The More Things Change…

I want to talk again this week about George Latimer. His funeral was Monday; more than 500 people attended, and another Mayor – Chris Coleman – offered the eulogy for his very good friend.  Coming to the city as I did, after Latimer’s terms in office, I never knew him well. And I clearly underestimated his impact – and who he was. Lest others of you share my misapprehension, I wanted to tell you what I heard yesterday. It moved me deeply.

I listened to people’s conversations throughout the visitation, I spoke to friends who knew him. Every story was about his nature: big, ebullient, unapologetic, collaborative, wildly human, a great listener, deeply caring for people, “unconfined by misplaced pride”:  “He had an unsurpassed love for the city he served”; “Once you worked for him, any future bosses paled in comparison”;  “He created a feeling in that city… everyone wanted to work on whatever HE wanted to work on. Because he cared so deeply”;  “No one wondered if the City cared, because HE did.”   

Latimer had big ideas, took risks. And he always saw possibility - “he made no small plans for they have no ability to stir the imagination”:  among them being District Energy, preservation of Landmark Center, Galtier Tower, Town Square, World Trade Center, Hubert Humphrey Job Corps Center. And then he always soldiered on, even when some of them didn’t work out as expected.

Coleman spoke so eloquently about his friend. “He was a man without an ounce of meanness… he would rather walk with those who had no shoes than ride with those who had no souls….” He shared the lessons he took from watching Latimer: march forward with joy, dream big, act wholeheartedly, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, don’t take yourself too seriously.”

Certainly many things have changed since Latimer’s retirement. But not the important things. Leadership still is the conscience of the people. We can’t live alone, isolated, only for ourselves. We must live for the benefit of others.

Walter Rauschenbusch was a Baptist minister in the Hell’s Kitchen district of New York in the 1880s. He espoused a “social gospel,” seeing the gospel and social justice as one being the expression of the other. Mayor Chris Coleman shared one of his prayers at the funeral, in part because George Latimer was seen as walking this path. And I thought it especially lovely.

God, we pray thee for this, the city of our love and pride. We rejoice in her spacious beauty and her busy ways of commerce, in her stores and factories where hand joins hand in toil, and in her blessed homes where heart joins heart or rest and love.

Help us to make our city the mighty common workshop of our people, where everyone will find his place and task, in daily achievement building up his own life to resolute manhood, keen to do his vest with hand and mind. Help us to make our city the greater home of our people, where all may live their lives in comfort, unafraid, loving their loves in peace and rounding out their years in strength.

Bind our citizens, not by the bond of money and of profit alone, but by the glow of neighborly goodwill, by the thrill of common joys, and the pride of common possessions. As we set the greater aims for the future of our city, may we ever remember that her true wealth and greatness consist, not in the abundance of the things we possess, ut in the justice of her institutions and the brotherhood of her children. Make her rich in her sons and daughters and famous through the lofty passions that inspire them.

We thank thee for the patriot men and women of the past whose generous devotion to the common good has been the making of our city. Grant that our own generation may build worthily on the foundation they have laid. If in the past there have been some who have sold the city’s good for private gain, staining her honor by their cunning and greed, fill us, we beseech thee, with the righteous anger of true sons that we may purge out the shame lest it taint the future years.

Grant us a vision of our city, fair as she might be: a city of justice, where none shall prey on others; a city of plenty, where vice and poverty shall cease to fester; a city of brotherhood, where all success shall be founded on service, and honor shall be given to nobleness alone; a city of peace, where order shall not rest on force, but on the love of all for the city, the great mother of the common life and weal. Her thou, O Lord, the silent prayer of all our hearts as we each pledge our time and strength and thought to speed the day of her coming beauty and righteousness.

Coleman ended his eulogy: “rest well my friend, knowing yours truly was a life well lived.”

See you in the trenches, 

B