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“Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?” Reverend Oberia Dempsey and His Citizens War on Drugs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2014

Michael Javen Fortner
Michael Javen Fortner*
Affiliation:
Murphy Institute, City University of New York
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Journal of Policy History , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 118 - 156
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Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

I am grateful to Michael Durfee, Jennifer Hochschild, Lawrence Mead, Eric Schneider, Vesla M. Weaver, Mabel Wilson, and Stephan Wolff for very helpful comments on earlier drafts or in response to queries. I would also like to thank Jason R. Rivera, Ashley Nickels, Daniel Stapelkamp, and Zachary Wood for excellent research assistance.

References

NOTES

1. “Memo from Jerry A. Danzig to Staff,” 15 March 1973, Box 33, Series 21.2, Rockefeller Gubernatorial Records, Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. (hereafter Rockefeller Archive Center).

2. Rockefeller, Nelson A., Public Papers of Nelson A. Rockefeller, Fifty-Third Governor of the State of New York (Albany, 1973), 650.Google Scholar

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16. Ibid., 196.

17. For example, Andrew Wiese offers a trenchant study of middle-class black politics within the context of postwar suburban America. Wiese, Andrew, Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth Century (Chicago, 2005)Google Scholar.

18. John Pratt, Penal Populism (New York, 2007), 12.

19. Pierson, Paul, “The Study of Policy Development,” Journal of Policy History 17, no. 1 (2005): 34–51; 42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Ibid., 40.

21. Fortner, Michael Javen, “The Carceral State and the Crucible of Black Politics: An Urban History of the Rockefeller Drug Laws,” Studies in American Political Development 27, no. 1 (2013): 14–35Google Scholar; Vanessa Barker, The Politics of Imprisonment: How the Democratic Process Shapes the Way America Punishes Offenders (Oxford, 2009); Robert Gangi, “The Rockefeller Drug Laws,” in Racializing Justice, Disenfranchising Lives, ed. Manning Marable, Ian Steinberg, and Keesha Middlemass (New York, 2007); Kohler-Hausman, Julilly, “The Attila the Hun Law”: New York’s Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Making of a Punitive State, Journal of Social History 44, no. 1 (2010): 71–95;Google ScholarNeptune, Jessica, “The Rockefeller Drug Laws and Punitive Politics,” Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 26, no. 2 (2012): 170–91.Google Scholar

Eric Schneider does an excellent job of tracing the structural foundations of addiction in New York and exploring how this structural context shaped the politics of addiction and drug policy development. Schneider, however, does not pay sufficient attention to how African Americans framed and negotiated addiction and its structural origins. See Eric C. Schneider, Smack: Heroin and the American City (Philadelphia, 2008).

22. Walter, John C. and Raymond Jones, J., The Harlem Fox: J. Raymond Jones and Tammany, 1920–1970 (Albany, N.Y., 1989).Google Scholar

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24. Kevin McGruder, Abyssinian Archives and History Ministry, e-mail message to author, 23 January 2012.

25. Hamilton, Charles V., The Black Preacher in America (New York, 1972).Google Scholar

26. Oberia Dempsey Jr., e-mail message to author, 9 August 2012; “The Last Rites of Rev. Oberia David Dempsey,” The Abyssinian Baptist Church Archives, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Collection; George Todd, “O. D. Dempsey, 67, Pistol Packin’ Pastor,” Amsterdam News, 9 October 1982; Alfred E. Clark, “Rev. Oberia Dempsey Is Dead,” New York Times, 4 October 1982.

27. Wayne Phillips, “Powell Aide Runs for Council Post,” New York Times, 5 March 1961.

28. Lemann, Nicholas, The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America (New York, 1991);Google Scholar Wilkerson, Isabel, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (New York, 2010).Google Scholar

29. Oberia Dempsey Jr., e-mail message to author, 9 August 2012.

30. Ibid.

31. Quoted in Hamilton, Black Preacher, 191.

32. Mettler, Suzanne, Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (Oxford, 2005).Google Scholar

33. “Asst. Pastor Invested at Mt. Lebanon,” Amsterdam News, 14 November 1953, 19; Letter to J. H. Jackson, 23 June 1958, The Martin Luther King Papers Project; Taylor, Clarence, The Black Churches of Brooklyn (New York, 1994).Google Scholar

34. “O. D. Dempsey,” Part 3, Youth File, 1956–65, Box 3, Folder E54, Speakers, General, 1956–60, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People records, 1842–1999, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. (hereafter NAACP records).

