Working Together

Editor's Note: When Ruth Samuelson decided to run for the district 5 seat on the Mecklenburg County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), the first thing she did was put together a list of community leaders – liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat – and she went to see them, one-on-one. It was an example of brilliant politics, and an example of her passion for trying to understand the perspective of others. A Charlotte native and the daughter of prominent Democratic parents, the conservative Republican Samuelson won her seat by making the moderates of Myers Park and Eastover feel comfortable with her. However, in her first few months on the BOCC, her ability to build bridges has been tested by several rancorous issues, including the decision to restore Bill Culp's health benefits, and the proposed move of the county courthouse. We recently sat down with her to discuss her approach to these issues, to race relations, and to the idea of peace-making in the public square.

Warren Smith: What was the catalyst that caused you to want to run for elected office?

Ruth Samuelson: The simple answer is that I was asked. I was asked almost every year for almost 10 years to run for something. I never could figure out why people wanted this stay-at-home mom to run for anything. Then I began to see the Lord opening doors. For instance, I was appointed to certain things. People would look around afterward and say, “How did you get on this committee?” I wasn't affiliated with a corporation, or with any group that would have placed me at that place at that time.

Then, as other things began to happen, my husband and I both seemed to sense that as a native Charlottean with the roots that I have through my parents' involvement that maybe this was where my area of service was to be. So about four or five years ago I began to think that if this was where I was going to eventually serve, then I need to do certain things to prepare myself. Interestingly, and seemingly unrelated, the first thing that I felt that I was supposed to do was to make sure that my relationship with the Lord was as it should be. So I spent time in Bible study and Bible memory.

At the time I wondered what in the world this had to do with running for office. But I will often fall back on that preparation as I am making decisions. I also did a lot of reading on what theologians and others say about the role of the Christians in politics.

What I found among the Christian thinkers was that there was not consistency about many issues. That there was not one biblical way to look at many political issues. I know that there are many people who disagree with that. I came away feeling that I couldn't look at a particular issue and say, “This is the only way to view this.”

That was freeing in some ways, but it was also very scary, in that there was not this anchor of a single person I could turn to for a point of view. As a result, I often have to go back to the 300 verses I've memorized in order to figure out what to do.

WS: It sounds as though the moral of the story is that you came away from all that reading believing that Christians should be involved.

RS: Most definitely. Christians should be involved in the public square. We as Christians have just as much of an obligation, if not more, to be involved. But I am not a “Christian politician.” I am a politician and a Christian. That is going to influence the way I am going to view things. But there is no definition of what a “Christian politician” is. Just as there is no common definition that all politicians are the same, and all Christians aren't the same, so there is no common picture of the Christian politician.

WS: Yes, but you're conservative, you're Republican, you're pro-life. You hold to a lot of views that a lot of liberals and Democrats would disagree with you on. Yet, you've been able to forge some bonds with liberals and Democrats. You spent a lot of time talking with folk with whom you disagree even before you were elected.

RS: When I decided to run, I figured that I would need to be able to work with people who are not like me. There are going to be people who will try to paint you in a corner. My opponent tried to do that, to simply what I stood for by saying that I was a religious conservative. I thought, you know, I'm more than just that. That's not the total sum of who I am. Therefore, not only do I want to understand who they are, I want them to understand who I am. Build a rapport. I thought about the verse, “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Well, I needed to be wise. So I met with the heads of the arts community. Past political leaders who had been on opposing sides. Some media people who I knew were not looking favorably toward Christians in politics. And I went to them to say simply, “This is who I am. I want you to feel like you can come and talk to me. I'm not going to yell or automatically angry because you represent a different view. What I saw were assumptions. Assumptions that I would respond a particular way. When I did not respond that way to them, the door was opened to establish communication.

I'll give an example. The gay and lesbian PAC was not going to meet with me. I can understand that. I did not answer their questions the way they wanted me to and at that point in the campaign, many thought they knew how I was going to respond to them. But someone who knew me and knew the leadership in the gay and lesbian community challenged them, and we did meet. We had a wonderful conversation, and established some friendships. And yet, I was very clear that I was not going to vote for benefits for same-sex couples. For that matter, I wouldn't vote for county benefits to any couple that was living together and not married.

But we were able to dialogue about that. There was no hostility. At the end, we had established a relationship, a friendship. There is a level of trust, even when we disagree.

Now some may think that is naÔve, but how can we possibly find a way to work together otherwise?

WS: You also reached out to the African-American community.

RS: That was not just during the campaign. A number of years ago my husband and I both felt led to participate in activities aimed at racial reconciliation, but we didn't know really what that meant. So we began attending an African-American church that happens to be in the same denomination that we are in. A small, all-black congregation. It caused us to have our eyes opened to things. It is a very Afro-centric church. There were times I sat and listened to the sermons and became uncomfortable. Getting very defensive. I found myself not liking what I was hearing.

So even though I had built friendships, I felt this tension.

So during the campaign I got a call from a group that I believe is called the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Club. After I hung up talking with the woman to set up the event, I said to myself, “This is an opportunity, but what are you going to do with this opportunity?” I didn't know what I was going to do with it. But I had three weeks, and I began to pray about what I would say to this group. It turned out that 100% of them were not even in my district. I don't think there were many Republicans in the crowd. So giving my regular campaign speech would have been OK, but this was an opportunity to do something different.

