There are several approaches to understanding Carl Mack, but maybe the story of how the president of the Seattle-King County branch of the NAACP proposed to his wife best reveals his character.
Mack met Jamiyo Mack (her maiden name) in a crowded room. They talked for two hours. And then he asked her: "If I were in a covered wagon in the old west and built you a log cabin and I was out working in the fields and my mule dropped dead, what would you say to me?"
Hardly your normal cocktail party question. Nor was the answer.
"I'm not strong enough to pull the plow," she replied. "You strap on the plow, and I'll drive."
And so Mack kissed his future wife.
Mack is a man who knows what he wants and goes after it straight as a Roman Road. The mechanical engineer also possesses the qualities of lawyer, poet and preacher, especially when he talks about civil rights.
It was the same clear-eyed determination that found his future wife that prompted Mack to say to himself, after assuming the local NAACP presidency, "We're going to win that award."
Mack meant the Thalheimer Award, the NAACP's top national award for local branches. Mack returned two weeks ago from the NAACP's national convention in Philadelphia proud that he is bringing the award home for the first time in the 90-year history of the Seattle-King County branch. The local branch, headquarterd at 14th and Yesler, was recognized as No. 1 in the Class 1-A Division, which consists of 1,800 branches with more than 1,000 members.
It's a remarkable achievement.
Mack, 42, has been on the job since November 2002, when, in an election landslide, he assumed the presidency of what was essentially a moribund organization. The job, by the way, is non-paid. Mack still works his day job as a mechanical engineer with Metro-King County. Which means the Auburn resident, after putting in his NAACP hours, often arrives home well after midnight.
Mack is driven. He speaks of his role as "servant" to "my people." He acknowledges the wisdom the elders in his organization and the new energy of younger members galvanized by his election. Mack is out to increase membership, which stands at about 1,500, along with visibility, profes-sionalism and economic empowerment. The Thalheimer Award, he says, comes from making progress on those fronts for being "relevant."
"It's about us being active on the issues in the community."
Mack and his organization have certainly been that. He's sown a reputation as confrontational, outspoken and a firebrand.
He was arrested a month before his election for pedestrian interference while leading a downtown demonstration protesting the death of Robert Miller, an African American shot by an off-duty King County deputy sheriff.
His offense? Stepping into the street against the advice of a police officer who, he said, told him it was "immaterial" that the light was green.
"This is what this is really all about," Mack told the press at the time. "The law says that when it comes to black folks, you can beat us, shoot us, kills us and it's always immaterial."
Mack was at the forefront of a lawsuit against the Kent School District for racism, and he spoke out loudly against the Cleveland High School teacher who used the N-word in the classroom to reprimand an African American student for employing, inappropriately, the teacher felt, the word "gay."
"I'm not militant," Mack maintains. "Well, marching on the freeway, that might have been militant," he chuckles.
When Mack, a muscular man with a gentle touch and a quick sense of humor, discusses certain cases his jaw protrudes slightly and the steel comes into his voice.
"We will be relentless in our pursuit of justice," he says. "We are a law abiding, righteous people, but I ain't bowing down to nobody."
'You don't have a plan for success'
Mack was born in Jackson, Miss., in 1962. His mother divorced his alcoholic father when Mack was still young.
"I hated my father on weekends," Mack recalls of his father's drinking bouts.
Mack calls his mother one of the smartest people he's ever known.
"My fire comes from my mom," he says.
In high school Mack experienced a kind of life-changing epiphany, triggered by an older friend he admired.
"What are you going to do when you leave high school?" his friend asked him.
Mack stammered.
"You'll be a failure," his friend told him. "You don't have a plan for success."
So Carl Mack, high school sophomore, started planning his life.
Characteristically, Mack recalls the exact date - Aug. 16, 1990 - when his eyes were opened to the African American experience. His informant happened to be a former judge.
"I felt intimidated that a white man would know more than I did," he says. And just as characteristically, Mack plunged into the subject.
It is that history that has fueled Mack's well-known, zero tolerance for the N-word.
"Every time we say it, we poison ourselves," he says. "We don't know the African American experience. You can't depower that word by using it. There's 400 years of history there."
Mack is a good story teller.
He likes to recall the time he spoke to a group of students at Washington State University. He talked about the N-word. He showed slides from African American history; some were images of lynchings. There were tears in the audience. Mack says he cried, too.
Mack was followed by a black comedian known for his liberal use of the word Mack had just preached against. He said the students eyed him, waiting to see if he would interrupt the comedian's routine. Instead, he bided his time.
The man kept using the N-word. Instead of laughter, though, you could hear a pin drop, Mack says.
"Does somebody have a problem?" the frustrated comedian asked.
Mack, a formidable presence, stood. "You bet," he said.
"The kids erupted with joy," Mack says.
Mack had played out the Emersonian adage: stand your ground and the world will come to your door.
"I will remember that moment for the rest of my life," Mack smiles.
The four corners
of an education
Mack, fresh from the NAACP national convention, believes "This is the most important presidential election in my lifetime."
The convention made national news because Sen. John Kerry spoke to the group and President Bush did not.
"We are on record," Mack notes. "We are non-partisan. We will vote Republican if it's in our interest. He (Bush) refused to talk to us. He prejudged our organization."
Mack is working to get out the vote and is targeting the hip-hop generation.
But, his focus and energies remain local.
One of his cornerstone beliefs is lodged in what he calls a "holistic education," built on four components.
"You must believe in something bigger than you," he says for starters. And the young need cultural training, training for work in the real world and financial literacy training, facets in which the public school system does not excel.
Mack has nothing but praise, on the other hand, for Sound Transit and how African American-owned contractors have been included in the construction process - 6 percent of the initial round of construction contracts by his calculations.
And that is what keeps him going through the long hours of volunteer work.
"I have seen the results," Mack says.
For all the programs, policies and legal pursuits that he must engage in, at the end of the day Mack's mind still gravitates toward people, one life at a time.
He cites the case of a 17-year-old black Spokane youth being racially harassed by a group of young whites. The youth shot one of his harassers in the leg..
Sentenced to 24 years in Walla Walla, the youth was later transferred to a Spokane correctional facility. The family, seeking clemency, contacted Mack and asked for his help.
"I asked Jason one question," Mack says. "If all these people push to get you out, what assurances do we have that you won't re-offend?"
"He looked at me and said, 'I have been here eight years. Every day I face conflict and not once have I used these.'"
The young man raised his fists.
"I use a higher power," he said.
"His answer was a very solid answer," Mack says. Mack got involved in the case. The young man was eventually granted clemency.
"I cried and wept something fierce," Mack says.
"I love every case I've helped," he continues. "When I go home I have to look in the mirror. I could care less about reputation. That's what the world thinks about you. Character is what it's all about."
"I long for the day when the NAACP is no more," Mack says, invoking the day when racism is a figment of history... "I would like to go home early."
Mike Dillon is the publisher of the Capitol Hill Times. He can be reached at mdillon@nwlink.com or 461-1283.
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