In the wake of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's historic nomination for Vice President, one is immediately reminded of another outspoken woman who ran for Vice President of the United States. Her name was Charlotta Bass.
While both were members of the Republican Party and were known as political mavericks that were unafraid to go against the political establishment from both the Republican and Democratic parties, they could not be more different ideologically.
Charlotta Bass published the California Eagle from 1912 to 1951. Based in Los Angeles, the California Eagle was one of the oldest and largest black-owned newspapers in the West. At the paper, she wrote a weekly column called, "On the Sidewalk," which addressed local issues with national significance. For example, she was a vocal critic of the infamous "Sleepy Lagoon Case," in which 24 Latino youth in 1942 were implicated in the death of a young man.
Describing the investigation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department she wrote, "Immediately there began a roundup of Mexican boys and girls. Between 400 and 600 were picked up in the most shocking mass arrests outside of Nazi Germany."
During her tenure at the California Eagle, she ran for several political offices including a 1945 run for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council. Despite threats by the Klu Klux Klan, Bass garnered enough support to force the incumbent, Carl Rasmussen, into a run-off.
In 1947, after more than thirty years as a registered Republican, Bass became disillusioned with both major political parties and helped create the Independent Progressive Party of California, part of the national Progressive Party. The following year, they nominated former Vice President Henry Wallace as President on a platform that advocated universal health coverage and an end to racial discrimination. Wallace finished fourth in the election behind segregationist Strom Thurmond.
In early 1951, Bass wrote an open letter to then-Congressman Samuel Yorty (later Mayor of Los Angeles and a future presidential candidate himself), in which she criticized his support of the United States involvement in the Korean War. In the letter she stated, "I do object strenuously - and I speak for hundreds, even thousands of others in your district - to your smearing every movement for peace, every attempt to settle this war, every objection to drafting mere children into an army for the purpose of killing those whom they have never even seen - as being Communist inspired."
Soon after she wrote the letter, she decided to sell her newspaper. In her final column for the paper Bass cited among other reasons a repressive political climate in prompting her decision to leave the paper. She writes, "The would-be American fascists find it essential to do everything within their power to prevent the continued existence of a free press - of a press that prefers to uphold democratic principles rather than to join in subverting them, as practically the entire metropolitan press in the United States is doing today."
The following year, Bass was nominated for Vice President on the Progressive Party ticket, thus becoming the first African American woman to run for national office. The historical significance of the nomination was not lost on her. During her acceptance speech in Chicago, she said, "I make this pledge to my people, the dead and the living - to all Americans, black and white. I will not retire nor will I retreat, not once inch, so long as God gives me vision to see what is happening and strength to fight for the things I know are right."
Unlike Governor Palin's nomination, Bass received little media attention. Her running mate was Vincent Hallinan, a controversial criminal attorney from San Francisco. The Progressive Party finished a distant third in the general election, garnering only 0.2% of the popular vote. Despite their defeat, one can not help but be struck by Bass's passion and commitment to her political ideals. Perhaps her candidacy can serve as an inspiration to Governor Palin and the other candidates in the current presidential contest, irrespective of their political philosophies.
Robert Wheaton is a writer with Carib Press.
