleasure from imagining the block across the street with a beautiful new building filled with apartments and businesses that would bring renewed life in place of the devastation. Just gazing out the window would bring him hope and, yes, feelings of civic pride that New Orleans’ revival could begin right there with the plan he’d conceived. But not today. Today he felt only discouragement and could detect only the sad reality left behind by Katrina—the blocks of weed-grown lots, the stench from the remains of the two-story pile of discarded refrigerators, the shotgun houses and small cottages dislodged from their foundations that had been in poor condition even before the hurricane. All this poverty and rot and desperation just a few blocks from St. Charles Avenue. It’s not right . . . never has been.
Clarence turned his gaze to the bookshelf by the window, full of autographed photos from mayors and other Louisiana politicians over several decades. The one from the current mayor, received not long before the hurricane, was signed with the words, “To Clarence. Blessed are the peacemakers! Your friend, Hypolite Juneau.” The mayor, a longtime acquaintance and sometimes political ally, had given it to him at the opening of a now-vacant recreation center that was designed to keep the neighborhood youth off the streets. He could see the neglected center and its basketball courts in the distance, its windows broken and its crumbled parking lot now edged by five-foot willow trees. It saddened him that the few youths who’d returned to the neighborhood no longer had a usable basketball court.
The phone rang. Mrs. Walker, the church secretary for almost as many years as he’d been pastor, transferred a call from the accounts receivable department of the utility company.
“Hello, this is Pastor Washington. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”
Gethsemane Baptist Church was one of the largest black churches in New Orleans, and it didn’t take the reverend long to get another extension of his due date.
“Sir, I assure you we are doing everything we can to get our bills caught up. All of our money in recent months went to the massive repairs we needed downstairs. I must ask for a little more time.” There was a short pause as Clarence listened to the caller’s tepid response. Undaunted, he said, “Bless you for this consideration, and may you have a glorious day.”
Clarence then called out his door. “Mrs. Walker, will you kindly get the mayor on the phone for me?”
Clarence did not like being dependent on white people. Growing up poor and black in the Ninth Ward, he’d had few interactions with white people, and most of those were with teachers and police officers when he was in trouble. And right now his whole future and the future of his church and neighborhood felt as though they were dependent on the actions of a white man—a wealthy real estate developer—the mayor had forced him to partner with on the big neighborhood renewal project that had been his idea. This man—the great Joe Pacello, Clarence thought derisively—had made a lot of money masking himself as a community do-gooder. If he’s such a do-gooder, how come he made so much money while my community and all the rest of black New Orleans stayed poor?
Clarence had learned in many past circumstances that the white minority in the city was still dominant in business and finance, but he promised himself, as he had many times, that someday he’d do a deal when no white man was sitting at the table. For now he had no choice but to work with Pacello. After all, what Baptist minister knew enough to pull together a $24 million housing project? The little projects he’d done in the past had been barely one-tenth that size.
Pacello. The man lived in a huge Uptown mansion on St. Charles Avenue, but the name called up bad images from fifty years back when the downriver parishes where Pacello grew up had been havens for some of the most stubborn racists in America. And he’d heard bad things about this man, including that he was known to use the N word. That word’s only okay when we use it among ourselves.
“I have the mayor on line one,” Mrs. Walker said.
“Splendid! That’s one miracle for today.” He picked up the phone and addressed the mayor as he often did in private. “Chief nigguh Juneau, how are you?”
The mayor laughed and was quick with a response. “I know you’ve been calling, Clarence, and I know what it’s about. I’m just as impatient as you are, and you know why.” The mayor expected a tough fight for reelection, and he needed to show progress to the voters, white and black alike, in bringing the city back from the hurricane’s damage.
“Are you pressing Pacello to get us a closing?” Clarence asked. “I can’t pay my bills here, and the neighborhood’s not getting any better. You know that incident a few nights ago has everyone feeling scared.” Some teenagers had robbed and beaten a tourist who wandered off St. Charles Avenue just a few blocks from the Convention Center, and the incident had been in the headlines of the Times Picayune, Morning Advocate, and other local papers. The Center director had been quoted as saying the city lost two big conventions to Chicago from that one incident.
“Bad, bad PR for the city, Clarence. We do need some positive press,” the mayor said. “I thought you had those gangs over there under control.”
