I don’t recall what drove Jim Washington (aka JAWS) to call me, but his voice’s tenor, tone, and inflection were harrowing. It was my turn for one of his patented, behind-the-glass-wall conferences. Everyone who walked by would see you getting an ass chewing as a deterrent to future foul-ups!
So, there I was, sitting in an emergency meeting in the Dallas Weekly’s conference room. Cheryl Smith gave one of her famous long sighs and left. I was baffled, but it had to be one of three things.
It had to be a story written about Betty Culbreath and her political flip-flopping, slight-of-hands moves. Or maybe it was Sandra Crenshaw (pronounced “cringe-shah”) and the never-ending nuttiness that she is known for. But it could have been a hit-job I did on the infamous snitch, nickel bag promoting, “pull yo pants up,” former Negro councilman Dewayne/ Dwayne/Dwain Caraway.
But I am confident that was one of those articles that prompted a call to the office threatening legal action against The Weekly, Quit Playin’, et al. I wasn’t moved because I only wrote critical satire if there are credible sources.
Either way, Jim called me into his fishbowl to tell me that he had been threatened with a lawsuit and he did not like getting those calls. He asked me for the basis of my story, and the more
I informed him about what I knew that I didn’t write about, the more he began to soften.
“Hall,” he said with head in hand, you are too much. But keep working on your craft.
As I headed toward the door, he said the three words I dreaded, “wait a minute.”
Jim rushed out of his fishbowl and returned with a newly minted journalism award I won from the NNPA. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you do daily. People actually read you! BTW, you got some mail in your box, it’s probably some more hate mail!”
I could never read Jim, but his headline always read, integrity, professionalism, self-determination and Black Liberation.
Love you, Jim!
