Clarence Seay: The man who would be mayor

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Civil Rights in Central Virginia: The Series

When Clarence W. “Dick” Seay decided to run for Lynchburg City Council in 1970, he printed and distributed a 10-point platform.

“I believe,” he declared in his second point, “that it is the duty and responsibility of members of City Council to eliminate every last vestige of religious and racial discrimination still existing in any official policies and actions of our City Government.”

Point No. 6 stated: “I believe that good human relations cannot be served up on a platter by one group for another. They must come as a result of joint participation in meaningful dialogue between all segments of the population — the young, the old, the rich, the poor, the Negro, the white. Council can never afford to close its eyes and ears to this dialogue.”

The city was just barely past the turbulence of school desegregation, and Seay was trying to become the first black council member since Reconstruction, but something in his message must have resonated. He was elected that spring and re-elected in 1974 with 6,000-plus votes, the most in a 13-candidate field.

As principal of Dunbar High School for 30 years (1938-1968), Seay was largely responsible for making it one of the top black high schools in the segregated South. He was active on many levels, well-respected on both sides of the color line for his honesty and his perspective and his even-handedness. Nor was he inclined to make waves, which did not always endear him to the more restless elements of the city’s black community.

It came as a seismic shock, then, when Seay announced in August 1974 that he planned to resign from City Council be-cause he found its policies “unethical, immoral and racially discriminatory.”

This was no rabble-rouser, no civil rights warrior. This was Dick Seay, a dependable community icon, and the other council members were (they said) stunned.

The problem was, Seay wanted to be mayor. He already held the vice mayor’s position, and felt that leading the field in the most recent election should have earned him the right to move up. The mayor in Lynchburg has no special powers, and the job is largely ceremonial. But for Lynchburg to have named a black mayor in 1974 would have made national news, and the 74-year-old Seay saw that as part of his legacy.

Apparently, a majority of other council members felt otherwise. In a meeting called by councilman Ed Calvert on Aug. 26, a Monday night, it became obvious that sentiment favored giving incumbent mayor Leighton Dodd (fourth in the election) another term.

The irony was, Dodd was without question the most liberal mayor along racial lines in local history. In March of 1971, in fact, he delivered what amounted to an extemporaneous speech at a City Council meeting, urging his fellow members — and the city at large — to become more aware of the racial inequities that then existed.

“I came home from the meeting that night,” recalled Dodd, who recently moved back to Lynchburg from Hilton Head, S.C., “and my mother-in-law looked out the window and said: ‘I believe someone is burning a cross on your lawn.’”

They were, and Dodd remembers it as “a pretty big cross. It was kind of scary. I called the police, and they came and got it, but nothing ever happened, and no one ever took responsibility for it.”

Nor did Dodd cease speaking out. But that history didn’t mollify Clarence Seay.

“Had I known the customary rules did not apply to me,” he said in a letter to Dodd the next day, “I would not have run in the first place. Perhaps you would explain them.”

Actually, there were no rules. Then, as now, the mayor is chosen by members of council. Sometimes, it simply comes down to who is willing, or has time, to take the job. Other years, the presence of opposing factions has led to the appoint-ment of someone both sides can live with. Nor was Seay the first to lead the election ticket and not be named mayor.

“Nobody expected this (the resignation threat),” Dodd said. “I think his feelings were hurt, but I was kind of caught in the middle.”

Meanwhile, Calvert was busy explaining why he had called the meeting (which was not on a regularly scheduled council meeting night, and not open to the public) in the first place.

It was a mess, and it quickly became messier. Owen Cardwell Jr., best-known for being one of the first two black students to integrate E.C. Glass and at that time a spokesman for the local NAACP, said his organization was drafting a state-ment calling for a qualified black candidate to replace Seay should he follow through on his threat. Calvert muddied the water by telling The News that one of his fellow council members voted against Seay not because he was too black, but too old. A virtual parade of city leaders visited Seay, urging him to reconsider.

The Rev. Haywood Robinson, one of the leaders of the black community, told Seay there was a “tremendous outpouring of understanding for his situation,” but asked him not to step down. School board vice chairman Pauline Maloney, who worked with Seay for decades at Dunbar, said: “We did not pick a Negro for power on council, but a man of structure.”

A week after he threatened to resign, Seay stood up before a packed audience in City Council chambers and announced he had changed his mind.

“I now see the disruptiveness and the futility of such a course of action,” he said.

Of his letter to Dodd, Seay noted: “In periods of less tension the letter would not have been written at all. I honestly and sincerely regret that it ever was.”

Then Seay saved face for himself and council by declaring that he would not accept the post of either mayor or vice mayor for the next two years, even if they were offered to him. Council promptly went into closed session and voted unanimously to leave Dodd as mayor and make Pete White, who ran the Campbell-Payne building supply company, No. 2.
Even The News, not known for its racial moderation, breathed a sigh of editorial relief.

“The manner in which he (Seay) resolved what could have become a sticky situation should improve race relations in Lynchburg by demonstrating that we all have an obligation to work for the common good of the community.”