“I do, I do,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “But some outsiders from the West Bank came over and didn’t respect our rules here. You know it would help if I had some money to spread around and buy us more time to improve things.” Here I go, begging again, Clarence thought.
“I’m going to call Pacello and read him the riot act,” the mayor said. “If he can’t close, he needs to get out of the way and turn the project over to someone else for you to work with. I checked with the state finance authority, and they’ll approve a change if I tell them they should.”
Clarence had heard this kind of posturing from the mayor before, but in fact there was little he or the mayor could do to force Pacello to move ahead. Clarence mused with resignation, in New Orleans, a black man is still a black man even if he happens to be Mayor Hypolite Juneau! He thanked the mayor and hung up.
Clarence felt frustrated and powerless. Forty years here, and look where I stand, having to play some kind of Uncle Tom to a redneck white man. He sighed. “Mrs. Walker,” he called through the partially open door, “please come in and assist me with some paperwork.” He spent the next hour deciding which bills to pay and making calls to additional creditors who would have to keep waiting.
* * *
But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged; it strikes you, and you are dismayed. Job 4:5
LAMENTING THE DESOLATION of his neighborhood and his powerlessness to change things, Clarence wondered if his ambitious plan would ever be realized. Maybe our reach exceeded our grasp! His complaints to the mayor and Pacello, the patronizing white man, had produced only more frustration. What else could he do? Leadership, he thought. That’s what I can provide! Everyone here is so beat down and so discouraged. They need to see our vision. I can lift them up.
Bacauptown needed lifting up. Its name came from a term that originated in the nineteenth century and reflected the humble origins of the area. Rich people always lived along St. Charles Avenue and other boulevards of the city while the common people lived on the side streets in back of the big houses where they could walk to their jobs as servants, gardeners, cooks, street cleaners, and similar service occupations. The term bacatown came into common use to describe such areas, and for this particular area of the city known as Uptown, from Lee Circle to the universities all along gorgeous St. Charles Avenue with its live oaks and streetcar line, the term bacauptown arose. Before the 1960s, the area was mainly white and had its own neighborhood commercial area.
Businesses there were owned mostly by Jews who lived above their stores or nearby, and who had a synagogue that was in walking distance. But as the commercial area declined with the rise of suburban shopping centers, the stores closed and the Jews moved away, eventually putting their fine old temple up for sale just as a young Clarence Washington received his calling to preach the gospel. He scratched up the money for the purchase of the temple building from a wealthy benefactor in the Jewish community, promising to maintain Jewish architectural features—the Torah scrolls, the menorahs, and the Old Testament scenes in the stained glass. And ever since acquiring and restoring the building, he’d fought the trends of neighborhood decay: the white flight as segregation ended, the physical deterioration, the loss of businesses and schools, the rise of crack houses, the growth of gangs and prostitution, the homeless living in abandoned houses and alleys. And along the way he had put a few fingers in the dike by sponsoring small housing projects—a dozen units at a time—that helped stabilize the urban blight.
Then came Katrina with wind and water damage of biblical proportions, putting the neighborhood in reverse again. But it also recently brought government financing programs that were designed to encourage redevelopment in the devastated areas, and the ever-persevering and resourceful Clarence Washington, haunted by memories of what the neighborhood had been and his dreams for what it could be, came forward with a plan for the revival of Bacauptown as a whole. This revival was to start with the $24 million project across from the old synagogue, now his church, Gethsemane Baptist.
Clarence knew that the neighborhood crime was an obstacle to his dreams and plans coming true. He thought, the white people who run the banks use that against us. Would the chance to save the neighborhood, the church, and the people slip away? His dislike and distrust of whites had begun when he witnessed the treatment of sit-in demonstrators at the Woolworth’s lunch counter downtown on a day in September, 1960, when he was just ten years old. He and his mother had witnessed a white mob including a policeman attacking and squirting ketchup on black students who sat down at the store’s segregated lunch counter.