35. “‘Give Until It Hurts Plea’ of Concord Men,” New Journal and Guide, 22 November 1952, 5.

36. Quoted in Hamilton, Black Preacher, 191.

37. “Rev. Dempsey Will Serve at Abyssinia Baptist,” Atlanta Daily World, 9 October 1955, 5.

38. “Sweeps Winner,” Amsterdam News,” 6 November 1954, 21.

39. “House-To-House Drive Planned on Delinquency,” New Journal and Guide, 20 November 1954, 11.

40. “Rev. Dempsey Gets New Post at Abyssinia,” New Journal and Guide, 15 October 1955, 21.

41. Daniels, Lee A., “The Political Career of Adam Clayton Powell,” Journal of Black Studies 4, no. 2 (1973): 115–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

42. “Rev. Dempsey On Vacation,” Amsterdam News, 22 November 1958, 25; “Peck, Beaten ‘Rider’ at Abyssinian,” Amsterdam News, 10 June 1961, 25.

43. “Abyssinian Appoints Dempsey to Position,” Amsterdam News, 5 January 1957, 20.

44. Sara Slack, “Community Centers,” Amsterdam News, 13 February 1960, 6; “50 Puerto Rican Kids at Church Center,” Amsterdam News, 10 October 1959, 24.

45. City-wide Citizens’ Committee on Harlem, “Report of the Sub-Committee on Crime and Delinquency of the City-Wide Citizens’ Committee on Harlem” (New York, 1942).

46. Ibid., 9.

47. Ibid., 1.

48. Ibid.

49. Cooperating Council of Agencies Serving Negro Youth, “What Makes Johnny Bad? A Statement on Juvenile Delinquency among Negroes in Philadelphia,” Special Collections, Stanford University, Palo Alto.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. U.S. House, Committee on Ways and Means, Traffic in, and Control of, Narcotics, Barbiturates, and Amphetamines: Hearings, November 7, 1955, January 30, 1956, 480.

53. Biondi, Martha, To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City (Cambridge, Mass., 2003), 272.Google Scholar

54. Ibid.

55. “Youth Crusade ‘for Christ’ at Abyssinian,” Amsterdam News, 18 January 1958, 21.

56. “Launch Crusade On Foul Mouth Hoodlums,” Amsterdam News, 28 November 1959, 5.

57. “‘Mayor’ Will Help Church,” Amsterdam News, 30 January 1960, 21.

58. “Here’s How Delinquency Can Be Curbed,” Chicago Defender, 20 November 1961, 9.

59. “Powell Will Open Dempsey’s New Church,” Amsterdam New, 18 November 1961, 3.

60. Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 186.

61. Kenneth Clark, Dark Ghetto Dilemmas of Social Power (New York, 1967).

62. HARYOU, Youth in the Ghetto; A Study of the Consequences of Powerlessness and a Blueprint for Change (New York, 1964); Helpern, Milton and Rho, Yong-Myun, “Deaths from Narcotism in New York City: Incidence, Circumstances, and Postmortem Findings,” New York State Journal of Medicine 66, no. 18 (1966): 198;Google ScholarU.S. Senate, “Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics,” Hearings Before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations, 1964, 760.Google Scholar

63. “Leads Citizens War on Drugs,” Amsterdam News, 20 June 1970.

64. P.H.M., “Rev. Dempsey,” Amsterdam News, 9 December 1967, 8.

65. “Narcotics Meet Fri,” Amsterdam News, 5 October 1963, 9; Les Matthews, “Who Is Responsible for Harlem’s Crime?” Amsterdam News, 15 February 1964, 44.

66. “Mayor Reviews Harlem Call for Dope Probe,” Amsterdam News, 2 May 1964, 22; Dempsey Gratified in His Anti-Dope Drive,” Amsterdam News, 1 September 1962.

67. “Dempsey Gratified in His Anti-Dope Drive,” Amsterdam News, 1 September 1962.

68. “Dope Report Points Up Harlem Peddling,” Amsterdam News, 17 August 1963, 19; “Narcotics Expose Hits Schools, Legislation,” Amsterdam News, 13 March 1965, 32.

69. Amsterdam News, 2 November 1968, 10.

70. “9 Arrested,” Amsterdam News, 26 May 1962, 4.

71. “Promises to Name Names at Harlem Crime Rally,” Amsterdam News, 9 June 1962, 8; “250 Youngsters March on Crime,” New York Times, 24 June 1962, 48.

72. “Street Corner Meeting to Fight Dope,” Amsterdam News, 25 May 1963, 24.

