[Dialogue] Bishop Spong reflects and advises

[kroegerd@aol.com]

June 8, 2005
Robert R. Merhige, Jr., Modern Hero 

Earlier this year, The New York Times carried an obituary notice for Robert R. Merhige, Jr., a retired Federal District Judge in Richmond, Virginia. The story opened a flood of memories for me, for I was a citizen of Richmond for eight years and I knew this man both professionally and personally. He stood at the apex of the struggle in Virginia over desegregation and was in fact the person who made the word "bussing" one of the South's major profanities. I could not let his death pass unnoticed. 
Judge Merhige was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a Lebanese dentist. His basketball ability won him a scholarship to High Point College in North Carolina, and that turned the orbit of his life toward the South. He got his Law Degree from the University of Richmond in 1942 and went immediately into the Army Air Force where, during World War II, he won the Air Medal with four oak leaf clusters. At the war's end, he entered private practice in Richmond, achieving quite quickly a formidable reputation as an effective trial lawyer. Active in statewide politics, he became co-chairman of Lyndon Johnson's successful presidential campaign in Virginia in 1964, the last time the national Democratic ticket carried this state. In1967, upon the recommendation of Virginia's two Democratic senators, Harry F. Byrd, Jr., and William B. Spong Jr., he was appointed to the Federal bench. Those were tumultuous days in America's history and Judge Merhige was destined to stand in the center of that tumult in Virginia. 
In 1970 he ordered the University of Virginia, heretofore an all male institution, to admit female students. The old "Cavaliers" winced, but two of my daughters, who are today alumnae of that institution, were the direct beneficiaries of that decision. 
However, the ultimate issue for which his name would become a household word that reeked with hostility did not come until 1972, 18 years after the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown versus the Board of Education decision, which outlawed segregation. Virginia, led by its conservative but still Democratic "Byrd Machine," greeted that decision with a cry of "massive resistance to the law of the land." The state closed the public schools in Prince Edward County preferring public ignorance to desegregation. When that failed, the state's political leadership adopted the strategy of containing integration in its urban areas by refusing to allow cities the right to expand their boundaries through annexation. With the physical limits of the cities of Virginia set inside firm boundaries, the effect was to cordon off the increasingly black urban areas from the increasingly white suburbs. In this way 'tolerable' limits on integration could be set. With schools still being financed through local property taxes, the loss of urban wealth meant that city schools became gradually poorer while the suburban schools became increasingly affluent. The intent of Brown vs. the Board of Education was thus thwarted and racially separate, and financially unequal schools became the de facto law in the capital of the old Confederacy. In a suit challenging this pattern Judge Merhige ruled that the only way this situation could be equitably resolved was to merge the suburban and urban school districts, to achieve reasonable equality and racial balance in all schools in the area. He further ordered that this be accomplished by means of bussing. White Virginians exploded in rage. No one seemed to notice that black children had been bussed for years to prevent them from attending all white schools in their own neighborhoods. Prejudice is never rational. Judge Merhige was the object of enormous public abuse. His dog was shot. A guest cottage on his property was set on fire. Death threats were constant. Federal marshals were assigned to his person and to his home around the clock. My wife and I were invited to dinner with the Merhiges during this time and no guest entered his home without full body searches. In Richmond's social life Bob Merhige became the ultimate pariah. 
The political landscape of Virginia at that time was in enormous flux. In 1969, by virtue of a split in the Democratic Party, Virginia had actually elected a Republican governor, Linwood Holton, from Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Republican governors since Reconstruction were rare in a state that listed among its chief executives both Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. The majority of the Democratic Party was made up of the old time States Rights "Byrd Democrats" who vigorously opposed equality for black people and equal opportunity for women. They favored segregation, poll taxes and the union busting 'Right to Work' laws. The other Democratic wing, that brought about the split, consisted of those who wanted to identify with the national Democratic Party, augmented by the newly enfranchised black voters, a small but well organized labor vote and a sampling of intellectuals located in university towns. Since there was little room on the conservative side of the States Rights Democrats, the Republicans represented a moderate strand of political sentiment. These tensions would be solved by 1972 when the conservative States Rights Democrats took over the Republican Party, making conservative Republicans the majority voice in Virginia from that day to this. Led by Virginia, the once solid Democratic South was now on its way to being the solid Republican South that we know today. In this brief window of time, however, the moderate Republicans of Virginia had a moment in the sun and they captured the governorship. 
Linwood Holton was a man with both keen intelligence and a progressive spirit. It would not have occurred to him to seek political capital in race baiting activities. Since the governor's mansion was in downtown Richmond, his three children would be in an urban, predominantly black school district. The Virginia gentry were certain he would opt for some private school arrangement. To their dismay he did not. That meant to many voters that the Governor was not opposed to integration so white hostility now began to flow in his direction. 
With the Governor unwilling to voice Virginia's racial fears, a political vacuum was created that was soon filled by a race baiting member of the Richmond City Council named Howard Carwile. At pubic rallies to protest the Merhige bussing order, Carvile became the bigoted star, his rhetoric more and more prone to inciting violence. In a rally at the State Capital, Carwile reached what I believed was the height of political irresponsibility by calling for "euthanasia for Governor Holton." His words, spoken at a Thursday noon rally, were reported on the evening television news. I could not believe that the debate had descended to this level and was sure that some responsible political, civic or business leader in Richmond would rebuke this political hack. But Friday and Saturday passed with not a word of disapproval being offered from any source. Racism is so subtle and so deep that no one seemed to think that a public call by an elected member of the city government for the mercy killing of our Governor was worth condemning. Unable to tolerate this silence of acquiescence, I called the governor's press officer on Saturday night to inform him that I planned to address the Carwile affair at my church on Sunday morning. He was pleased and guaranteed that the state press would be present. He further urged me to have my statement available in writing to be handed out so that I could avoid being misquoted. My condemnation of Mr. Carwile's gross behavior was a front-page story on Monday morning and so was a statement from Mr. Carwile calling me "a pusillanimous preacher who reminds me of embalming fluid." That was when I began to appreciate the public pressure that Judge Merhige was enduring. I discovered that to attack the critic of bussing was to open the floodgates of a racist hostility that bubbled beneath the surface in Virginia in those days. My phone rang off the hook with profane and condemning callers. Hostile mail including specific death threats arrived by the basketful. The Richmond police placed my home under round the clock observation for the next six months. Bob Merhige and I now shared a similar experience. 
In other rulings in his career he strengthened the right of pregnant women to keep their jobs and supported environmental regulations and consumer rights. He wrote the decision that threw out the appeals of Watergate figures, including G. Gordon Liddy, after they were convicted of breaking into the office of Daniel Ellsburg's psychiatrist. He presided over the trials of the KKK and American Nazi Party leaders accused of killing members of the Communist Workers' party in Greensboro, NC, in 1979. He oversaw the Dalkon Shield Claimants Trust that paid out almost three billion dollars to those harmed by the intrauterine device manufactured by the soon to be bankrupt A.H. Robins Drug Company of Richmond. Robert Merhige was a man of character and conviction whose destiny was to occupy a crucial position at a critical time. He absorbed the anger of a deeply prejudiced public and never compromised the principals of law and justice that he was sworn to uphold. He educated and challenged the world in which he lived. When Judge Merhige died, he was "of counsel" at Virginia's most established law firm, Hunton & Williams from which the surprisingly moderate Lewis Powell went to the Supreme Court. Did this Judge make a difference? Well look at the data. Virginia was the first state to elect an African-American, Douglas Wilder, to the governorship. Today Doug Wilder serves as the Mayor of Richmond and Linwood Holton's son in law, now the Lt. Governor, is running for governor as the Democratic nominee. 
Yes, integrity matters and leadership counts. Judge Robert Merhige had both. He knew the difference between doing one's duty and seeking popularity. I admired him greatly. I mourn his loss. I'm glad I knew him. 