* * *
CLARENCE HAD NEVER forgotten the yelling whites, the ketchup, the fear on his mother’s face, and the gasping run to the streetcar stop. That was in 1960, the early days of the civil rights movement. Now, after the passage of many civil rights laws and the halting progress toward justice as the city came under African American control, racism took more sophisticated forms, and the white-controlled banks found all kinds of excuses for not making loans in places like Bacauptown. He would have to continue his work and advance his vision with tactics grounded in urban realities. He would have to compromise his plans at times, do business with questionable people, enter into dubious contracts, and look the other way from time to time. Always with the motivation to help his people and his neighborhood. That was the way it had always been and always would be.
“Mrs. Walker, please get me the phone numbers of those young men who call themselves the Seekers of Justice.”
It took only a few phone calls for Clarence to reach the leader of the gang that had emerged as a powerful neighborhood force after the hurricane. The group had somehow learned about and been inspired by the actions of Nat Turner and his murderous 1830s rebellion against slavery, but along the way the reverend had convinced them to pursue a more peaceful approach to obtaining economic and housing justice for Bacauptown. The convincing had required more than a few dollars from the Gethsemane Church operating budget, which Clarence had concealed from the church budget committee.
Clarence didn’t want Mrs. Walker to hear some conversation that she wouldn’t understand, so he decided to meet the gang’s members at the church’s gymnasium a block away on the other side of the church campus. That was the way he thought of it—his campus—the church, the education building where he and his wife used a few rooms as their apartment, the parking lots, the gym, which was the only surviving building of a former public school, and the fenced playground for the daycare center that operated eighteen hours a day for the many service workers and laborers of the area who worked long and odd hours. He’d had many dreams for more buildings, for housing, and for neighborhood shopping, but the hurricane had ended those until his project across from the church was promised financing a few months ago. But now that project’s future depended entirely on money sources that were proving reluctant even with the involvement of the great Joe Pacello.
Leaving the church, he walked laboriously along the sidewalk. When he passed the one active neighborhood business in a large building that had once been the local hardware store, he impulsively muttered a curse. Its sign read: “Architectural Elements Bought and Sold.” A force of destruction, he thought. Our houses and our stores are being dismantled bit by bit. The new business, which had boomed since the hurricane, traded in the unique detachable features of the badly damaged and unoccupied houses of Bacauptown and other poor neighborhoods: balustrades, cornices, shutters, doors, and stained-glass windows that would end up in some more affluent area on houses that would be sold to rich whites as “massively rehabilitated using authentic New Orleans architectural elements.” Clarence knew that ninety percent of the items had been removed by scavengers acting without permission of the owners and with no regard for the neighborhood’s future.
He stopped to rest for a moment but did not remove his jacket. He caught his reflection in a window of a vacated building and noticed that his tie knot, always a perfect full Windsor, was a little askew. He pulled it up and straightened it. He lightly patted his wavy, pomaded hair and nodded with approval. The Seekers would see him only at his best. He continued the last half-block to the gymnasium.
The Seekers’ leader and two others arrived at the gymnasium shortly after Clarence. They came in the back entrance and, dressed in their standard sagging jeans and black hoodies, walked slowly across the gym floor to the bleachers. They carried an old boom box playing a rap song the reverend recognized.
As they came closer, Clarence composed an expression of severe sternness. He scolded them. “You’re late. Turn that trash off! It corrupts your minds. And more important, I won’t strain my voice to make myself heard over it.” He leveled an intense, disapproving stare at the gang leader, whose real name was Tony but who’d assumed the street name Nat in honor of Nat Turner. “Tony, we have a problem. I hired you and the Seekers for protection and what happens? A tourist is robbed and beaten right around the corner.”
“But Reverend, I told ya—”
“Watch that disrespectful tone, son!” Clarence interrupted sharply. “Yes, I know you told me it was outsiders, but keeping outsiders out is part of your job. I don’t pay people who don’t do their jobs.” He paused to look for reactions, but Tony and the others just looked away and said nothing. “Who... exactly... was it that did this terrible thing? I know you know.”
“Who says we know?” Tony finally smirked. “We ain’t doin’ no snitchin’ anyways.”
Clarence had expected the stubborn response. He’d grown up with the street code against snitching and had followed it himself. In a way, he admired the boys’ stubborn adherence to this code that was against all objective reason and in this instance went against his efforts to improve Bacauptown. He had accepted, even justified, the code against snitching as necessary to counter harsh policing and sentencing that blacks experienced in New Orleans. And he always remembered the time the white police officer laughed when a screaming white man tripped him as he ran from the racist crowd outside the Woolworth’s store so many years before.
