Karen Pulfer Focht
Former Memphis Mayor Dick Hackett has been named the Executive Director of the Catholic Charities of West Tennessee. (Photo by Karen Pulfer Focht)
On a mid-October Saturday morning, bright and early, former Memphis Mayor Dick Hackett entered a meeting room of St. Francis of Assissi Church in Cordova and greeted a group of expectant lay volunteers in his relatively new role as executive director of Catholic Charities for the diocese of West Tennessee.
Having been this city’s de facto CEO for nearly a decade (late 1982 through the end of 1991), after which he worked for lengthy periods at both St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Children’s Museum of Memphis (heading the latter organization from 2006 to 2016), Hackett is no stranger to speech-making. And his informal yet authoritative way with the assembled parishioners would have been no surprise to Memphians who saw him on the stump back in his political heyday during the 1980s.
He was decidedly lanky in those days — “lean and hungry,” Julius Caesar’s term for “yon Cassius” in the Shakespeare play, would have been an appropriate description. At 68 now, Hackett’s face is rounder, and he has acquired a certain bulk and gravity appropriate to his years and standing as a long-term civic player.
As is the way with many former political figures long past their term in office but still a presence, more or less, in the established sphere of society, the polemical bite of candidate rhetoric has yielded to a gentler and more generalized point of view.
Speaking to these volunteers, giving a version of the pep talk he will repeat over and over as he tours the large diocese that takes in Jackson and numerous other towns in West Tennessee, Hackett seems genuinely moved as he describes the sight that had greeted him on his first day work-day in the office of Catholic Charities at Jefferson and Cleveland — a homeless man asleep and sprawled across the steps leading into the building.
He tells his rapt listeners that along with the surge of compassion he felt came a rush of energy as he realized the “power” he now possessed to intervene more directly in the lives of the unfortunates and hard-luck cases who had now become his main constituency. Hackett speaks of his charity’s various food-service projects for the indigent and, by way of stoking his listeners into a like measure of zeal, smiles broadly as he tells them that, once this morning meeting ends, he will be on his way to the nearest Sprouts to pick up some of the grocery supplies he has talked the store management into providing.
For any political type who ever wondered if there is satisfaction to be found outside the grand public arena itself, the saga of Dick Hackett may suggest an answer.
It has been 35 years now since Richard C. Hackett became Mayor of Memphis via a hastily declared special election in 1982. At the time, he was only 33, and the youngest urban mayor in the United States. His predecessor, Wyeth Chandler, had served for the previous ten years, succeeding the ill-fated Henry Loeb. Chandler’s enthusiasm for the city’s top job had waned, however, and that summer he surprised most Memphians by resigning to accept a judgeship.
The special election of late 1982 drew three entries — former US Attorney Mike Cody, then Shelby County Clerk Hackett, and African-American City Councilman J.O. Patterson — with a provision in effect that would allow only the top two vote-getters to go forward in a runoff election.
The three-way race was a nail-biter, with Patterson leading the field with 40 percent of the vote, and Chandler protégé Hackett beating progressive standard-bearer Cody by 2500 votes. Given the demographics of a city electorate that was still majority-white, Hackett won the runoff comfortably.
Jackson Baker: The former mayor sat down with Memphis recently for a conversation about his political career. Here, abridged and edited, are some of his recollections.
RICHARD HACKETT: I miss the way it used to be. t wasn’t as political [as today]. I came up under the old school [back when] the city charter prohibited partisan politics. You couldn’t run as a Democrat or Republican, which meant you shouldn’t govern as a Democrat or Republican. And too many people at one time came along and decided to ignore that, and it’s become too political. It’s just like Washington. Washington can’t get anything done. And it’s not any better on a state or local basis.
The future mayor got his start the way many officials do, by working in somebody else’s political campaign.
My first job was in 1972. I walked up the back step with Mayor [Wyeth] Chandler when he first took office. I worked in his campaign. I had not known him. We lived in Whitehaven, and Whitehaven fought annexation. He put his first administration together with people from different parts of the community — Raleigh, Frayser, Parkway Village, Whitehaven, etc. And Whitehaven people put my name up.
