Clarence Harmon winces, remembering the look on his interviewers’ faces when he spoke about his years as mayor (1997 to 2001) for a Missouri History Museum oral-history project. “I seemed, I’m sure, so politically naïve,” he says. He tackled the job the way he’d tackled being police chief, reorganizing for efficiency and building community relationships. He took risks, declaring a state of emergency until 911 response times improved, pressing hard to “fix” downtown, and taking stands on gun control, civil rights, and HIV/AIDS discrimination. But when political games beckoned, he folded his arms and refused to play. “I was probably the least political guy ever to get elevated to the mayor’s office,” he says now. “I don’t say that as bragging—I think it was a limiting factor.”
What did your father do for a living?
He was a cook on the railroad. For years, I thought he was an executive cook; every day, he left for work in a pressed suit, a starched white shirt, a tie, and his shoes shined. But when I was 12, he took me on a trip to L.A.—his run at the time—and I got to sleep in the crew’s quarters. I saw my dad get up at 3:30 a.m., go into this narrow galley with hot pots, steaming kettles, the train moving… By 1:30 p.m., he was drenched in perspiration, and his clothes were not so white anymore.
How did that affect you?
It was a realization that all things are not so easy. I was taken aback to see my dad work that hard.
What was he like?
Quiet, introspective, not a big talker, except when he played poker. I’m more like my mother, who was outgoing. She was a nurse. She worked mostly nights so she’d be home for breakfasts and when we got home from school.
Where did you live?
In the Ville neighborhood, at 4257A West Evans, on the second floor. In those days, the black community was composite in the sense that everybody lived in it, whether you were wealthy or not. Certain blocks had better homes, more conveniences; a minister or an undertaker might drive a Cadillac.
Where’d you go to—
McBride High School, a Catholic boys’ school. My mom and dad were Baptist, but if you went to a Catholic school, you had to be converted. And the public schools were not, in the estimation of my parents, very good. I remember my father sitting at the dinner table—I was talking about something or other, and he was not given to demonstrative conversation, but he turned to my mother and said, “See, I told you that school was going to be better for them.” Because we knew more stuff.
How many kids are in your family?
Two older sisters, one younger. I was the only boy.
So were you spoiled and adored?
No. I just had a lot of responsibility. [He pauses.] To some extent, I was kind of doted on, now that I think about it. I was expected to achieve. And expectations are really important.
What did your parents hope you’d become?
My mom wanted me to be a doctor. My father just wanted me to go to college and earn a living.
Did you want to be a doctor?
I wasn’t crazy about blood and gore. I was premed at Northeast Missouri State University, but first I went into the Army, in 1957. I was sort of at loose ends, staying out late with my buddies, sleeping late, and my mother didn’t want me to become the flotsam and jetsam of the neighborhood. She said, “It’s school, a job, or the Army.” So it was the Army.
You wound up a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division.
It was one of the better things that happened, in terms of shaping me up. It gave me structure and purpose. It helped me define objectives. Not education for its own sake—I won’t be so ethereal. But preparing to lead a life.
You married when you came home.
I have been married three times. Three times! My first marriage, I was not settled. That lasted three years. My second wife was a nurse, a wonderful person. The only thing I can say is, after 25 years we had grown apart, and I don’t know how that happens. We just drifted. [He rests his hands on the table and slowly slides them apart.] And my third wife, whom I’ve also been married to for 25 years, she’s a saint.
Are you hard to live with?
I’m opinionated. I’m a driver. And in the police culture I come from, you’re expected to know things and to lead. That doesn’t always work in a marriage. [He grins.] Fortunately, Janet gives as good as she gets.
You left the Army and wound up in the police force…
I must have had eight or 10 jobs in between. But a guy in the Army told me, when I was about to leave my unit, “You’ll be back.” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “You like this. You’ll be back.” I became acclimated to—and could function effectively in—a military-structured organization, one that had rules and guidelines and set out ways to operate that often are not defined for you in other endeavors.
Which did you prefer, being mayor or police chief?
I felt duty-bound to both of them. It was a really difficult job being police chief. We were listed with Detroit and Atlanta as the three contenders for murder capital of the U.S. I had fights with the police board about political influence in the department, which I tried to stave off—that doesn’t earn you too much gratitude.
As mayor, did you grow to enjoy the political arena?