Clarence did not want the boys to think he might approve their attitude nor would he let his reason for meeting with them be pushed aside. It was like many compromises he’d made and would continue to make. He changed the subject. “We have a big new building planned right across the street from the church. We’ll need lots of protection for the workers and for the equipment. The pay will be good but will only go to those who get the job done to my personal satisfaction.” He paused for at least a minute. “You need to improve if you want the job. Do you understand?”
“So what’s in it for us?” Tony said, still smirking. “We ain’t that concerned about what happens to white folks.”
“This is for the neighborhood, not white folks!” Clarence’s booming voice echoed in the empty gym. “The pay is negotiable, but it won’t start until you prove you can do a better job and the project breaks ground.” Clarence had nothing to offer in the short run.
“And what do we gotta do?”
Clarence responded emphatically. “Make sure that nobody, especially no white person, is robbed or assaulted or even looked at in a threatening way anywhere along St. Charles Avenue, even if they are dumb enough to park back in our neighborhood. Make sure there’s not a single purse snatchin’ around here during Mardi Gras. Make sure no punk or gang from the Ninth Ward, the Seventh Ward, or the West Bank even sets foot in our neighborhood. Make sure that all the drug dealers move to the other side of St. Charles Avenue.” Clarence paused to let this sink in. “And make sure that the worst crime that happens around here is when somebody violates one of those litter ordinances that white people love so dearly.”
Tony was silent for a minute or more while Clarence stared at him. Then he said, “We gotta be guaranteed a grand a week when this project starts, with a five-grand up-front bonus for workin’ for free till then.”
“Won’t be a problem.” Relieved that the boys would cooperate, Clarence responded without hesitation. “Now get out there and do your jobs.”
As he watched the boys saunter back to the door they’d entered, he couldn’t help but compare them to his teenage self who’d nearly become ensnared in the world of petty crime and drugs until one day he heard a charismatic street preacher and became an enthusiastic Christian. I owe it to Jesus to save these boys as I was saved, he thought. Yes, the money he was agreeing to pay them was a little questionable, but it was a short-term fix for keeping them out of trouble and would give the gang a stake in the project.
Later, he would try to get them into apprenticeship programs on the project, where they could learn to make an honest living. To have a realistic chance of helping them, he would have to suppress his distrust and dislike of white people. Jesus, help me overcome this affliction and forgive these people. Help me give the great Joe Pacello the benefit of the doubt.
As he left the gymnasium, he could hear the distant rumbling of a St. Charles Avenue streetcar, no doubt carrying affluent tourists to the Garden District for a walking tour of the never-flooded mansions on the high ground there. He grumbled to himself that getting the streetcars running again had been such a high priority when nobody but him seemed to care about his neighborhood just a block away.
He removed his jacket and began a slow walk back to his office, thinking as he did, Job suffered far more. I must count my blessings.
* * *
For He will complete what He appoints for me, and many such things are in His mind. Job 23:14.
FEBRUARY, 2007
“A charismatic, homegrown man of God, determined to change things” were the words that one national news network had used to describe Reverend Clarence Washington and his struggles to revive Bacauptown. Clarence had delivered a sermon which he called “Get in God’s Game for New Orleans” to inspire support for his neighborhood renaissance plan. The Times Picayune newspaper had published a front-page article that got national attention because of Clarence’s claim, taken out of context, that the hurricane had given Bacauptown a gift, a chance to rebuild and be better than before. In the sermon, he alluded to the troubles of Job and urged his congregation to have unwavering faith as demonstrated by Job. He also used the story of Jonah to inspire doubters to do God’s will, and not to flee a difficult task as Jonah had.
Clarence was also pleased with the results of a Bacauptown neighborhood festival that he’d organized to promote unity for his neighborhood renaissance plan. Thousands of people had walked the streets of the neighborhood on the festival day under the watchful eyes of the Seekers of Justice and not a single troublesome incident had occurred. But the lack of criminal incidents had itself been just a sidebar in the flood of favorable articles in the Times Picayune and Morning Advocate, and the national press was also on the story, prompted by continuing interest throughout the country in New Orleans’s fate. The arrival of Mardi Gras had brought other favorable developments, including the interest of a bank from Baton Rouge to provide the financing.
