“I THINK CONTINUALLY OF THOSE WHO WERE TRULY GREAT.”

“I think continually of those who were truly great.”

This first line from Stephen Spender’s poem has been with me since I studied it many years ago. Spender’s sentence has been paired in my thoughts with those who were truly great and those who are still with us today. Among those who were truly great is Kenneth Vern Cockrel, Sr. 

   I count among my greats who are with us today the music-poets Bill Harris and John Sinclair and the labor organizer and freedom fighter General Gordon Baker. In what follows, I shall attend to Kenny V.Cockrel, Sr.

Kenneth V. Cockrel, Sr. (November 5, 1938 - April 25, 1989)

   My earliest recollection of Kenny Cockrel concerns an occasion in 1962 (or thereabouts) when we were paying a social call on the Jones sisters. At the time Kenny was driving a sports car, a Triumph TR-#??. He lent me his car to drive one of the sisters home. Before my opportunity to drive Kenny’s fabulous sports car my driving experience had been limited to American models. As I recall, I had a very difficult time getting underway in the TR-?? - lights, ignition, gears were not immediately forthcoming to my touch.

   Ken Cockrel was at least 6’6” tall and very slender. He didn’t walk exactly, he glided. His smile was captivating in the way that a full stop is at the terminus of a brilliant sentence. Kenneth Vern Cockrel, Sr. was our Cicero, our brilliant lawyer, orator, and statesman. When I was a student at Wayne State University in the early 1960s Kenny was, I believe, finishing his law degree at Wayne’s Law School. He could be seen gliding about the campus, through the Student Center (the “Stupid Center” as we called McKinsey Hall then), “Hey Ray! What’s happening?” “Hey Kenny...”

   I was married to Maria Bohdanowicz in 1965. My wife has a unique, Ukrainian way of pronouncing “Maria”. Kenny was one of the few people I knew who pronounced “Maria” correctly. There were two buildings in the Jefferies public housing projects on Canfield street, west of the Wayne State University campus, that were devoted to student housing. Maria and I along with Kenny Cockrel and his wife and our friend Jim Murphy and his wife lived in the Jefferies Projects. Jim Murphy and   I worked weekends at the Fort Street Main Post Office.

   Kenny Cockrel held forth at Vern’s Bar that was located at Woodward and Forrest streets. The bar was our hang. The law students had a table; ‘philosophers’ and the literary crowd had tables . . . . Many Fridays Jim and I would be found at Vern’s getting drunk in preparation for our weekend on Uncle Sam’s plantation, the US Post Office. Ken Cockrel, the orator was the man at Vern’s. I can’t recall him sitting in Vern’s; he had a table but he was usually standing, maybe with one foot on his chair, emphasizing his 6’6” frame, and getting ready run a topic down - “Maria, Ray! What’s happening?” “Kenny, hey.”

“And we testifying
and swinging!” Jo thinks,
“Letting our notes anoint
as we blow the blue demons
right on out the joint.” [1]

Sunday, July 25, 1967. “Motor City’s Burning”.

I’m on the Trumbull Ave. DSR bus. It’s Sunday afternoon. I’m on my way home to the Jeffries Housing Projects. The beginning of in-terminal police-car and fire-truck sirens. The north-bound bus that I’m on stops and the south-bound bus stops; the divers discuss “the situation”—“Twelfth street’s impassable, detour ahead, . . . ”. I walk two blocks from the Trumbull bus stop to the projects. It’s my nap-time when I get home from my two days on the Post Office plantation. But I couldn’t sleep—sirens, sirens all around.

   That evening the sky lit up. A Famous Furniture warehouse in our neighborhood was ablaze. A Cadillac convertible with its top down was hauling away a stereo-console in the back seat. The anthem for this tragic event was of course John Lee Hooker’s “The Motor City’s Burning”. Like most historical events—especially American history-wise—the narratives are written according to the needs of the ‘winners’ and losers—reported not exactly in black and white; rather according to white or black.

   I was surprised to discover that there are two different lyrics to John Lee Hooker’s “The Motor City’s Burning”. In the recording that I have of John Lee Hooker’s, the stanza:

"It started on 12th Clair Mount (sic) that morning 

It made the, the pig cops all jump and shout

                    ..........

It made the, the pigs in the street go freak out"

is edited and the words “pig cops” and “pigs” are excised. In another stanza the locution “Black Panther Snipers” appears. In the recorded version, “Black Panther” is excised.

   Our country’s penchant for both cultural and historical revisionism and amnesia is well known throughout most of the rest of the world. An interesting mystery for me is the following. There was also a version by the MC5 (the Motor City Five), a music group that the writer and political activist John Sinclair managed. In the MC5 live recording, the excised bits noted above appear.

Law & Order—Democracy Abroad

Moving up the social ladder, from the US Post Office to the next rung, US Banking Industry (say), one may become perceptually blind to certain socio-economic-cultural forces that are (still) pervasively in play. In Victorian times the less able, less bright, sons of the well-to-do were assigned or consigned to the clergy. In our era the less able, less bright, sons and daughters (progress here) were assigned to the banking industry. The banking industry is supposed to be a Federally chartered and regulated industry. This industry has perhaps always been a conduit for greed, unjust enrichment, and power by the ruling-class in these United States of America.

