I am one of very few Americans of any race who was thrown out of a jail cell for teaching Black inmates they have constitutional rights.
An otherwise intelligent young man, who is a recent graduate of Clemson university informed me I am a racist because I said we (GOP) should nominate two highly qualified White women for president and VP in 2024.
The context was I had two specific people in mind; not that we should never consider any non-whites. I jokingly said, we need to nominate two good-
looking White women; Ivanka Trump and Laura Ingram. To him that innocuous statement was “racist!”
He does not know the story of the only time I have ever been arrested and thrown in jail.
In 1982 I lived in Texas, but happened to be in the old courthouse in Spartanburg, South Carolina, distributing free copies of the US constitution. (You used to be able to get them free from the Philips Petroleum Company and I have given away over 25,000 copies in my lifetime.)
I refused to leave the courthouse or stop handing out free constitutions. I explained my rights to a bailiff “I have a right to assemble, speak freely, and petition for redress of grievances and you cannot run me off!”
They did not run me off, they arrested me.
Hauled me to the lockup in the basement of the courthouse, took away my cowboy hat, belt, necktie and the contents of my pockets and tossed me in a holding cell with three Black men.
If you have never been incarcerated with a bunch of strangers, you have something in common – why you are in jail. Those three were a burglar and two men drunk & fighting in a local bar.
I explained I was in for contempt of court – refusing to leave the building and go away. The three Black men said “If that was me, I’d be gone!”
The bailiff had left me one paperback copy of the US constitution. I proceeded to explain to them that they did not have any rights unless they asserted them.
The bailiff’s desk was on the other side of a brick wall. We could not see each other, but we could hear each other through the open steel bars.
I heard the Bailiff get on his phone and call upstairs:
“Your Honor, know that cowboy from Texas we arrested? He is teaching the n1663rs [he used the word] in my jail they have const tuh tushional rights!”
The judge had also read my business card: CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS FOUNDATION Houston, Texas.
I was hauled back upstairs, given my stuff back and thrown out of jail faster than I went in. If they had left me there a bit little longer, I would have shown those three Black men how to file habeas corpus writs pro se.
To my knowledge, I am the only “racist” in America who has ever been thrown out of a jail cell for teaching Black men they have constitutional rights. I am proud of that.
Sadly, if you just earned a four year degree from Clemson (or most other schools in America) you probably do not have the slightest idea what a racist actually is.
Dean Allen is a decorated Vietnam veteran, book author and Secretary of the Anderson (SC) GOP.
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