But there was a key ingredient missing from the public relations campaign, and that was participation and support from the local white community, which had uncritically and, Clarence thought, happily received last year’s outside consultants’ reports suggesting that all of Bacauptown be bulldozed and turned into a master-planned redevelopment area.
Clarence disliked the idea of asking the white community for support, but a white face or two, besides that of the controversial Joe Pacello, needed to be in the picture. After all, the mayor’s reelection campaign was about to begin, and he needed to at least split the forty percent white vote equally with any other candidates in order to win. Hypolite Juneau had made it clear to Clarence that his neighborhood revival plan needed multiracial support. The mayor wanted, as he’d told Clarence several times, “white folks visible in every photo and quoted positively in every news item.”
The problem was that the reverend’s Pastors for Revival group was entirely black. But he got an idea for a source of potential white support when the minister of a New Orleans Unitarian church sent a letter to the editor of the Times Picayune that was critical of the city’s lack of progress in helping poor neighborhoods.
So Clarence had called the Unitarian to thank him and asked for a meeting to get to know this church. In truth, he knew very little about it except that it was decidedly not the fringe church of mostly Korean and white evangelicals whose founder was an Asian named Moon. As he waited in the small room outside the minister’s office, he took note of the lack of pictures, books, and pamphlets with the image of Jesus as well as the lack of crosses. Maybe they’re like the Jews and follow just the Old Testament, he speculated.
A moment later, the door opened and out bounded a tall young man, perhaps thirty-five years old, dressed in khakis and a sport shirt. He greeted Clarence heartily. “Reverend Washington, I’m so pleased to meet you! I’m Pete Holt. Your work for our disadvantaged neighborhoods has been a tremendous inspiration to me and to our justice committee.”
Clarence was a little taken aback by the man’s youth, exuberance, and informality. And what was this about a justice committee? In every way, he seemed the opposite of the reserved and formal ministers and priests that he’d known from white churches. “I wanted to express my personal gratitude, Reverend Holt, for your support of our struggles. Your letter in the newspaper was splendid and greatly appreciated.”
“Please come in my office and let’s pursue the problems of social and economic justice that we have here in New Orleans.” Reverend Holt gestured toward a chair by his desk in the small office.
Some books stood on a shelf to the side of the desk, the authors of which were all unfamiliar to Clarence—Tillich, Bonhoeffer, Nietzsche, Emerson, and Alinsky. He thought the young man’s accent peculiar and assumed he was from some northern part of the country. “Yes,” he said. “God has given us some hard work but we intend to do it with fervor, and I would like to invite you to join my informal organization, Pastors for Revival, to help us get that work done.”
Reverend Holt nodded emphatically. “Well, our view, with all due respect to you and the other pastors, is that Bacauptown’s tragedy was not made by God but by the neglect of man, and it’s completely in our power to change that—with no reliance on divine intervention or other superstitions. But yes, we’d be very interested in joining your group.”
Superstitions? Offended by the word, Clarence immediately wondered if his visit had been a mistake. He didn’t want to ally himself, his church, and his project with a so-called church that did not rely on the support of God, at least, if not Jesus, for help and sustenance. “Young man,” he sputtered as he controlled his anger, “does your church not believe in God and in doing God’s work?”
Reverend Holt hesitated before responding quietly. “Our members have many different ideas about the word God. Some of us say that God is whatever is our ultimate concern in life. Others are agnostics. Still others believe in the traditional God who watches over us, but accept Jesus only as a prophet, not as the son of God. And I must add that virtually all our members believe all religions offer valuable insights into the riddles and mysteries of life and our existence.”
Momentarily speechless, Clarence did a double take, wondering if he’d heard Holt correctly. The word God? Jesus only a prophet? Riddles of life? He was shocked by these statements but resisted the urge to leave abruptly. “But Reverend Holt, you are the pastor. What do you believe?”
Reverend Holt became quiet for a minute as he gazed out the window, seemingly lost in thought. “The definition of God that I like is this.” He turned back to look intently at Clarence. “God is the mystery behind all the mysteries of life.” Then he added, almost apologetically, “I know this a little different from Baptist teachings.”
