Make money doing the work you believe in
Two deaths yesterday prompted personal memories:
• Robert Woodson should be a household name, but this thoroughly decent man was more interested in helping people than in gaining personal fame. He taught that black Americans were best served not by government programs but by community action— by helping families, starting minority businesses, forming local associations, building homes, deterring crime. And he practiced what he preached. Through the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprises— now properly known as the Woodson Center— he helped thousands of people escape the traps of poverty and dependency. Bob Woodson took pride in his work, pride in his community, pride in his ethnic heritage. But in my (unfortunately few) dealings with him, I never detected a hint of personal pride. God bless the man who— more or less by choice— never gets the recognition he deserves.
• Barney Frank was a household name, for the wrong reasons. The first openly homosexual US Congressman, who put his lover on the federal payroll, was a liberal icon. He was, needless to say, not one of my favorites. But give him this much:
I met Barney as a young man, in a touch-football game on or near the campus of Harvard Law School, sometime around 1973-1974. I don’t remember why I was there, who invited me, or who else was playing. But Barney was unforgettable. A big man (not tall; big), he was slow of foot and devoid of athletic talent. But he played— very badly— with infectious enthusiasm. He was laughing, and making others laugh, after every play.
In Congress he was (like his predecessor, the Jesuit priest Robert Drinan) a firm vote in favor of legal abortion. Frank charged: “Conservatives believe that from the standpoint of the federal government, life begins at conception and ends at birth.” That jibe was unfair and inaccurate, but it was witty and it was politically effective— the proof of which is the fact that abortion advocates are still ringing changes on the same theme. So credit Barney Frank with the last witty thing the pro-abortion movement has said.