U.S. civil rights movement wouldn’t have been the same without this former Pasco leader

Arthur Allen Fletcher was the most important civil rights leader you’ve probably never heard of.

The first Black player for the Baltimore Colts, father of affirmative action and adviser to four presidents, he coined the United Negro College Fund’s motto: “A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste.” Elected to the Pasco City Council in 1967 after leading a War on Poverty initiative in East Pasco, he lost a tight race for lieutenant governor the following year, but won the Republican primary in every county.

His life represents the triumph, tragedy and conundrum of the postwar Black Republican. In 1946, when he returned home to Kansas after World War II, the Republican Party was “the Party of Lincoln.” Its 1960 presidential platform was stronger on civil rights than that of the Democrats. But Nixon’s Southern Strategy steadily alienated Black voters even as candidates like Ronald Reagan used coded racist language to appeal to white Southerners and the northern White working class. Whereas Fletcher could triumphantly implement affirmative action during the early Nixon administration, his ability to promote civil rights policy tragically eroded in the following decades.

Today, African-Americans who are right-of-center on issues other than race relations face a quandary: support the Democrats with whom they agree on civil rights or stick with a Republican Party from which they have become alienated. As a smart, principled, civil rights Republican, Fletcher’s story represents the great “might have been” of the Grand Old Party.

As assistant secretary of labor in the Nixon administration, Fletcher implemented the “Philadelphia Plan,” the first national affirmative action initiative. He later served as chairman of the Civil Rights Commission in the first Bush administration.

His life story reads as a corollary to the major events of the second half of the century: He was wounded during World War II in Europe and advised the legal team for the Brown v. Board of Education case. He had a tumultuous race for lieutenant governor of Washington as part of Dan Evans“ ’Action Team”. Later, he shouted down the Soviet representative to the United Nations; took on Marion Barry in the first open election for mayor of Washington, D.C.; and steered the federal response to the Rodney King uprising.

Remarkably, his most important accomplishments came after being blackballed from Kansas politics in 1958 and the subsequent suicide of his first wife. Although punctuated by tragedy, Arthur Fletcher lived a life of inspiration.

In celebration of Black History Month, the Columbia Basin Badger Club is proud to present a forum, “Art Fletcher: Father of Affirmative Action” on Feb. 17, at noon via Zoom. The speakers will be David Hamilton Golland, Fletcher’s biographer; Sam Reed, former Washington secretary of state; and Nat Jackson, who continued the work of the Pasco self-help community action group that Fletcher started.

Attendees can write in questions to the speakers during the Zoom session and talk directly with them afterward in the club’s “Table Talk” half-hour open mic session for those who view the forum. There is no charge for Badger Club members. Non-members pay $5. Register at www.columbiabasinbadgers.com.

This story was originally published February 14, 2022 at 5:18 PM.