“Wow.” “Why?” “That is so bad.” “That is terrible.” “Why?” “That is so sad.”
Those were the distraught reactions in the room full of African-American leaders one week ago, when House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi announced that Eric Holder was stepping down as U.S. attorney general after six years in the job.
The palpable sense of sorrow is rooted in their belief that the country’s first black attorney general, despite his imperfections, was looking out for African-Americans when other institutions had shunned their community.
“We have lost faith in the Supreme Court. We have lost faith in local law enforcement. We have lost faith in the fact that our leaders — political leaders in particular, Congress and others — have our best interests at heart. But the one person that we knew did was the attorney general,” Rep. Marcia Fudge, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told TPM in an interview.
Fudge, a Democrat serving in the House since 2008, represents a majority-black urban district in Ohio that stretches from Cleveland to Akron. African-Americans see Holder as someone who “really has stood in the gap when so many others have failed,” she said, citing his responses to the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act and the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson. “And so there was a great deal of hope and promise in his leading of the department because we always knew we’d get a fair shot.”
Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, speaks at a rally to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 24, 2013, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Cornell W. Brooks, the president of the NAACP, told TPM the black community feels a rare and “almost personal” sense of loss, and that Holder has made them “extraordinarily proud.”
“When you juxtapose a series of public institutions that have failed African-Americans in particular, and the public more broadly, and you have a public servant who — imperfectly, but well — fulfills his obligations to the country, it stands out,” Brooks said. “People have favorite presidents. They may have a favorite congressperson or senator. But I’m not sure how common it is to have a favorite attorney general.”
Holder’s legacy will span from his crackdown on restrictive voting laws to his pioneering efforts to ensure low-income defendants have lawyers to choosing not to challenge states’ legal marijuana pushes. He’ll also be remembered for his direct rhetoric, starting with his Feb. 2009 speech saying the United States had been a “nation of cowards” when it comes to confronting racial inequities. That was the start of a deeply uneasy — if not outright hostile — relationship with conservatives, which has deteriorated over his tenure.
“It reminds me of the reconciliation process that went on in South Africa after apartheid. There was a need to discuss the issues, as painful as it was, and move on as a nation together,” Hilary O. Shelton, the director of NAACP’s Washington bureau. “I’ve always gotten that from [Holder].”
Shelton has known Holder since he served as assistant AG in the Clinton administration. “He has a great sense of humor,” Shelton said, recalling one conversation they had early in his tenure as AG. “We were talking one day about getting settled into the job, and he says, ‘It’s an amazing thing just trying to keep your composure and sense of humanity about you when I start every morning with an 8 or 8:30 [National Security] briefing on everybody that tried to kill us the night before! Sometimes it takes a minute to adjust and keep your faith in humanity.'”
United States Attorney General Eric Holder, left, shares a moment with Cong. John Lewis, (D-Ga.) in Selma, Ala., Sunday, March 8, 2009, on the 44th anniversary of the Voting Rights March. (AP Photo/ Kevin Glackmeyer)
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who was on the front lines of the civil rights movement in the 1950s, said in a statement that Holder’s resignation “a great loss for any American seeking justice in our society. He became the symbol of fairness, an embodiment of the best in the federal government.” Al Sharpton, a civil rights activist and MSNBC host, called Holder “the best Attorney General this nation has ever had in the area of civil rights and voting rights.”
Holder has faced his share of criticism from progressives, too, over issues like the ongoing militarization of local police departments under his watch, and for aggressively cracking down on whistleblowers within the Obama administration.
But overall, “he will be sorely missed,” Shelton said. Fudge, the black caucus chair, said the African-American community wants a successor built in Holder’s image.
“We all know it’s a great loss,” she said. “We are only hopeful and prayerful that the person who replaces him will have the same belief system, will have the same strength and courage, and the same ability to say what he thinks.”
For African-Americans, losing Holder feels like losing a “beloved colleague,” Brooks said. “I’ve seldom seen anything like it.”
Yes, Holder was a champion of civil and voting rights, but he was lousy on National Security.
The idea that terrorists should be tried in a civilian court with Constitutional rights is frankly ludicrous.
I’ve had the sense that most people could give a fuck about Black people and their concerns and when Holder stepped up regarding civil and voting rights, it rubbed a lot of people - who aren’t really affected by those issues - the wrong way
Holder was fantastic on making sure voting laws were followed. He was great on Equal Rights. I also applaud him on trying terrorists in civilian court. We’ve had some successes with that, despite many on the right getting their panties in a bunch.
I understand the Black Caucus and other leaders in the community being alarmed at Holder’s resignation. It really is a loss because I don’t see any other person putting their necks out the way he did. Bravo to him.
That seemed to work just fine with Timothy McVeigh and Ramzi Yousef.
Yeah, keep rewriting history all you want but Holder was a major fail for people of all colors.
May 20 2013 Colorlines.com
"Homeowners and former homeowners rallied in front of the Department of Justice Monday to demand the Attorney General Eric Holder hold banks accountable for foreclosures. The groups are asking the Department of Justice to prosecute banks and to protect the 13 million homeowners who struggle today with underwater mortgages.
The groups organizing the protest, the Home Defenders League and Occupy Homes, are pushing for aggressive prosecutions of banks responsible for the foreclosures. They’re also demanding the government act to reset underwater mortgages that now threaten millions more families with foreclosure.
But these demands appear to be a long shot. The protest comes several months after Attorney General Eric Holder said that some banks may too big to prosecute.
“I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them,” Holder said in March.
Black and Latino families have been hit the hardest by the foreclosure losses. As Colorlines.com’s Imara Jones wrote last week about a new report released by The Alliance for a Just Society:
Despite recent headlines trumpeting a return of America’s real estate market to its boom-time highs, a report released today by the Alliance for a Just Society shows how little of that has trickled into communities of color. The document, entitled “Wasted Wealth,” is a sobering reminder of the gap between top-line economic cheerleading and the reality of what’s happening on the ground.
As “Wasted Wealth” lays out, close to 2.5 million families lost homes in just three years. Communities that were majority people of color saw foreclosures take place at almost twice the rate as white communities, with an average loss of wealth 30 percent higher per household.
This foreclosure tidal wave is why wealth for blacks and Latinos is at the lowest level ever recorded. Housing is the leading wealth asset for these two communities.
Funny, the banksters who crashed the world’s economy said the same thing.
And even funnier, because the lack of prosecutions and plea deals exacted not on the perpetrators but on the shareholders, right wing media is able to perpetuate the lie that it was the government forcing banks to loan money to irresponsible black people who couldn’t afford their mortgages that caused the crash.