A few days before, I began to read a book by Eldridge Cleaver called Soul on Fire. He wrote a book in 1968 called Soul on Ice that helped initiate the Black Panther movement. Then, he fled America, because of criminal activity, and he became a believer. He came back, served the punishment for his crimes, and wrote a book called Soul on Fire, that looked at what he had done from the view of a Christian. I became convinced as I read this book that I needed to say I was sorry. I used to think, why do I have to say I'm sorry? I didn't do any of those things that oppressed blacks.

So I went to this group, and I said to myself, “If they give me three minutes, I'm going to give my speech. If they give me five minutes, I'm going to tell them what I've learned.” So I walk in and the leader of the group said, “We usually give our speakers three minutes, but someone didn't show, so we're going to give you five minutes today.”

So I told this group what I had learned, and it was rather emotional. At the end, I apologized for what I had begun to see was my own role in this, and to apologize – to the degree that I could – for what had happened in the past. I asked for their forgiveness.

Afterward I had three people come up to me, all well into their 50s or more, and say, “I have waited all my life for a white person to say what you said today. Thank you.” Then, several months later, I wondered what happened. But then I ran into one of the men who had been in the group, and he reminded me that he was there and he told me how much he appreciated what I had said and what an impact it had and that they were still talking about it.

I realized that there was a genuine need for this level of reconciliation. Someone has got to acknowledge that something wrong happened, and apologize for it, so we can start this healing process. That's not to say that there shouldn't be apology and healing on both sides, but someone has to start. That was, for me, an amazing moment. My biggest concern was that since these people didn't know me, they would view what I said as a political ploy. She's just doing this to get votes. But I was pleased that they didn't take it that way, and I came away wanting to pursue this kind of community healing even more.

WS: But does the community really want this kind of healing? It seems as though the leadership in Charlotte, both black and white, have a vested interest in maintaining their bases.

RS: Charlotte reflects what is going on in the nation. We are becoming more divided because this conflict exists and no one is acknowledging it. Tim Sellers has a Christian conciliation program, and if you look at his material, you will see that when a conflict occurs, and it's not resolved, you start traveling down one of two paths. One ends in peace-faking, which I think we did for years, and the other ends in peace-breaking, which I think you're seeing more of. We need to learn how to get off of these paths, and to get off of those paths there must be admission of wrongdoing. That's the first step toward getting off these paths and getting on the path to peace-making.

So whether it is denial, on the one hand, or outright anger on the other, the secret to resolving this is that someone has to stand up and say it's more than just spending time together. There has to be an acknowledgement that something wrong has happened. That one side transgressed, and didn't confess it, and the other side has become bitter and angry. As it stands now, one side says “you need to repent,” and the other side says, “you need to repent,” and everyone just gets angrier and angrier and angrier.

I think we all need to – not kiss and make up – but to acknowledge that this sore is festering and it's time to start healing.

WS: So what you're saying is that it has to be much deeper than just taking a white person to lunch, or taking a black person to lunch.

RS: Yes, and not only that, we have to be prepared for the possibility that the result will not initially be positive. I think that what happens when you open a sore you've got to let all that pus out. I know that's graphic. But that's what happens. When you open up a can of worms, what do you find? Worms. We're going to have to deal with all the worms that are going to come out when we open that can. That's scary. After that event last fall, there was a part of me that knew I had to deal with things. I opened the can, but I'd like to close it back. But I can't do that.

WS: I would like to shift gears a bit and ask you about some issues that certainly have implications for race relations, but have other implications as well. You represent Myers Park, Eastover, Southpark areas – an affluent, in-town district. As the city has grown, it has had the opportunity to annex land and that has tended to put everyone in the same boat, so to speak. It has been difficult for affluent people to flee to the suburbs, to leave the city. But the city is coming up to the county line in a number of areas, and we are seeing more flight across county lines. This issue, and other issues, is fueling talk of a consolidated city-county government, and more regional planning.

RS: The longer I'm in it the easier it is to see why people it, but I am philosophically opposed to it. Some say that consolidation will make things go faster, more efficiently. And as much as bureaucracy drives me nuts, sometimes it is better if government does move slowly. The courthouse decision, for example, was moving too quickly. Sometimes efficiency doesn't always yield the best result. So I'm not necessarily in favor of consolidating merely for the sake of efficiency.

I also like the idea of local control. Let's keep it as local as possible. But if we don't consolidate, we've certainly got to do better about working together.

WS: Since you mentioned the courthouse, let me ask about with that. Parks Helms said the move is going to cost only about $12-million. Some others are saying it is going to cost $30-million.

RS: Try $90-million.

WS: Then is Parks Helms purposefully obfuscating this issue?

RS: No. Well, I don't know. As it was presented to us in early January, what Parks said made sense. But there are consequences to moving the courthouse. If we leave it at 4^th and McDowell, it assumes a whole series of events. If we put it on Trade, it has a series of consequences. Every consequence has a price tag. We have to weigh the whole package. Moving the courthouse to Trade has a price tag of – at a minimum -- $70 to $110-million.

WS: So the bottom line is that you would be opposed to moving the courthouse.

RS: I'm opposed to moving it now. I don't necessarily want it at 4^th and McDowell, but we need to stop, look at the dominoes, put price tags on those dominoes, and ask if it is worth it.

WS: Some of these dominoes will fall many years in the future. What do you think the city will look like five or even ten years from now?

RS: I don't know what the city itself will look like, but I did run on the idea of new leadership. We see Hugh McColl and Ed Crutchfield retiring. We'll see other political leaders either move on or taking time out. We'll see a change in the type of leadership in Charlotte. More diverse. I would hope we would see less of an emphasis on buildings, and an increased sense of how the leadership of the city works together to solve the problems of the community.