Just a little different, for sure! But, focusing on his reason for being there, Clarence resisted the urge to accuse the younger man of sacrilege, instead thinking, I’ve got to have some white support, and anybody but atheists will do. “I suppose I did not fully understand your church, and I see that it is not a typical Christian church, but nonetheless we would appreciate your joining our coalition. I will be happy to attend your board’s meeting if I could shed some light on the Bacauptown story and help them in making a decision.”
The young Unitarian responded, “It won’t be necessary. I feel sure we’ll join your noble effort.”
Leaving the Unitarian Church, Clarence was happy to have accomplished his purpose, but he chuckled to himself as he thought, there sure are some mixed-up white people in this world! Now he needed to figure out ways to use his secularly idealistic new supporter to get the Bacauptown project to its groundbreaking. After the groundbreaking, the financing proceeds would begin flowing and he could then set in motion all his dreams for improvement of the neighborhood and for turning around the lives of the troubled Seekers of Justice.
* * *
JUST A FEW WEEKS AFTER Clarence’s meeting with Holt, the demonstrators chanted on the steps of City Hall. “Save Bacauptown! Save Bacauptown now!” The chant was a little awkward, certainly not rhythmic, and the demonstrators were often not in sync as they repeated the words.
Clarence and the Unitarian minister, Pete Holt, led the chant of the group, which comprised the Unitarian Church Justice Committee and some members of the Pastors for Revival—twenty demonstrators in all. Clarence was incredulous that he was not only participating but had taken so readily to Holt’s idea that a public show of support would help stifle some critics of his renaissance plan and would get the new building to its groundbreaking.
The local press was present, alerted by phone calls from Clarence, and the protesters were videoed as they chanted the awkward slogan and waved their posters. And as planned by Clarence and Holt, it was Holt who quieted the chants and first stepped forward to speak. Clarence held his breath, not entirely sure if the enthusiastic Unitarian would respect the rhetorical boundaries they’d agreed upon.
Holt began, “Citizens of New Orleans! People of faith and good will who love New Orleans! Lend us your ears!” Clarence thought the phrase “lend us your ears” was a peculiar beginning, but Holt had assured him that it came from a famous historical speech and would contribute to a favorable response in the press and in the public. “We come here today not to bury Bacauptown, but to raise it up by demanding that this down-trodden neighborhood’s plan for revival be supported.” Clarence noticed some smiles among the reporters and casual observers. Looks like this is going over well. Maybe Reverend Holt knows what he’s doing after all.
After Holt’s speech, a few others, including a twelve-year-old Gethsemane Church member, spoke briefly, telling personal stories of loss in the hurricane and of hopes for the future. By the end, Clarence was confident that he’d dealt a blow to the naysayers.
* * *
DROPPED OFF AT THE church by Reverend Holt after the demonstration, Clarence saw the dark-gray Lexus with its personalized license plate—Big Dog—parked on the curb just outside the door to the church offices. He did a double-take and shook his head. Lord have mercy. Can’t be good, can’t be good. Why was Joe Pacello paying him a visit? Last time he’d made an unannounced visit, it was to tell Clarence that a New York bank had turned down the loan request for the project. What would it be this time? Clarence took a deep breath and went in.
Joe Pacello was a very tall, broad-shouldered man about the same age as Clarence, and he’d become wealthy over several decades by doing real estate projects with various types of public financing. Clarence had heard that he had ties to the New Orleans Mafia which had put him in business long ago and he knew the man was chairing the mayor’s reelection campaign. Pacello had a habit of bragging about his origins in an oystering family down in Plaquemines Parish, which had been the home turf of some of the most violent racists in America back in the 1960s and 70s when Clarence was just starting the Gethsemane Church.
Pacello had curried the favor of successive black mayors with generous campaign contributions and with many questionable and, Clarence guessed, illegal ways of flowing money their way on multi-million dollar real estate projects where tens of thousands of dollars of payoffs could be easily disguised in a variety of ways. Clarence had accepted all this as just the way things worked in New Orleans. It never occurred to him to snitch. He had played along to help Bacauptown with his own previous projects. In return, developers and contractors had been generous in their contributions to his church and his pet projects such as the day-care center’s play equipment.