73. “Anti-Dope Pickets to Return,” Amsterdam News, 15 June 1963, 46.

74. “Pastor Leads Cops to Narcotics Nest,” Amsterdam News, 30 March 1963, 4.

75. “Petition and Resolution,” Series 13682-78, Reel 42, Rockefeller Gubernatorial Papers, First Administration, 1959–62, New York State Archives, Cultural Education Center, Albany.

76. “Paul Screvene Endorsed by Rev. Oberia Dempsey,” 19 August 1965, Box 4, Folder 133, The Council of the City of New York Collection, LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, LaGuardia Community College/CUNY, Long Island City.

77. U.S. Senate, “Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics,” 1354.

78. Ibid.

79. Rev. Oberia D. Dempsey, “Drug Addicts,” Amsterdam News, 1 February 1969, 14.

80. “Churches in Harlem Hurt by Crime,” Baltimore Afro-American, 21 January 1969, 12.

81. Roy Wilkins, “Action Not Words to Fight Dope,” Amsterdam News, 14 February 1970.

82. Three black and one white New York Times reporters conducted the “confidential” interviews in cooperation with the polling firm Kraft, Inc. Using a questionnaire with 43 items, they interviewed 190 black respondents in Manhattan and Brooklyn. “Opinions on 43 Basic Matters Were Sought in 190 Interviews,” New York Times, 27 July 1964, 19. A year later, a firm specializing in market research in black communities conducted a survey of 219 blacks that confirmed the previous findings. Respondents listed the most pressing problem as “job opportunities, control of drug addiction and safety in the streets.” Fred Powledge, “Democrats Favored in Poll Among Negroes Here,” New York Times, 21 July 1965, 34; “Pollsters Say This Is How You Are!” Amsterdam News, 31 July 1965.

83. This was a random sample populated by using “most recent block statistics, pre-listing households and residents.” Kraft hired and trained “residents of the area to do the interviewing in the belief that a respondent living at 119th Street and Lenox Avenue, for example, would ‘unload’ more freely to an interviewer from 121st and Madison; and, in turn, the interviewer might more readily understand and communicate with a respondent from his or her neighborhood, or near neighborhood.” John F. Kraft, Inc., “The Report of a Survey of Attitudes of Harlem Residents Toward Housing, Rehabilitation, and Urban Renewal” (New York, 1966), 34, Box 4: A34, Folder: “Harlem, New York, NY, 1966–1967,” NAACP records.

84. Kraft, “Attitudes of Harlem Residents,” 16.

85. Ibid., 21.

86. John F. Kraft, Inc., “A Report of Attitudes of Negroes in Various Cities,” prepared for the Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization (New York, 1966), 33.

87. Ibid.

88. “Survey Bares Ghetto Tragedies,” Chicago Defender, 6 September 1966, 5.

89. Kraft, “A Report of Attitudes of Negroes.”

90. Ibid.

91. Rainwater, Lee, Behind Ghetto Walls: Black Families in a Federal Slum (Chicago, 1970), 5.Google Scholar

92. Ramirez, Raul, “90 percent in Poll Call D.C. Drug Problem Serious,” Washington Post, 26 July 1973;Google Scholar Field, Mervin D., “1 of 3 Was Victim in 1972,” Los Angeles Times, 23 March 1973, A3;Google Scholar Baker, Erwin, “A Secret L.A. Study: Blacks’ Favorable View of Police Told,” Los Angeles Times, 24 March 1972, C1.Google Scholar

93. Harris and Associates surveyed 1,545 individuals in low- and high-crime areas in Baltimore. Jack Rosenthal, “The Cage of Fear,” Life, 11 July 1969, 16–23. U.S. Congress, “The Improvement and Reform of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice in the United States, Hearings, Pursuant to H. Res. 17,” 91st Cong., 1st sess., 1969, 26–27.

94. Kirk Scharfenberg, “Inner City Residents Prefer ‘Tough’ Police,” Washington Post, 15 March 1972, B1. Stanley Turner, professor of sociology at the University of Delaware, conducted this mail survey of 1,500 over seven months in 1971.

95. “Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics,” 1355.

96. “Dempsey Has Advice for Lindsay Dope Fight,” Amsterdam News, 11 December 1965.

97. Dempsey, “Drug Addicts,” 14.

98. “Dempsey Gratified in His Anti-Dope Drive,” Amsterdam News, 1 September 1962.

99. “Pastor Pans Ban, On Cops’ Guns,” Amsterdam News, 16 December 1967, 23.

