Kweisi Mfume

BORN: October 24, 1948 • Baltimore, Maryland

American civil rights activist; politician

Kweisi Mfume, a Maryland Democrat, continued the struggle to achieve civil rights for African Americans in the 1970s, furthering the work of an earlier generation of activists. As an elected official, head of the influential Congressional Black Caucus on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and later president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Mfume has spent much of his career working to ensure political, economic, and social justice for African Americans and other minorities.

"In spite of the increasing rates of poverty, the concerns of the poor exist on the fringes of our nation's political agenda."

Tragedy and trouble

Born Frizzell Gray on October 24, 1948, in Baltimore, Maryland, he later changed his name to Kweisi Mfume. His mother, Mary, worked in an airplane parts factory and married a truck driver named Clifton Gray when Mfume was still an infant. The young Mfume grew up thinking that Gray was his biological father. The family lived in a section of West Baltimore called Turners Station, which had originally been settled by a group of African American shipbuilders early in the nineteenth century.

Mfume suffered from health problems when he was a child, but he loved school and excelled there. He recalled that his parents were enthusiastic observers of the ongoing civil rights movement that began gaining momentum in the late 1950s. Once, Mfume even snuck out of his bedroom one night when he learned that U.S. President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63) was going to speak at a political rally in the neighborhood. As he later wrote in his autobiography No Free Ride: From the Mean Streets to the Mainstream, "It was the first time I saw a president; it stayed with me. There was something about politics that I couldn't put my finger on, except that I knew I was drawn to it."

Mfume's home life fell apart as he entered his teen years. The man he assumed was his father abandoned the family when Mfume was twelve, and then his mother was diagnosed with cancer. When he was sixteen, his mother died in his arms. Later that same night, he was stunned to learn that a longtime family friend was actually his biological father. Grief-stricken, angry, and now responsible for taking care of his younger sisters, Mfume dropped out of school a few weeks later. He spent the next few years living with relatives or friends and working in low-paying and unskilled jobs. Eventually he gave up and quit working. "I was a high school dropout without a single skill in the world," he wrote in his autobiography. "All I knew how to do was push bread through a slicer, shine shoes and shoot dice. I was completely broke most of the time and didn't really have a roof to call my own."

Mfume ran with a tough crowd of similarly disillusioned young men who had grown up with him in and around Turners Station. He had more than one encounter with police. He also fathered five sons by three different women. An unexpected encounter with a local black politician helped set Mfume in a more positive direction. The incident happened on Hankins Corner, a local hangout, and involved Parren Mitchell, who was running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from the West Baltimore district. Mfume jeered at Mitchell from the crowd, telling the black Democrat to get off his "turf." But Mitchell responded with even tougher talk. He told Mfume that he was shameful and discredited his community.

From roughneck to a run for office

That incident and another one, also on the notorious Hankins Corner, changed Mfume's life. In the second revelation, he had a vision of his late mother and suddenly realized he did not want to live his current life any longer. He wound up campaigning for Mitchell and decided to return to school to earn a high school equivalency diploma. After that, he began courses at Baltimore Community College. In 1972 he changed his name to "Kweisi Mfume." The combination was suggested by one of his aunts, who had recently returned from Ghana, a republic in West Africa. In the language of Ghana's Ibo people, the words mean "conquering son of kings."

Interested in communications media, Mfume found a job at a leading black radio station in Baltimore. The station also happened to be owned by rhythm and blues star James Brown (1933–). Mfume started as an unpaid intern, but progressed to news reader and then to full-time disc jockey. The songs he played sometimes had a decidedly political tone. "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," a stirring spoken-word anthem by American musician and writer Gil Scott-Heron (1949–) was a particular favorite of Mfume's. He also invited listeners to share their opinions on political topics. Until that point, the station had no political ambition or direction, but calls came flooding in and Mfume put his listeners on the air. Management gave him his own call-in show, and ratings soared.

In 1976 Mfume graduated with honors from Morgan State University in Baltimore with a degree in urban planning. He went on to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore for a graduate degree, but kept his job as program director for Morgan State's radio station, where he also hosted his own show. On the program, he often criticized the mostly white Baltimore and Maryland Democratic organizations for failing to meet the needs of their black voters. In 1978 he decided to challenge the political establishment on a far more confrontational level when he announced his candidacy for a seat on the Baltimore City Council.

Mfume had always ignored those who told him that he might need to change his African name back to his original one, or tone down his words, when it came to his career ambitions. On one occasion, he listened when a political adviser told him that if he wanted to run for office, he had to stop wearing the dashiki—the loose, brightly colored African tunic-shirts that were popular among African American activists at the time. Mfume began wearing a more conventional suit and tie. He won his Baltimore City Council seat by just three votes.

Elected to the U.S. Congress

In 1986 when Congressman Parren Mitchell retired, Mfume ran for his seat in the U.S. Congress, representing Maryland's Seventh Congressional District in Washington. His political enemies challenged his qualifications for serving on Capitol Hill based on his past. They pointed out that he was a high school dropout whose association with a crowd of unemployed black males might be described as "gang membership." They noted that Mfume had fathered five children but never married any of their mothers. His sons proved to be Mfume's secret campaign weapon, however. They were, by then, well-spoken and accomplished teens. They spoke up to explain that their dad had been a dedicated and involved parent to all of them. For sixteen years, others reminded voters, Mfume had worked two jobs to support the boys.