As Clarence entered the vestibule downstairs from his office, Pacello rose without any greeting, his face carrying a contemptuous and impatient look. He spoke quietly through tight lips. “Reverend Washington, I’ve met with the mayor. We don’t have enough money in the loan for everything you want to do. I’m here to tell you we’re cutting your share.”
Shocked, Clarence protested vociferously. “And what programs should I cut? The apprenticeships? The repairs to the church? The rehabilitation of the recreation center? These are all crucial to—”
Pacello cut him short. “Nothing’s crucial, mister man of God. This is the way it has to be. If you have a problem with it, go see the mayor.” Pacello left without another word.
Clarence thought, I’ll do just that. And God help me forgive this man for his arrogant and offensive ways.
* * *
JUST TWO DAYS LATER, Clarence met with the mayor and the Bacauptown Councilman Williams. “Clarence, I know why you asked to meet with me and Councilman Williams today,” the mayor said, looking unhappy.
“Well, I heard from Joe that you questioned my small piece of our splendid Bacauptown deal. I hope you don’t have a complaint about that.” Clarence was not invited to take a seat and wasn’t inclined to anyway. He thought, Jesus, give me all the help you can in this tug-of-war!
The mayor scowled as he rose and paced between his desk and the office door, then stopped and gave Clarence a hard stare as he rapped the desk with his knuckles several times. “Five hundred thousand! Half a million dollars? Isn’t that more than just splendid?”
Clarence was silent for a moment. “Is that a question or an accusation, Mistah Chief Nigguh?”
“Shut up with that kind of talk,” Juneau growled. “You’re here to tell me why a nigguh Bible-thumper is getting more than I am from this deal, that’s what it’s about. And why that nigguh Bible-thumper standing in front of me right now has embarrassed me with Bacauptown protests on the steps downstairs.”
Clarence had been the object of mayoral rants before, but he was already starting to feel defensive. He protested. “My church and my personal support were the reason we got the financing from the state agency in the first place. And you should be happy that we’re defending our wonderful project from jealous critics. That’s why we demonstrated.”
The mayor shook his head as he folded his arms. “You’re saying that putting your name on the deal is worth half a million? Councilman Williams here tells me three other Baptist churches wanted to sign up and wouldn’t have been so damn greedy. Those bozos at the state agency didn’t care what church was in the deal as long as its pastor had black skin. You know that, Clarence.”
Williams chimed in. “Reverend Hayward has been after us for a deal and so has Reverend Jackson. The bottom line is we had options but we brought you in, told Joe he had to work with you in Bacauptown. That’s why you got the deal.”
Math wasn’t his strong suit, but Clarence rapidly did some calculations on how much of the $500,000 he’d committed and what bones he might throw the mayor and councilman. He sat on the sofa and decided first to go on the offensive. Let’s see if they put on a full-court press. “A lot of people and needs are being taken care of out of my piece. I mean, aren’t you both getting plenty of campaign contributions out of the fees paid to the architects and the lawyers?”
“That’s our business,” Juneau snapped. “Don’t look in our pockets. I get to look in yours because I’m the reason you’re in the deal instead of those other pastors who wanted some action.”
Clarence realized he’d have to give up something. “Mayor, I can probably squeeze some funds out for you, but first let me tell you about some of the people and projects my share supports.”
“Well, go ahead,” the mayor replied impatiently as he sat down, still frowning, drumming his fingers on the edge of his desk. “What else do you need money for?”
Clarence went through all the ways he would use his share of the money.
He went through details of the project protection money for the NOPD and for the Seekers of Justice, apprenticeship program money for the youth of the church, the money for repairs to the church and the recreation center, the past due bills for the operation of the church since Katrina, and the project marketing budget.
“Aha!” exclaimed Juneau, interrupting as Clarence mentioned the marketing budget. “Isn’t your wife getting a big piece of that?”
Clarence folded his arms and his voice thundered as it did in his Sunday sermons. “A very small piece! And completely justified! She will have speaking engagements all over the city to promote the project and her splendid prophecy work will keep us on the right track with the Lord.”
“Okay, okay, that’s enough. Clarence, you have some money left over—don’t say you don’t. The councilman and I have to ask you for some of that back to pay for some special people and projects.”
“Like what, Mayor?” It was time for the reverend to ask questions.