Hackett’s first governmental venue was in the Mayor’s Action Center.
First, I was administrative assistant, and then when the director left, Chandler [left] me in charge. In the Action Center days I knew every single phone number in the City Hall building, all six floors, every single phone number, private and public numbers. If I was out somewhere and needed something from a director or deputy director or one of the other staff members in public works, sanitation, general services, I knew the phone number. I have people kidding me saying, “I wouldn’t have worked for you if you’d had an iPhone back then,” because I called all hours of the day and night.
At a certain point the ambitious young politician looked for other fields to conquer.
I wasn’t dissatisfied at all. But when there was a vacancy for the County Clerk in 1978 because Robert M. Gray was not running for re-election, I filed as a candidate. When I came back and told Mayor Chandler, he said, “You did what?!” He said, “You’re not too young! I hate to lose you, and I’m gonna lose ya, cause you’re gonna win!” He was very, very supportive and there were never any hard feelings whatsoever.
Working closely with Chandler, Hackett had advance knowledge of the mayor’s intention to leave office midway of his second term. Chandler resigned in 1982 and would be appointed a Circuit Judge by Governor Lamar Alexander. Surprising many people, including his wife Kathy, Hackett filed for mayor at the last possible moment.
When I left the house that morning, Kathy didn’t know I was going to run, nor did I.
Hackett says he called home and told his wife, “You may want to come over here and get in on this one.” Her recollection: “He called just in time to get ready and drive from Whitehaven. [He] probably gave me an hour or so.” Meanwhile, Hackett friends Mike French, Don White, and Paul Gurley scrambled to put together the 25 signatures required for a filing petition. But in the days beforehand there had been a little crafty scene-setting on Hackett’s part. A day or two before Hackett’s filing Channel 13 reporter Joan Droege had come by the then clerk’s house in anticipation of his possible candidacy. Hackett ran a ruse of sorts on her.
Joan came over to the house and said, “Everybody’s expecting you to run.” She came in the house and that’s the first, only, and last reporter that ever came into my house. But she was always nice to me. Anyway, so Bill Boyd went up to a friend of mine’s house ... an old high school friend about one street over. And he kept calling the house saying, “Now you be sure and run.” I’d say “Thank you, ma’am. Thank you.”
And [the phone] would immediately ring again. Bill Boyd made every one of those phone calls. Joan was there an hour and the phone never stopped ringing. And she put in her story, a live report, saying, “Hackett’s phone never stopped ringing. I was a witness to it. I was there an hour and it never stopped ringing.” It sounded real good. What a great sendoff.
The special election campaign was held in October and November 1982, and the three leading candidates were Hackett and two city council members, lawyer Mike Cody and minister J.O. Patterson. Hackett saw his main task to be that of beating Cody and then getting into a runoff with Patterson, since the electorate’s black/white dichotomy then favored a white candidate, all other factors being equal.
Yeah, I got into the runoff. It was fairly close between Patterson and myself. Cody wasn’t too far behind in third. He was a great guy. I had a joke I used to use on him all the time, calling him a fat cat, but I had a lot of respect for him. He was very talented, very smart; would have been a great mayor, frankly. But everybody runs to win ...
Hackett had been indelibly identified with his erstwhile boss, Wyeth Chandler, but once he became mayor in his own right, he saw clearly that to be his own man he needed his own people.
Well, I would’ve been seen as a fourth term of Chandler if I wasn’t careful. So the only way I could do it was to disconnect myself from other people that were known to be close to Chandler. Not because Chandler was bad, but the perception was that he was in office too long. I wanted my own people in.
The time would come when Hackett’s electoral luck would run out. Although he was heavily favored to win a third term in 1991, that year African-American leaders in Memphis determined to field a consensus black candidate to win the mayoralty. That candidate turned out to be Willie Herenton, the recently resigned superintendent of Memphis schools. Hackett contends that in this first year of a majority-black electorate he always knew he was destined to lose. He avoided big public rallies and instead campaigned via a series of backyard house parties.
