I’ve been aware of electoral politics since I was four. My father ran as a Republican for New Castle County Sheriff in 1958. The Delaware Democratic party was still a Dixecrat party and Black registrations did not begin to switch over in any numbers until the JFK race. Anyway, I remember the rush when the driver of the sound car handed me the microphone and said, “Say hi to your mother.” I’ve been hooked ever since.
Here are the three main influences in my political shaping:
My father, James A. Brunswick, Sr. There were lots of meetings in my house as I was growing up. The shades were always drawn and there really was a special knock. Every once and a while my mother would read an obituary and say to me, “Oh, you didn’t know him by that name.” My father was an organizer on the wrong side of the UE/IUE Westinghouse strike in ‘48. He was blacklisted from Organized Labor as a “communist”. I grew up with the FBI visiting, tapped phones and my father’s friends being asked, “Were you at this meeting with Jimmy Brunswick?” He was an A. Philip Randolph acolyte. I grew up around union meetings, going to plant gates and the aforementioned house meetings. My dad’s work was instrumental in breaking the Klan hold on the UAW local at Chrysler and electing a Republican mayor and governor in ‘68 when Democrats punished Wilmington for the insurrection with the longest National Guard occupation in our nation’s history. Dad eventually got back into Organizing with AFSCME, where he successfully organized public hospital workers in Southern New Jersey. He is a model for what I do now and shaped my dedication to the work of the A. Philip Randolph.
My uncle, William “Dutch” Burton. My dad was an orphan and brought up here from Florida to be raised by his cousin Dutch. There are memorials to Uncle Dutch around Wilmington. He was tall and thin and always had his right hand in his pocket. He fought the Poplar St. “A” project which destroyed the social and economic base of the Eastside community and paid the price. He was never a party guy and I heard him call the City Democratic Party chair a “cracker” more than once. I was around his politics and learned that the most important thing was to stay close to the community. He had an interesting network.
Ralph Morris published many of the community based newspapers in the Black community. He was dad’s best friend and the person my family sent me to explain myself when I did my teenage acting out. He would begin with, “So, Brunswick why did you…” and, after I stammered, end with, “Brunswick, there are no dumb people in your family.” I spent lots of time around his newspaper offices in Southbridge and on the Eastside. His newspapers were the glue for my father and uncle’s politics. Ralph always encouraged me to write. He was the driver of the sound car I rode around in during my first campaign experience. I gained a voice writing for some of his publications and learned valuable lessons about communicating and connecting with my community and beyond.
As I look back on my experiences with these men I realize that they were not mere influencers. They taught me not to be satisfied with The Delaware Way. Their work shaped our communities. I don’t see much of their likeness in the community or politics today.