“It’s really none of your business. But I’ll tell you in general that it will be for more staffing of our reelection campaigns. We need $100,000 to get the ball rolling. My cousin will be my campaign manager, and Councilman Williams’s son will do that job for him—$50,000 each. And then there’s the $50,000 of walking-around money we’ll need to set aside for election day.”
Clarence shook his head that his programs would have to be cut for the mayor’s and the councilman’s campaign funds. He could see that the mayor’s mind was made up. He began, “Perhaps I can squeeze some...”
The mayor sprang up from his chair and interrupted. “Don’t give me any perhaps crap...just make it happen! See Joe and his high-priced honkie lawyers over at Canal Place, get them to paper this however it needs to be.” Clarence knew he was beat on the $150,000. What programs and projects would he sacrifice?
The mayor’s parting words as Clarence walked out of his office had an angry, ominous edge. “And make damn sure I get those funds within forty-eight hours of closing. I’m holding both you and Joe Pacello responsible for that.”
* * *
THE NEXT FEW DAYS, Clarence spent long hours thinking and praying about the mayor’s demands and all that he’d have to give up to comply. He prided himself on being a team player, and on his loyalty to his race. But this time felt different. This time there was so much more at stake—the whole future of Bacauptown and of the church, it seemed. He would ask his wife to come in and pray with him for guidance. Should he just accept the mayor’s demands and not rock the boat in the face of obvious corruption? Should he give up his cherished idea for an apprenticeship program for the church youth? Leave the recreation center in a dilapidated state? If he refused the mayor’s demands, what would happen? Was there any way he could save the project? What was his back-up plan if he did the unthinkable?
That evening the prophet joined him in the small apartment they occupied in the church education building. Clarence told her how the money to the church from the financing proceeds was going to be reduced so the mayor and councilman could funnel more money to their campaigns. After listening, she reminded him of his well-publicized sermon “Get in God’s Game for New Orleans” that they’d worked on together, in particular the references to Job’s troubles. “Job suffered far worse, my dear husband,” she said quietly, “and you must be prepared to stand up to those who have selfish motives. You must stay the course of righteousness with perseverance. Suffering will be part of that, and I fear that your suffering is just beginning.”
Clarence recalled one of the verses from the book of Job that they’d studied while preparing the sermon: “For He will complete what He appoints for me, and many such things are in His mind.” He felt suddenly rejuvenated. The answer was simple and required him to do something he’d advised the Seekers of Justice and others to do but had never himself chosen to do.
That night, after saying his bedtime prayers more times than usual, Clarence slept well, clutching the small wooden cross his mother had given him after that terrible afternoon at the Woolworth’s store decades ago. He kept thinking about the verse from Job, and about one from the book of Micah: “What does the Lord require of thee? To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.” Tomorrow he would look for the phone number he needed.
* * *
THE PHONE NUMBER WAS on a card that he felt sure was somewhere in the junky top drawer of his desk. It would have been in there ten years or more now. A few times in the subsequent years he’d noticed it, but he’d never used the occasion of noticing it to put it in the trash as he did many other old business cards and notes he’d written to remind himself of something or other. Maybe on those occasions God had intervened to keep him from throwing it away so he’d have it now, when he needed it. He’d been given it by a man who’d been a surprise visitor to the church that afternoon many years before Katrina. The mayor at the time had told him that “the Feds” were investigating financial crimes of an unspecified nature and might be calling on him about some “money and contracting issues” on previous neighborhood improvement projects funded with federal dollars.
A man had indeed come to see him, and Clarence had calmly assured him that to his knowledge everything had been handled correctly. He conveniently forgot about the various friends and relatives of that mayor who’d been given no-work jobs, about the bogus contracts for “consulting,” about the fudging on construction specs and materials, and about other questionable practices. Many compromises over the years, all to be a team player. All to benefit his people and his neighborhood. Now his attitude about talking with the man was different. Clarence wondered if the phone number would still be good.
At the back of the drawer with some old paper clips and rubber bands and a mostly used pad of sticky note papers, he found it, the individual’s name obscured by a smear of ink. His job title was still readable: Manager, Southeast Financial Investigations Division, and a number in Atlanta, Georgia. Clarence took a deep breath and dialed the number. “Federal Bureau of Investigation, Atlanta Office,” the receptionist answered.
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
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FEBRUARY 2022 Vol. 3, No. 2