Numbers and colors. I thought I would lose by 5,000. You probably know that I said, “This election is close and Herenton is leading it right now.” It was no surprise. In fact, I told Kathy and the kids to stay home on election night. She ended up coming with me but got my parents to come over to the house and stay with the children. I said, “Don’t bring the children up there. I’m not going to win.” I was the only person on my campaign committee that believed that .”
Herenton became Memphis’ first black mayor, by a margin of just 146 votes out of nearly 250,000 cast. That margin of victory was small enough that a vote challenge seemed in order, but, in a tense racial environment, Hackett chose not to authorize one.
Well, I tell you what. The election was audited. And I don’t remember the law any more, but you only have so many days to find specifically how you voted illegally. The truth of the matter is that I had more illegal votes than Herenton. It’s a fact. Because that’s how the white community voted illegally. They move to Germantown, Crittenden County, Barber County, DeSoto, Collierville, and then, “Oh, I’m going to go back and vote at my home precinct one more time.” You could find [at least] one precinct that had 146 votes in it wrong.
There’s a widely accepted version of the story that attributes Herenton’s hairbreadth victory to the last-minute heroics on his behalf by Congressman Harold Ford, Herenton’s none-too-secret rival for power.
I don’t think Harold Ford voted for Willie Herenton. I know John Ford didn’t; he told me. Beforehand, he said, “You better win this thing.” And, in fact, I think he put us on his ballot one time.
There was a general supposition at the time that Hackett took the election defeat hard, growing a beard and becoming something of a recluse in the last days of holding his office.
You know what I did the next day? I went deer hunting. On the day [Herenton] was sworn in, I went deer hunting. Because he didn’t invite me to the swearing in, I wasn’t going to go. I don’t think he knew any better, and he’s not a hands-on guy. But I spoke at the next one or two elections. I went to all his swearing-ins after that. I don’t have any animosity toward anybody that ever ran against me. It’s not my office. But I also knew I had a job. By 10 a.m. the next morning, I had two people tell me I had a job.
We were going to wait until July because I had some time off. I was going to play racquetball every morning, you know, spend time with Kathy and the kids. [But] St. Jude called and said, “See you Monday. We’re not going to risk losing you.”
The job with St. Jude was appropriate and satisfying in numerous ways, not least because he and Shelby County Mayor Bill Morris had succeeded in 1986 in keeping St. Jude in Memphis when it was being courted by Washington University in St. Louis. The two mayors, in office together over Hackett’s entire tenure, bonded in their efforts to attract major industry to Memphis.
I know the calls he [Morris] and I had on St. Jude and the contact we had, the meetings [with] the board and we knew every one of them. We had their pictures almost on flashcards. We learned everybody’s name before we ever met them. And we knew the Memphians.
Al Joseph was the chairman of the board, and I said, “If St. Jude, after comparing Washington University in the city of St. Louis with Memphis and the University of Tennessee and our community … if, Mr. Joseph, you say the board says it’s in the child’s best interest and research’s best interest to go to St. Louis and Washington University, I’ll stand here as mayor of this city, knowing it’s a lot of jobs, and I’ll say I support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital moving.”
His reaction to that … I don’t know if he teared up then, but he teared up at other times. He just loved the mission and the cause. From that moment on, we were on the same side. And Morris and I looked at each other, nodded, winked, whatever. We knew we hit the home run.
Another ally in the successful effort to keep St. Jude in Memphis was philanthropist Sam Cooper. Hackett offers this explanation of how this well-known Memphis thoroughfare got its name.
Sam Cooper was just fabulous. And he was on the St. Jude board. He always was a friend; in fact, he signed my very first political campaign letter as County Clerk. But Sam Cooper Boulevard, I named that one night over at St. Jude without going to the city council. [Councilman] Oscar Edmonds called me at home that night because he saw it on the news, “You don’t have the authority to do that!” I said, “Well, Oscar, why don’t you do this? Why don’t you vote Tuesday vote to take his name off? And you all just jump in there; that way you all can be part of the St. Jude effort.”