100. Halberstam, David, “More Patrolmen Urged in Harlem,” New York Times, 28 December 1966, 23.Google Scholar

101. Matthews, Les, “Harlemites Decry Crime in Streets, Demand Police Act,” Amsterdam News, 5 March 1966, 4.Google Scholar

102. Ibid.

103. Ibid.

104. Ibid.

105. Ibid.

106. NAACP, “Report of the Anti-Crime Committee of the New York Branch, NAACP” (New York, 1969), Box 4: A34, Folder: Harlem, New York, N.Y., 1966–67, NAACP records.

107. Walker served as executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) from 1960 to 1964. Martin T. Arnold, “Ex-Aide to Dr. King Appointed State’s Expert on Urban Negro,” New York Times, 2 March 1976, 38.

108. “Chronology of Campaign Against Teen City,” Series P- Ann C. Whitman, Box 21, Folder 493 Rockefeller Archive Center.

109. Alfonso A. Narvaez, “Narcotics Death Called Homicide,” New York Times, 12 March 1970, 29.

110. Jet magazine, vol. 38, no. 11 (1970), 64.

111. “Chronology of Campaign Against Teen City”; George Dugan, “Harlem Pastor Goes into Street to Ask Drive Against Narcotics,” New York Times, 6 April 1970, 34.

112. “Chronology of Campaign Against Teen City.”

113. “Blacks Declare War on Dope,” Ebony, June 1970, 31–32.

114. Ibid.

115. “DC Dope March Gaining Support,” Amsterdam News, 4 April 1970, 42; Alex Ward, “D.C. Protest Planned April 10 to Dramatize War on Drugs,” Washington Post, 21 March 1970; Les Matthews, “War Declared on Narcotics Problem,” Amsterdam News, 28 February 1970, 3.

116. Madden, Richard L., “Marchers Urge U.S. Act on Drugs,” New York Times, 11 April 1970, 12.Google Scholar

117. “Plan Rally Against Narcotics,” Amsterdam News, 25 April 1970, 3.

118. Madden, “Marchers Urge U.S. Act on Drugs.”

119. Jet magazine, 20 April 1970, 13.

120. “Witness for the Prosecution,” Daily News, 24 January 1973.

121. “A Live Broadcast on WCBS/TV,” 25 February 1973, Series 21.2, Box 33, Folder 350, Rockefeller Archive Center.

122. Cliness, Francis X., “Harlem Leaders Back Life Terms for Drug Sale,” New York Times, 23 January 1973, 43.Google Scholar

123. Rockefeller, Public Papers of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 656.

124. Ibid., 654.

125. Ibid., 658.

126. Ibid.

127. Cliness, “Harlem Leaders Back Life Terms for Drug Sale.”

128. “Memo from Evelyn Cunningham to the Governor,” 19 January 1973, Series 21.2, Folder 354, Box 34, Rockefeller Archive Center.

129. Gerald Frasher, C., “Harlem Response Mixed,” New York Times, 5 January 1973, 1.Google Scholar

130. This was a random survey of 1,341 conducted in November 1973—after the Rockefeller drug laws had been litigated in the media and debated in the legislature.

131. “Opinion Poll for Mayor,” Amsterdam News, 10 February 1973; Selwyn Raab, “Crime Rate Down in Perilous Areas, Up in Rest of City,” New York Times, 2 December 1974, 69; Maurice Carroll, “After Crime, Big Issues Are Prices and Fares,” New York Times, 17 January 1974, 36.

132. Hamilton, Charles V., “The Patron-Recipient Relationship and Minority Politics in New York City,” Political Science Quarterly 94, no. 2 (Summer 1979): 211–27;Google Scholar Cohen, Cathy J., The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics (Chicago, 1999).Google Scholar

133. “Meeting with Ad Hoc Committee to Discuss Problems of Negro Community,” 26 November 1965, Series 34.06, Diane Van Wie, Box 60, Folder 1722, Rockefeller Archive Center.

134. “Memo from Al Marshall to Wyatt Walker,” 4 April 1966, Series 34.04, Diane Van Wie, Box 43, Folder 1180, Rockefeller Archive Center.

135. Hamilton, The Black Preacher, 212.

136. U.S. Senate, “Alcoholism and Narcotics,” Hearings Before the Special Subcommittee on Alcoholism and Narcotics of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, 91st Cong., 1st and 2nd sess., 1970, 684.

137. “Memo from Hugh Morrow to the Governor,” 6 August 1973, Series 33.1, Box 33, Folder 347, Rockefeller Archive Center.