   Detroit, Michigan in 1967 was a crucible (not a melting pot!) consisting of a political structure that was exemplified by brutal enforcement by the Detroit Police Department— the Big Four vice squad and STRESS. This enforcement was visited on an economically disenfranchised black population. The disconnection between the Hooker and the MC5 lyrics reveal a cleansed historical record on the one hand and a more accurate account of the issues contributing to the July 25, 1967 “disturbance” or riots. “The Motor City’s Burning” lyrics (unexpurgated version) describe quite accurately the police versus a black community dynamic. Unless one lived in a poor black neighborhood in Detroit, one could not understand police brutality in the Motor City—the level of police force devoted to Paradise Valley, Hastings Street, and 12th Street was intense and ruthless. Black representation in the Detroit Police Department at the time of the riots was quite small; and given the way things were organized, greater black participation wouldn’t have mattered much in 1967 anyway. [2]

   In spite of an increase in the number of black police officers in the Detroit Police Department today, police tactics apparently haven’t changed that much. The Department remains under Federal Department of Justice ’supervision’ regarding numerous civil rights violations. Also, elimination of residency requirements for police officers contributes to Wyatt Earp-type behavior patterns. Here we go full circle, back to Belle Isle 1943 and 12th Street 1967. This is not a blanket indictment or condemnation of the Police Department.

   Ken Cockerel, Sr., Gordon General Baker, John Sinclair, John Lee Hooker, and Motor City Five (MC5) are for me the other side of the prevalent revisionist or eliminative narrative history of the time of Detroit’s troubles.

   The next time I recall being with Kenny Cockrel was a day or two after the the 1967 Detroit Riots began, July 26 or 27, 1967. We both lived in the Jefferies Housing Projects with our wives and young children. Kenny and I were on the Projects’ playground dis- cussing without any particular insights the riot situation. After ’order had been restored’ later in that year, I remember being out late one evening with a friend. When we walked into Vern’s Bar, we received a warm Kenny Cockrel ”What’s happening?” greeting.

In the late 1960s, I began, what I couldn’t have imagined at the time, my career in banking. A bump in the road of my banking career occasioned my next, and as it turned out my final, meeting with Kenny Cockrel.

   I was employed by a trifling commercial bank as the manager of commercial lending. I

reported to the trifling bank’s trifling president. One evening my wife and I along with the trifling president and his wife attended a charity concert at the Fisher Theatre featuring the Divine One, Miss Sarah Vaughan. After the concert, we all stopped at the St. Regis Hotel for drinks. The trifling bank president - let designate him as ”Mr. T’ - and I were discussing certain bank personnel matters. During this discussion Mr. T began to criticize my performance in front of our wives. I was certainly taken aback by Mr. T’s unjust and inappropriate criticism. But this context occasioned a flash of insight and opportunity in me. My reply to Mr. T’s ill-chosen words were ”You’re nuts!” In my mind this was my chance to free myself from this trifling monster and his trifling bank. In my life such flashes of insight have been rare indeed. Mr. T jumped up from his seat, while I sprang up from mine. My wife queried Mr. T, ”I don’t suppose you want a ride to your car?”

   The following day I went to see Mr. T in his office to see if I still had a job - I hoped I did not, since I wanted out of that trick-bag. Mr. T asked me to resign etc. I told him I’d think about it. I left Mr. T and later in the day I went to see my friend Kenny Cockrel, Esq. He asked me if he could be of service  and indeed he rendered a great service to me.

   A few days later as my lawyer Kenny Cockrel meet with Mr. T. and the trifling bank’s lawyer. A satisfactory financial settlement was negotiated for me.

   By this time, the mid-1980s, Kenny Cockrel, Esq. was a cultural hero - a brilliant lawyer, a brilliant public speaker, and brilliant politician. When he glided through the trifling bank - he was given a tour by the trifling Mr. T -, all of the employees were captivated by this brilliant intellectual giant and civil rights lawyer - our Cicero. It was reported to me that Mr. T was quite up-tight and very nervous. 

   This was the last time that I was in the company of this brilliant man and advocate for the defenseless citizens of the city of Detroit.

   Kenny Cockrel’s many achievements are noted in John Sinclair’s fine memorial tribute, the link to which I have supplied below. Other links direct the reader to sites featuring Kenny himself.

   Kenny Cockrel was, like many of the people who we knew at Wayne State University, a jazz person, one who loved jazz. His memorial service featured some of Detroit’s fine musicians. A link to a discussion of Kenneth V. Cockrel, Sr.’s life will be found below.

[1] From Bill Harris’s poem, "Body and Soul (Take 2)"

[2] "Ken Cockrel Sr. was a firebrand lawyer who spearheaded - (with the City Council's current outside council Bill Goodman) - the dismantling of a particularly brutal group within the police department, STRESS. S.T.R.E.S.S. "Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets" was an attempt by the police to put a halt to crime in the neighborhoods, but what it turned out to be was a Gestapo style thug patrols that beat blacks folks up for fun. A good idea gone bad."

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=7523

http://www.daahp.wayne.edu/biographiesDisplay.php?id=101

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Race_Riot_(1943)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot

http://abj.matrix.msu.edu/videofull.php?id=29-DF-147

http://johnsinclair.us/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=861:in-memory-of-kenneth-v-cockrel&catid=20:features&Itemid=111

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?

Site=C4&Date=20080918&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=809180805&Ref=PH

http://abj.matrix.msu.edu/videofull.php?id=29-DF-15

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/rbwstudy.html