How I Became a Liberal
I have friends of many persuasions, politically speaking, and I’m always intrigued when I meet parents and children who end up on opposite ends of the spectrum. Is it a simple case of rebellion? Or did the kids carefully reason through their world view and announce one day, “Mom and Dad, I reject everything you hold dear.” Thank goodness that never happened in the Henderson household!
But how did I, who can remember when my hometown movie theater back in Alabama had a door marked “colored entrance” (it led straight to the balcony), and whose mother snatched off my black armband on Vietnam Moratorium Day in 1970, end up a liberal? Two words: Uncle Jack.
The much-loved and coddled youngest of 11 children, he grew up to be the family intellectual. He ventured to Scotland (!) to get a doctorate in theology. He marched in Selma. He had a framed picture of Martin Luther King in his office. (That last one was quite a bone of contention among his conservative older brothers.) He had a fabulous life partner, Paul, who told me I looked like model when I was a scrawny teenager. And Uncle Jack was a liberal. Oh yeah! And if he was a liberal, I wanted to learn about politics and be one too.
Uncle Jack, the baby brother my mother adored, is 82 now, still smoking like a chimney, still enjoying a daily vodka and tonic, still going strong. So are the outreach ministries he started at the Presbyterian church he served for many years in Washington DC. He’s larger than life! And his influence lives on, especially in me.
