Monday, March 06, 2000
Democrats love Evanston, and vice versa
Williams shows one person can make difference
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
If someone in Evanston doesn't vote Tuesday in Ohio's presidential primary, it won't be Pinkie L. Williams' fault.
By then, the 65-year-old Evanston resident will have chased down, cajoled, nagged and, some cases, shamed a good portion of the inner-city neighborhood's nearly 7,000 registered voters into doing what Mrs. Williams considers a ritual almost as sacred as her Sunday morning trip to church — going to the polls to vote.
“This means a lot,” Mrs. Williams said, standing in front of the tall frame house on Potter Place that she and her husband have called home for 37 years, where her children were raised and, now, where her grandchildren come for a weekend away from college.
“Whether you're electing a president, a city council, or whatever,” she said. “It matters.”
It should matter most, Mrs. Williams believes, to people in a neighborhood such as Evanston, where crime is a constant and the people who care most about the neighborhood fight a nonstop battle against poverty and urban decay.
The site of Mrs. Williams' first home in Evanston lies in what is now the median strip of Interstate 71, the asphalt behemoth that cut through the neighborhood in the late 1950s and set off its decline. Saturday, under a bright blue sky, Mrs. Williams walked down Brewster Avenue a few blocks from her home and pointed to where that home used to be.
“That's why Evanston is the way it is,” Mrs. Williams said.
As she walked, she ran into an old friend, Sharon Wallace-Perry, who was about to go shopping.
“Sharon, I know you're going to vote,” Mrs. Williams said. “I don't have to worry about that.”
Yes, Mrs. Wallace-Perry said, she will vote and she will do what Mrs. Williams and most voters in Evanston do — take a Democratic ballot.
“George W. Bush doesn't impress me; John McCain doesn't impress me,” said Mrs. Wallace-Perry, an Evanston resident for nearly 30 years. “I'll vote for (Al) Gore because he does impress me. He seems to me like somebody who will try to help people.”
Evanston is almost entirely African-American. For generations, it has been a Cincinnati community that aspiring black Democratic politicians have courted to build a political base.
In presidential elections, it yields astronomical numbers for Democrats — Bill Clinton won 77 percent of the vote here in 1992 and 82 percent four years ago.
Saturday, Mrs. Williams walked with visitors along the business district of Montgomery Road, pointing to places where she and other activists hounded City Hall until they got action: clearing a vacant lot, picking up litter, sweeping broken glass or dealing with dangerous intersections.
Mrs. Williams ducked into Perkins Lounge at Montgomery Road and Clarion Avenue — not a place she often goes, but she knows the owner and, on this day, she wants to see who is registered and ready to vote.
Customer Joseph Railey, 71, told Mrs. Williams he absolutely will vote; he calls himself a “political junkie” who watches the cable news shows and reads everything about politics he can.
“I'll vote for Gore because I believe he will do the most good for people, especially when it comes to issues like education in the inner city,” Mr. Railey said.
He has no use for Republican candidates who try to tie the vice president to the marital infidelities and impeachment of Mr. Clinton, a president Mr. Railey says has “been good for the people.”
While most of the people Mrs. Williams knows in Evanston are Democrats, she has Republican friends.
One is William Monroe, a retired Ford Motor Co. worker, who lives in a house he built on Fernside Place 45 years ago. He votes Republican; his wife, Lula, is a Democrat. “We cancel each other out,” he said.
Tuesday, Mr. Monroe said, he will vote for Mr. McCain in the GOP primary.
“I don't care much for that man,” Mr. Monroe said of Mr. Bush, the Texas governor. “He doesn't seem serious enough to be president.”
As a Republican in Evanston, he said, he knows that he is in “a really small minority.”
But he votes, and that puts him right in Mrs. Williams' book.
Back at her Potter Place home, Mrs. Williams stood on the porch and recalled her start in politics nearly 40 years ago.
“I felt like I had to do something with my life, so I decided politics was it,” Mrs. Williams said. “People told me, "You can't do that; they won't let you make a difference.' The politicians and downtown people, that is.
“I showed them they were wrong,” Mrs. Williams said. “One person can make a difference.”
As Mrs. Williams talked, 20-year-old granddaughter Diamond Hicks walked over from her nearby home. Voting and an interest in politics were something she learned from her grandmother.
“Sure, I vote,” Ms. Hicks said. “That's how Grandma taught us.”
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