Clarence Mitchell

Leonard V. Santivasci, a retired Eastern District patrolman who during an 18-year career suffered 19 injuries and received 43 official commendations and two Bronze Stars, died Tuesday of pneumonia at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. The Dundalk resident was 70. It was a fractured kneecap suffered during a 1972 arrest that finally brought the Eastern District patrolman's spectacular career to a conclusion with his retirement in 1975. In 1971, the year that he shared honors as The Sun's Policeman of the Year with his partner, Patrolman Robert E. Cohen, the pair handled 352 cases, including three homicides, 32 holdups and 134 narcotics arrests.

A memorial service for former Maryland legislator Clarence M. Mitchell III, who died Thursday at age 72, will be held at 4 p.m. Sunday at Sharp Street Memorial Church, Dolphin and Etting streets. The family hour begins at 3 p.m. Mr. Mitchell, who became the nation's youngest black legislator when he was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates at age 22, helped steer a sweeping desegregation measure through the General Assembly. He was elected to the Maryland Senate in 1966 and served there through 1986.

AND SO Clarence Mitchell IV trudges through the snow to the unemployment line. Annapolis insiders say he was shoved out of the $92,000-a-year job Gov. Robert Ehrlich handed him as a political payoff, though Housing Secretary Victor Hoskins diplomatically says no, Mitchell quit. In either case, the former state senator is now out of a job, out of favor, and out of participation in all existing political parties. The Democrats don't want him back. They suffered through his ethical conflicts of interest, his financial catastrophes and his political sabotage of last summer, when he turned his back on his party to support Ehrlich.

Clarence M. Mitchell III, who helped steer a sweeping desegregation measure through the General Assembly, died Thursday of cancer at Seasons Hospice at the Northwest Hospital Center. He was 72. Mr. Mitchell became the nation's youngest black legislator when he was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates at age 22. He served as a delegate from 1963 to 1967, when he was elected to the Maryland Senate, serving until 1986. He also contended in city elections during the civil rights era of the 1960s.

WHERE are the monuments to Baltimore's Clarence Mitchell Jr., one of the neglected, almost forgotten heroes of the civil rights triumphs of the 1960s? In most American cities there are Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevards and Martin Luther King Jr. schools, statues, buildings and meeting halls. In the name of the martyred orator of the "I Have a Dream" speech, his birthday is celebrated as a national holiday. With one major exception - the Clarence Mitchell Jr. Courthouse in downtown Baltimore - one would search in vain for similar memorials to the chief black architect of the laws that have revolutionized race relations in the United States.

With the enthusiasm of a schoolboy, James F. Schneider walks the halls of the Clarence Mitchell Courthouse, marveling at the stained-glass skylights, the craftsmanship of the marble stairways and the striking, larger-than-life murals painted by internationally known artists at the turn of the century.But Schneider the curator is also a federal judge.A judge in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Schneider spends his workdays sifting through legal arguments and financial data to come up with the best way to divide what is left of companies and individuals whose fortunes have gone south.

On December 31, 2009, CATHERINE LILLIAN MITCHELL, beloved wife of the late Clarence Mitchell; devoted mother of Claudia Reynolds, Charmaine Hershey, Charlotte Frederick, Colleen Johnson and Colette DeGruchy. Also survived by eight grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. Friends may call at the family owned Bruzdzinski Funeral Home P.A., 1407 Old Eastern Avenue, Essex at route 702 (beltway exit 36) on Monday from 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M., Funeral service on Tuesday at 11:00 A.M. Interment Holly Hill Memorial Gardens.

It's almost showtime at WBAL, and - for reasons I cannot explain - Clarence Mitchell IV has engaged me in an argument over Easy Cheese and Cheez Whiz. He claims that Cheez Whiz also comes in an aerosol can, which is ridiculous. What's more ridiculous is the notion that anyone would challenge my expertise on processed foods. If you don't know the difference between Easy Cheese, Cheez Whiz and the cheese they put in Cheez and Cracker Snacks, you don't deserve to have a radio talk show. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.

From the 1930s until their deaths, Juanita and Clarence Mitchell Jr. rarely threw away a letter, a photograph, a memo, a speech, a legal brief, a flier announcing a rally or just about any scrap of paper of seeming consequence. The couple sensed that their civil-rights work was of historic importance and that later generations would want documents to study the struggle.How right they were. The Mitchells' heirs currently are in the process of turning over the papers -- an estimated 250,000 items -- to the Library of Congress.

State Sen. Clarence M. Mitchell IV said yesterday that he will withdraw from the Democratic Party because he believes a proposed legislative redistricting map would hurt African-American and minority representation in Maryland. Mitchell, part of a prominent civil rights family that has influenced several generations of local and national Democratic leaders, said he plans to make his official announcement Jan. 8 at a Democratic Party meeting in Annapolis. He said he has not decided whether he would become a political independent or join the Republican Party.

