I was his intern in 1986. Aside from the honor of speaking to Rosa Parks in the Detroit office every morning, one of my most striking memories of him was the gentle kindness with which he treated the guy he called “Young McGinty”.
He let me take his big American car for a spin after an errand. I drove immediately down to the Jefferson Memorial and the cherry blossoms. It was my first time driving around alone in a car after I got my license there in DC.
The staffers called me “Kennedy”, which cracked me up because they with that name were so rich and I was so poor. I survived on the finger food available at receptions on Capitol Hill.
When John Conyers introduced the MLK Holiday bill in 1970, every said he was crazy. I was there when it was celebrated for the first time.
His main issues, tax rate inequality and prison reform, sadly, yet await action.