-- John Shelby Spong
Note from the Editor: Bishop Spong's new book is available now at bookstores everywhere and by clicking here! 
Question and Answer
With John Shelby Spong
Bob, via the Internet, writes: 
I was born and raised Catholic but for many reasons have shed that belief system. I have been attending a Society of Friends Meetinghouse for over a year and it seems to be the best "fit" so far. I am 60 years old and still on this, at times, overwhelming journey. Two questions are uppermost in my mind. I have not received any answers to which I can ascribe, so I thought that it would be interesting to seek your perspective. First, I am the father of a mentally retarded 22 year-old daughter, who functions at about a 2-3 year old level. Of course, there is the familiar lament, "Who will take care of her once I am gone?" But a bigger question is "why?" What purpose does it serve to have her suffer from day one through what life she has? Is her soul retarded? Second, I know that somewhere in the Bible it states that no man will be given more than he can handle. Well, I also had a 30-year old daughter, who suffered from mental illness and wound up putting a bullet through her head. So what happened to the Biblical guarantee in the case of my daughter? Is it any wonder that God, who appears to allow things like this, should have someone ask, "What is going on here?" Is this my punishment for a selfish and sinful past? 
Dear Bob, 
Thank you for sharing your personal story with me. You have indeed faced both in the past and in the present some difficult moments in your life. 
Both of your questions are related, though at times they might not seem to be. There is a definition of God that underlies everything you say. I do think you must address that before you will ever come to peace. 
First, please dismiss any idea that God is punishing your daughters because of your own "selfish and sinful past." Any God, who would make your daughters suffer in order to punish you is a demon, unworthy of your worship or indeed of your service. 
I understand deeply your concern about who will care for your daughter when you have departed this world. That is why we live in a civilized society. We will bear one another's burdens and society has a kind and gracious face that turns toward those in your daughter's situation. 
No one can explain life's tragedies. That is just the way things are. Our task as agents of the divine is to transform our world, to play the game of life with the hand we are dealt and to make whatever we can of our circumstances. Christianity does not free us from pain or evil, but it does give us the ability to transform them so that life becomes full to the limits available to that life and therefore a blessing to those who are touched by that life. You have my admiration. I trust that you have a number of friends who will help you to live well by walking with you on your journey. God, understood as the Ground of all Being, works within us enabling us to be all that each of us can be. 
--John Shelby Spong 


 




 
Dick Kroeger