WBAL radio will launch its new post-Ron-Smith lineup Monday, and it will feature more news and less daytime talk, according to Dave Hill, program director for WBAL and FM sister station 98 Rock. "Maryland's Morning News" will now run for five hours from 5 to 10 a.m., while the station's afternoon newscast anchored by Mary Beth Marsden will start at 2 and end at 6 p.m. It had been starting at 3 p.m. The only daytime talk show will be hosted by Clarence Mitchell IV, known to WBAL audience as C4, who will now start his four-hour program at 10 a.m. The station will offer an expanded 15 minute newscast at noon, and Mitchell will then continue to 2 p.m. Smith, who hosted talk shows on WBAL for 26 years, died this month of pancreatic cancer.

On December 31, 2009, CATHERINE LILLIAN MITCHELL, beloved wife of the late Clarence Mitchell; devoted mother of Claudia Reynolds, Charmaine Hershey, Charlotte Frederick, Colleen Johnson and Colette DeGruchy. Also survived by eight grandchildren and seven great grandchildren. Friends may call at the family owned Bruzdzinski Funeral Home P.A., 1407 Old Eastern Avenue, Essex at route 702 (beltway exit 36) on Monday from 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M., Funeral service on Tuesday at 11:00 A.M. Interment Holly Hill Memorial Gardens.

It's almost showtime at WBAL, and - for reasons I cannot explain - Clarence Mitchell IV has engaged me in an argument over Easy Cheese and Cheez Whiz. He claims that Cheez Whiz also comes in an aerosol can, which is ridiculous. What's more ridiculous is the notion that anyone would challenge my expertise on processed foods. If you don't know the difference between Easy Cheese, Cheez Whiz and the cheese they put in Cheez and Cracker Snacks, you don't deserve to have a radio talk show. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.

AND SO Clarence Mitchell IV trudges through the snow to the unemployment line. Annapolis insiders say he was shoved out of the $92,000-a-year job Gov. Robert Ehrlich handed him as a political payoff, though Housing Secretary Victor Hoskins diplomatically says no, Mitchell quit. In either case, the former state senator is now out of a job, out of favor, and out of participation in all existing political parties. The Democrats don't want him back. They suffered through his ethical conflicts of interest, his financial catastrophes and his political sabotage of last summer, when he turned his back on his party to support Ehrlich.

COMPARING PARRIS Glendening and Bob Ehrlich on just one aspect of governance - how they treat the indigent - I must say Ehrlich, the Republican, is head and shoulders above Glendening, the former Democratic governor and alleged liberal. I mean, look at it: One of the first things Glendening did after becoming Maryland governor in the winter of 1995 was scrap a program that made modest monthly subsidies to poor and disabled men, calling it welfare the fifth wealthiest state in the nation could no longer afford.

SURELY STATE Sen. Clarence M. Mitchell IV finds himself under considerable strain -- largely of his own making. An undisclosed loan he took from bail bond interests and votes he cast in favor of that industry drew conflict-of-interest inquiries recently from the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics. He and other members of the Mitchell family face debts exceeding $400,000. And the senator faces a challenging re-election test this summer in a new district where many voters may not know him. He's choosing an odd way to introduce himself.

Juanita Jackson Mitchell, the first black woman to practice law in Maryland, now has a place of honor in the Baltimore Circuit courthouse named for her husband.A portrait of the NAACP activist and one of her husband, Clarence M. Mitchell Jr., were unveiled yesterday and took their places behind the bench of the courtroom where they used to practice.The late Clarence Mitchell Jr. was dubbed "the 101st senator" for his exemplary work as the Washington lobbyist of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

ANNAPOLIS -- Former state Sen. Clarence M. Mitchell III, who interrupted his political career with a 16-month stint in a federal prison, will resume it as a lobbyist for one of the state's largest public employee unions.The Maryland Classified Employees Association said yesterday that it had hired Mr. Mitchell on a part-time basis to lobby the General Assembly and work as a consultant."We felt that a person with 24 years of expertise in the legislature would be quite a dynamic individual to defeat some of the legislation that will be detrimental to public employees," said MCEA President Rommani M. Amenu-El.

IT'S A LONG, long downhill from the titanic struggle for passage of the great civil rights laws of the 1960s to the current cat fight over the redistricting of a state Senate seat in Baltimore. But key participants in both battles were and are named Clarence Mitchell, and therein lies a tale. The first was the late Clarence Mitchell Jr., chief lobbyist of the NAACP and the so-called "101st Senator" because of his deep involvement in legislation that guaranteed the ballot and opened places of public accommodation to African-Americans 40 years ago. Baltimore's courthouse is named after him. The second is his grandson, Clarence Mitchell IV, who is threatening to leave the Democratic Party in a desperate effort to save his seat in Annapolis from the payback redistricting plans of Gov. Parris N. Glendening.

IF STATE Sen. Clarence M. Mitchell IV wants to leave the Democratic Party because he's displeased with the governor's preferred redistricting plan, that's his right. We won't be shedding any tears. It's more likely, though, that his threat of desertion is mere posturing. Calculated grandstanding and dramatic temper tantrums have always been his forte. But this time his histrionics are unlikely to work. He may want to see himself as the target of a racially motivated vendetta, but he is among the victims of a far graver political drama: The shifting of legislative power away from the Baltimore region to the more populous Washington suburbs.