John Conyers was there, in Mississippi with Martin Luther King, when that was about as dangerous as wandering around Fallujah without a flak jacket. He was elected to Congress before most blacks could vote in the South. He told LBJ off over Vietnam. He stood on a car with a bullhorn, trying to stop the riots of 1967. He became the first congressman to call for Richard Nixon’s impeachment -- and did so a month before Watergate.
And John Conyers is still there, politely but firmly sounding that uniquely measured, distinctive tenor whenever he feels the times, or the issue, call for him to be heard. He has served in the U.S. House longer than any other African-American in history.
When he got there, in 1965, there were only five other blacks in Congress, most the docile products of big city machines. The only one with much spunk, Adam Clayton Powell, had no interest in sharing the spotlight. Conyers politely but firmly fought to establish the Congressional Black Caucus, which has 43 members now.
The troops fighting in Iraq today hadn’t yet been born when he was fighting to pull out of Vietnam. He’s fought even harder against this war. Conyers is a Detroiter through and through; born in the city in an era when blacks got shot for being in white neighborhoods at night. He worked in the auto plants, where his daddy was a union official. Served in Korea; put himself through law school.
He’s represented Detroit in Congress for 41 years. He cares about his people and his race. Nobody did more to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a holiday than he.
Nobody else has ever served on committees that attempted to impeach two presidents. John Conyers was there when it happened to Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. There is a part of him that strongly feels that it should happen one more time.
But he has also sponsored resolutions commemorating jazz and tap dancing. Nor is anyone who knows him surprised. John Conyers marches to his own drummer; always has. There are days when he is an incisive as a laser beam, and times when he has seemed like a visitor from another planet. Once, he told the Detroit News that he thought of himself as The Congressman From the Planet Earth.” There are worse things to be.
Personally, I always think of him as the world’s most elegant old street fighter, one who is usually on the side of the angels. And who has been making a difference for an amazingly long time.
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