ShareThisWICHITA FALLS, Texas - Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, D-Mo., says he already has put the ugly incident behind him. And those who know him say they are not surprised that he chose to turn the other cheek.
The congressman, a retired pastor who was reared in the poor part of Wichita Falls, was walking with other congressional members after a vote in the U.S Capitol on Saturday afternoon when a protester spat on Cleaver. According to some media reports that surfaced shortly afterward, the protester also called Cleaver the "N-word."
Cleaver's quick dismissal of the incident was typical of him, according to his father, Lucky Cleaver, who still lives in Wichita Falls.
"My son is very understanding about people," the elder Cleaver said this week.
The congressman calls his father two or three times a week but had not talked to him about the incident yet.
His son's response that he was putting the event behind him "sounds exactly like something he'd say," Cleaver said.
Tensions were running high over the weekend in Washington, D.C., because of Sunday's health care reform vote.
The protest against Cleaver, a Democrat serving his third term in the U.S. House of Representatives, prompted the U.S. Capitol police to intervene and quickly escort Cleaver and his companions to safety.
The representative did not press charges, according to his legislative assistant Mary Petrovic, even though a report was taken by the police.
Cleaver, 65, is a retired United Methodist minister and served two terms as mayor of Kansas City -- the only black mayor the city has ever had. He went to Congress in January 2005.
As one who had been a part of civil rights activities years ago, this was not the first assault that Cleaver and other congressmen have received, according to Cleaver's office staff.
Such "orchestrated bad behavior" has caused Wichita Falls advocate Arthur Bea Williams to get so depressed over what she is seeing that she can no longer watch reports of health care reform and other political activities on television. "There is only so much you can watch," she said. "I am a little bit embarrassed and ashamed of what I'm seeing in this country."
Too many Americans want President Barack Obama to fail in the health care issue and anything else he proposes, she said. "I didn't like George Bush, but I wanted George Bush to succeed because he was my president," she said.
The cacophony of violent talk has her fearing for the president's safety, she said.
Such hatred is now being aimed at Cleaver, she said. "He hasn't been totally immersed in Obamaism, so he has to be persuaded, but he has a constituency that has to be looked after."
Wichita Falls political activist Lindsey Walker, who has followed Cleaver's career from its start at Booker T. Washington High School in the early 1960s, said the attack on Cleaver has grown out of issues that are polarizing the country.
"They're taking sides. There's no middle ground," he said. "The ones who are very conservative are losing, so they are becoming even more desperate in their efforts to try to stop what seems like the inevitable."
Lucky Cleaver credited God's blessing on his family for his son's position of influence and his innate ability, like that of his siblings, to shake off the ugly comments of others, even in tense situations.
"They took after their mother, that's all I can tell," he said.
(Ann Work is a reporter for the Wichita Falls Times Record News in Texas.)
Congressman Cleaver spat upon
I wonder why Ann Work, who has reported Congressman Cleaver's claims of being spat upon and called the N-word as if it were fact, has not claimed Andrew Breitbart's offer of $100,000 to the United Negro College Fund for any video or audio evidence of anyone being spat upon or the use of the N-word at the event in question.