Mfume won the congressional race by a large margin, and he was sworn into office in January 1987. Many years later, he claimed that the day remained his proudest professional achievement, "because it represented the culmination of a lot of hard work and a lot of belief," he told Richette Haywood in Ebony magazine. He also said that it had special meaning for him "because I knew that it would have been my mother's proudest moment."

Mfume was reelected four more times to two-year terms and never received less than 84 percent of the vote. He had a productive and noteworthy career on Capitol Hill, fighting in a Republican-dominated political climate for passage of laws that were important to the working poor and minorities. In 1993, during his fourth term in Washington, he was elected head of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). The position suddenly made Mfume a figure of national prominence. The CBC worked to support and promote issues of importance to black Americans through federal legislation, and Mfume emerged as its outspoken and no-nonsense new leader. Immediately after taking over, for example, he criticized President Bill Clinton (1946–; served 1993–2001), a fellow Democrat, for withdrawing support for civil-rights scholar Lani Guinier to become assistant attorney general.

Revives NAACP

Some people even predicted that Mfume might hold the influential speaker of the house seat in Congress one day. But he surprised many in early 1996 when he resigned his seat in Congress to become president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). It was a shock to many, for at that time the civil rights organization, founded in 1909, was struggling. It was more than $3 million in debt and had been plagued by corruption and sexual harassment scandals in its executive offices in recent years. Some claimed the organization was a weak remnant of the past and should dissolve itself rather than limp onward with so many internal problems.

Mfume believed the NAACP still had some important work to do, however, and rejected the idea that it had become irrelevant to African Americans. He was not about to let it go under, he told journalist George Packer in an interview for the Nation, because it had a historic legacy and the community owed it to itself to keep it going. "I don't think it's fair to all those people, nameless and faceless, dead and gone, many of whom could not speak the King's English [speaking correct English], didn't have a degree, but who loved the organization sometimes more than they loved themselves," Mfume said.

A year after taking over, Mfume announced that the NAACP had removed its debt thanks to sound financial strategies. Meanwhile, he led the organization's efforts to bring more minority faces to prime-time television, both behind and in front of the camera. Mfume and others had complained about the lack of minorities being represented on the television networks and threatened a boycott if the situation didn't change. He also increased voter-registration efforts. In the fall of 1998, he and others were arrested outside the U.S. Supreme Court in an NAACP protest over the lack of minority law clerks in the building. The Supreme Court clerkships are the most popular and desirable of all internships for law-school graduates. Until then, there had been few African Americans who had worked in that capacity.

Mfume also worked hard to increase membership in the NAACP, especially among the younger generation. A decade after he took over, the number of NAACP branches on college campuses had doubled. Working toward a mix of short-and long-term goals, he contended, was the best plan for the NAACP and its future. Television viewers deserved to see a more accurate representation of their communities, but it was also important that the NAACP be prepared to take on other protests at a later date, whatever they might be. "The vision I have is to empower the next generation economically, educationally and otherwise," he said in the Ebony interview with Haywood, "in such a way that we don't have to worry about whether they will be okay because they will be."

Enters Senate race

Mfume made another surprising career move on November 30, 2004, when he announced that he would be stepping down from the NAACP. His resignation was effective January 1, 2005. In his resignation remarks, Mfume noted that: "Today I prepare to step forward into an America of greater need but also into an America of greater hope…. In order to win the fight against poverty, eliminate discrimination and foster greater tolerance for the persons and things that we find different from ourselves, we are obligated to work together in coalition for the greater good." Later that year, the organization's board of directors chose retired Verizon executive Bruce S. Gordon as its new leader.

In March 2005 Mfume held a press conference and confirmed that he was returning to politics—this time as a candidate for one of Maryland's two U.S. Senate seats in the 2006 race. He hoped to replace Senator Paul Sarbanes (1933–), who planned to retire. If Mfume won, he would be only the fourth African American ever elected to the upper chamber of Congress by popular vote.

On his 2006 campaign Web site, Mfume offered his characteristically blunt criticisms of a Republican-controlled White House and Congress. He noted that before Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of Louisiana, Mississippi, and other areas in the Gulf Coast region, many in Congress as well as President George W. Bush (1946–; served 2001–) did not acknowledge the problem of poverty in the United States.

Citing the millions of people who live in poverty, especially many women and children, he added: "In spite of the increasing rates of poverty, the concerns of the poor exist on the fringes [outer edge] of our nation's political agenda. Too many in Congress shy away from a discussion of the poor. Yet, the pain of poverty cuts across every boundary of race, region and religion."

For More Information

BOOKS

Mfume, Kweisi. No Free Ride: From the Mean Streets to the Mainstream. New York: Ballantine, 1996.

Paterra, Elizabeth M. Kweisi Mfume: Congressman and NAACP Leader. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Publishers, 2001.

PERIODICALS

Borger, Gloria. "Up from the Street Corner." U.S. News & World Report (August 9, 1993): p. 33.

Haywood, Richette. "Can Kweisi Mfume Turn the NAACP Around?" Ebony (January 1997): p. 94.

"NAACP Leader Kweisi Mfume Tells His Inspiring Life Story in Book No Free Ride." Jet (October 14, 1996): p. 10.

Packer, George. "A Tale of Two Movements." Nation (December 14, 1998): p. 19.

Reed, K. Terrell. "NAACP's Mfume Steps Down." Black Enterprise (February 2005): p. 31.

WEB SITES

"Poverty." Mfume for U.S. Senate 2006. http://www.mfumeforsenate.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=65 (accessed on July 5, 2006).

"Resignation Remarks of NAACP President Kweisi Mfume." National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. http://www.naacp.org/news/2004/2004-11-30.html (accessed on July 5, 2006).