138. Jet magazine, 13 December 1973, 38.

139. “Memo from Reverend O. D. Dempsey to Mr. Paul Screvane,” 23 July 1964, Box 20, Folder 384, The Council of the City of New York Collection, LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, LaGuardia Community College/CUNY, Long Island City.

140. Julilly Kohler-Hausman, “The Attila the Hun Law,” 74 (emphasis in original).

141. See the following for a discussion of the causal origins of black civic engagement: Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, Kay Lehman, Brady, Henry, and Nie, Norman H., “Race, Ethnicity and Political Resources: Participation in the United States,” British Journal of Political Science 23, no. 4 (1993): 453–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

142. “Minutes: Meeting on Narcotics Control Legislation,” Box 46, “Meeting Oct. 6, 1961 N.Y.C,” M. E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, University at Albany, SUNY, Albany; New York Times, 28 March 1962, 12; “Budget Report on Bills,” in New York Legislative Service, Governor’s Bill Jacket: 1962 Chapter 204 (New York Legislative Service, 1962).

143. New York State, “1965 Report of the Senate Committee on Mental Hygiene on the Problem of Narcotics Addiction and Treatment to the Legislature of the State of New York” (Albany, 1965); WABC, Decision at Albany, transcript, 20 February 1965, Committee Records, 1965, Mental Hygiene Committee, New York State Archives, Cultural Education Center, Albany; New York State, “Report of the State of New York Joint Legislative Committee on Narcotic and Drug Addiction” (Albany, 1966); New York State, “Drug Abuse Prevention: Report of the Temporary State Commission to Evaluate the Drug Laws” (Albany, 1974).

144. New York State, “Report of the New York State Joint Legislative Committee on Crime, Its Causes, Control, and Effect on Society” (Albany, 1969).

145. Wilson, When Work Disappears; Robert J. Sampson and William Julius Wilson, “Toward a Theory of Race, Crime, and Urban Inequality,” in Crime and Inequality, ed. John Hagan and Ruth D. Peterson (Stanford, 1995); Jeremy Travis, Bruce Western, and F. Stevens Redburn, The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences (Washington, D.C., 2014).

146. Jet magazine, 12 December 1974, 40.

147. Delaney, Paul, “Blacks, in Shift, Organize to Combat Rise in Crime: A Grass Roots Flavor Crusade Begun by Mayor,” New York Times, 13 November 1974, 22.Google Scholar

148. Hunter, Charlayne, “Blacks Are Developing Programs to Fight Crime in Communities,” New York Times, 23 February 1976, 14.Google Scholar

149. Ibid.

150. Hunter, Charlayne, “Blacks Organizing in Cities to Combat Crimes by Blacks,” New York Times, 22 February 1976, 1.Google Scholar

151. Ibid.

152. Snyder, Don, “Senior Citizen Passes Out Auto Stickers,” Los Angeles Times, 5 October 1969, SG7.Google Scholar

153. “Fight on Crime in Watts Uses Bumper Stickers,” New York Times, 24 August 1969, 73.

154. Fox, Jack V., “Too Many Fears Paralyze Black Action,” Chicago Defender, 19 January 1974, 16.Google Scholar

155. Rieder, Jonathan, Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn Against Liberalism (Cambridge, 1985);Google Scholar Sugrue, Thomas J., The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton, 1996);Google Scholar Kruse, Kevin, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Princeton, 2005);Google Scholar Self, Robert O., American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland (Princeton, 2003).Google Scholar

156. Davis, Mike, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (London, 1990), 291.Google Scholar

157. Todd, “O. D. Dempsey”; “Rev. Oberia Dempsey.”

158. Todd, “O. D. Dempsey.”

159. Ibid.

160. “The Last Rites of Rev. Oberia David Dempsey,” Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Collection, Abyssinian Baptist Church Archives, New York.

161. Psalms 27:1–3 (KJV).

162. Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, “Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?” YouTube video, 2:51, posted by “Alphonse Débarras,” 11 June 2011, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHlA9xHQz4s.

163. “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” was the first hymn sung at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral. The song begins,

When I survey the wondrous cross

on which the Prince of Glory died

my richest gain I count but loss,

and pour contempt on all my pride

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast

save in the death of Christ, my God

all the vain things that charm me most

I sacrifice them to his blood.

“Obsequies: Martin Luther King, Jr.” Tuesday, 9 April 1968, 10:30 a.m., Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta.

164. Wilson, The Declining Significance of Race, 1.

165. Michael C. Dawson, Behind the Mule: Race and Class in African-American Politics (Princeton, 1994).