Former Oklahoma U.S. Senator Fred Harris, a populist and presidential candidate who supported Democratic Party reforms during the turbulent 1960s, passed away on Saturday. He was ninety-four.
The Associated Press received confirmation of Harris’s passing from his wife, Margaret Elliston. Although his cause of death was not immediately known, he had been a resident of Corrales, New Mexico, since 1976.
Early this morning, Fred Harris died quietly from natural causes. He was ninety-four. He was a great, well-liked individual. In a text message, Elliston stated that his memory is a blessing.
Harris was elected to the Senate in 1964 to fill a vacancy and served for eight years. In 1976, he made an unsuccessful attempt to become president.
As the Democratic National Committee’s chairman in 1969 and 1970, Harris was tasked with helping the party recover from the violent 1968 national convention in which demonstrators and police fought in Chicago.
He introduced regulations that increased the number of minorities and women in leadership roles and as convention delegates.
In 2004, Harris, who was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Boston, remarked, “I think it’s worked wonderfully.” It has greatly increased the legitimacy and democracy of the selecting process.
A large number of the delegations were essentially boss-controlled or -dominated, and the Democratic Party was not democratic. Additionally, he claimed that African Americans faced appalling prejudice in the South.
After losing in early contests, including a fourth-place victory in New Hampshire, Harris dropped out of the 1976 Democratic presidential primary. Jimmy Carter, who was more moderate, ended up winning the president.
That year, Harris relocated to New Mexico and joined the University of New Mexico as a professor of political science. He authored and edited over a dozen books, primarily about Congress and politics. His work expanded in 1999 with a mystery set in Oklahoma during the Great Depression.
Harris was a prominent liberal voice for civil rights and anti-poverty initiatives to support underprivileged people and minorities throughout his political career.
According to a statement from the Democratic Party of New Mexico, Democrats worldwide will remember Fred for his unmatched honesty and for being a trailblazer in establishing the progressive principles of justice and opportunity for success as the cornerstones of our party.
He was also involved in Native American concerns, as was his first wife, LaDonna, who was Comanche.
In a 1998 interview, Harris stated, “I’ve always referred to myself as a populist or progressive.” Concentrated power bothers me. The influence of money in politics bothers me. We should, in my opinion, establish programs for the working and middle classes.
Michelle Lujan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico, commended his efforts on behalf of the country and their shared state.
She added in a statement that he was a nice, honorable man who treated everyone with kindness, generosity, and good humor in addition to being a very successful politician and professor. Public officials would be well advised to take a leadership lesson from Sen. Harris, which they can do for the rest of their lives.
In order to look into the urban riots of the late 1960s, then-President Lyndon Johnson formed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also known as the Kerner Commission, of which Harris was a member.
According to the commission’s seminal 1968 report, our country is headed toward two distinct and unequal societies: one for Black people and one for White people.
Harris co-wrote a report thirty years later that concluded the commission’s prognosis had come true.
According to the study by Harris and Lynn A. Curtis, president of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation, which carried on the commission’s work, minorities are suffering disproportionately, the wealthiest are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.
Harris became well-known in Congress as a fiery populist, according to Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.
According to Ornstein, the idea of the common person opposing the elite strikes a chord with people. Fred Harris had a genuine talent for expressing those worries, especially those of the oppressed.
Harris was a co-chairman of then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s 1968 presidential campaign. In order to break with Johnson on the Vietnam War, he and others pressured Humphrey to use the convention. However, Humphrey did not do so until the very end of the campaign, and he lost by a slim margin to Republican Richard Nixon.
That year, 68, was the worst of my life. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated by us. Harris stated in 1996 that after the assassination of my Senate seatmate Robert Kennedy, there was this awful convention.
The horrible disorders, the way they were handled, and the lack of a new peace platform were the main reasons I left the conference.
Harris formed commissions that suggested changes to the processes for choosing delegates and presidential candidates after taking over as head of the Democratic Party. He praised the increased variety and openness, but he also noted that there had been a positive side effect. The only outcome, however, is that conventions are now ratifying conventions. Therefore, it’s challenging to make them engaging.
In my opinion, they should be cut down to a few days. However, he stated that they are still worthwhile as a means of adopting a platform, as a sort of rallying cry, and as a means of bringing people together in a coalition-building process.
In a two-room farmhouse close to Walters, in southern Oklahoma, just 15 miles from the Texas border, Harris was born on November 13, 1930. There was no running water, indoor toilet, or electricity in the house.
He started working on the farm when he was five years old, earning ten cents a day to drive a horse in circles to power a hay bailer.
He supported himself while attending the University of Oklahoma by working part-time as a printer’s assistant and cleaner. In 1952, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree, focusing in history and political science. After graduating from the University of Oklahoma with a law degree in 1954, he relocated to Lawton to begin practicing.
He was elected to the Oklahoma state Senate in 1956 and held the position for eight years. He began his national political career in 1964 when he ran to succeed Sen. Robert S. Kerr, who passed away in January 1963.
J. Howard Edmondson, who resigned from his position as governor to fill Kerr’s vacancy until the next election, lost to Harris in a runoff election for the Democratic candidacy. Charles Bud Wilkinson, a legendary figure in Oklahoma sports who had coached OU football for 17 years, lost to Harris in the general election.
After winning a six-year term in 1966, Harris resigned from the Senate in 1972 due to uncertainty about his ability to be reelected as a Democrat with a left-leaning stance.
In 1949, Harris wed LaDonna Vita Crawford, his high school sweetheart, and the two of them had three kids: Kathryn, Byron, and Laura. In 1983, following their divorce, Harris wed Margaret Elliston. On Saturday, a full list of survivors was not immediately available.
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