Hackett and Morris had what can only be described as a symbiotic relationship, but at times it had elements of genuine full-time rivalry as well.
You couldn’t let the city or the city mayor become second fiddle to the county mayor. The county felt like you couldn’t let one of the cities become dominant over the county because you had Germantown, Arlington, Millington, and other cities, but if you were the county mayor, you couldn’t let one city dominate you. There was certainly the constant of ‘you’d better keep your team out front’ and you’d better keep your team on the offensive and not be put on the defensive. So he got his licks in and I got mine.
I’d kid [Morris] sometimes, I’m not saying in what cases, and he’d say, “We need a good guy and a bad guy. Why am I always the bad guy?!” I’d say, ‘Well, you’re just a natural.”
I’d say, “On behalf of the citizens of Memphis” when I would welcome people; he’d say “On behalf of 850,000 people in Memphis and Shelby County and all the cities in Shelby County.” He’d always do little things like that. Morris had a great sense of humor and what appeared to be sometimes a slap. I couldn’t have cared less because it didn’t make any difference to me. I used to tell people he’s just like a grandfather to me.
I remember when our youngest child was born, I had it all set up to call Bill and I knew where he’d be and all. Turned out he was at his office. So I called his direct line and he said, “Well, how y’all doing?” And I said, “Bill, we’ve had a baby boy, and I just wanted you to be the first to know that we named him William.” He started crying.
Tom Jones [Morris’ top aide at the time] will tell you that Bill came into him crying, saying we’d named our son after him, [that] we named him William Hackett. I think Tom told him, “Well, you dumb ass. That’s his dad’s name and that’s his brother’s name.” He called me back and said, “You son of a bitch.” And I told him, “Well, I really meant to tell you differently, but you got so emotional, I didn’t have the heart.”
To say the least, not every relationship Hackett had with other public figures was a bromance. He had especial difficulty with the Rev. Kenneth Whalum Sr., an outspoken African-American member of the City Council.
Now, Whalum Jr., I like him. But I went over to his dad’s office one time because he just wouldn’t talk with me; wouldn’t deal with us. And I went over to his office over there at Sutherland and Church, unannounced and walked in. I went up to his secretary and he was right inside his office. I could see right inside that door. I said, “Ma’am, my name is Dick Hackett. I’m with the mayor’s office.” That’s the way I always introduced myself. And she said, “I know who you are.”
I said, “I wonder if Rev. Whalum would have a moment.” And she said, “Well, I’ll check and see.” And she went in there. I could see them ... right there as close as that door. And she said, “Rev. Whalum, Mr. Hackett’s here to see you.” And he said, “I’m not in.” She came back and said, “Mr. Hackett, he’s not able to see you.” I said, “Well, I can see him. Tell him don’t expect anything at all ever from this administration.” I just drew the line in the sand for us. I walked out and I never dealt with him.
After working for nearly a decade as CEO/Director of the Children’s Museum of Memphis, the former mayor recently assumed a new function as executive director of Catholic Charities of West Tennessee, commuting to the job “six days a week” from his home in Nesbit, Mississippi, and spending a seventh day in field service. His attitude toward his now long-ago mayoral loss and the end of his political career is relaxed and philosophical.
People get tired of you. Bill Farris told me something a long time ago, “You accumulate enemies, not friends.” And that’s both in life and in politics. And it’s really bad in politics. You find you have more enemies at one time than you do friends. If you want to make a friend, ask somebody to do something for you. Not do something for somebody, but ask somebody to do something for you and you get a friend in politics.
But regrets? He has a few.
If we would’ve been elected one more time, [the city] would have been virtually debt free. That was my goal, if we had just kept that same formula. If I was re-elected, I would’ve run for governor [in 1994] because I would have virtually taken the city from a growing debt to a declining debt to almost no debt.