[He sighs heavily—it’s a clear “No.”] I was mission-oriented: If I told the voters I was going to accomplish something, I had a strategic plan to deal with it. That sometimes runs right smack up against the politics. Whose ward is it? Who doesn’t want it done? So you have to nuance that and deal with all the back-and-forth… I was never a bosom buddy with the real politicians. I was among them, but I wasn’t one of them. They knew it, and I knew it. I wore my politics like a hair shirt, I think.
Why did you make downtown a priority?
Ours is a downtown for the region, whatever we say about the Galleria and the rest of it, and I had grown up at a time when downtown was downtown. At Christmas, you could go and look in the windows, and it was like something out of a Hollywood movie. Downtown represented to me an important statement we had to make as a city.
When did you first realize what bad shape downtown was in?
When I was on the United Way board as police chief. I came out of a meeting, and all the office staff were inside on a beautiful day. I said, “Why aren’t you guys outside?” and they said, “Chief, we don’t go outside downtown.” I called my office and said, “Cancel my appointments,” and I parked my car and did a two-hour walk through downtown—the vacant storefronts, the deterioration, the lack of people on the street, which is a telling sign.
Then you became mayor, and what did you do?
I had Leadership St. Louis propose a plan. I was told, “Politically, you can’t do that. Suppose they come up with something you don’t like?” I said, “We’ll live with it. They have our best interests at heart, and they are not mired in the politics.”
What would you go back and do differently?
I got called at one point by members of the [Missouri] General Assembly offering me the schools, and I turned them down because I didn’t have an immediate plan for a takeover. That’s what I would have. Education is the bedrock.
Without that power, it’s hard to change anything.
The superintendent, Cleveland Hammonds, was not an evil person, he was cordial to me, but he knew he did not have to listen to me.
How did the teachers react?
I remember being royally—and I’ll use a mild word—castigated by members of the teachers’ union who thought my effort was to take over the schools. I didn’t want to fire anybody. I just wanted them to do some things better. We are getting these raw young minds, and they are graduating, and they are not literate. That’s a crime problem.
How’s it looking now?
I’m impressed with the new superintendent. What I applaud about him is the steadfast marching uphill with the blocks on his shoulder. That’s a definition of courage.
What was your greatest failing as mayor?
Not envisioning that I wanted to be mayor for a long time.
What caused the worst criticism?
I used to get beaten up for visiting other cities. But I knew you could learn from other people. [Former Mayor] Freeman [Bosley Jr.] would say, “There aren’t any schools for mayors.” Yes, there are.
You signed a domestic partnership registry into law in 1998. Do you think President Obama’s stand on gay marriage will help or hurt him?
Oh, I think it will be used heavily against him. The promise is, we have young people who no longer see it as us old heads do. They are going to inherit this country, and their opinions will ultimately prevail.
Some African-Americans say this isn’t a civil-rights issue.
It is absolutely a civil-rights issue. Black folks who argue against that are making the same arguments George Corley Wallace made when he stood against the [schoolhouse] door.
What kind of police work did you like best?
I’m a rather simple individual. I liked the things that had a conclusion, so you got the bad people off the street. I worked close to eight years in intelligence, a lot of undercover stuff, organized crime, and that was a lot less satisfying. Sometimes the investigations would run for months.
I’m trying to picture you undercover.
Once we got information that a group was going to rob the police credit union, and their plan was to murder the police officer who was the courier. For months we shadowed them. The day I made the arrest, I had a ragpicker’s pushcart, and I was wearing this old, beaten-up–looking coat…
Did your wife wonder about your laundry?
You don’t tell your family about stuff like that. One thing I learned through a failed second marriage was to find ways to talk about some of this stuff.
You emphasized community-based policing—how did it work?
Fox Park had begun to unravel. I told my boss, “Give me 30 days and two police officers.” I bought these guys business cards from my own pocket and said, “You are responsible for all the calls from Fox Park, and 50 percent of the time I want you out of the car walking or talking.” They couldn’t get anything done with this one particular drug house. Out of frustration, they just went up one day and sat on the steps with the dealers, in full uniform. All the customers would drive by and see. Crime went down 47 percent in 30 days.
You raided four or five drug houses at once.
On a Sunday morning. We got neighbors to take photos so we could get search warrants. The police were not setting anybody up—that was the neighbors taking pictures! We got White House recognition. You can’t do all the stuff like that, though. You do some spectacular stuff for effect, but what you’re really trying to do is galvanize the public’s attention, so they don’t feel impotent about their community and their destiny in it.
What are you up to now?
Some consulting. Expert witness, civil-rights cases mostly. I feel sometimes like I’m flotsam and jetsam again, floating around looking for a place to land.
What would you want to be doing?
Travel. Overseas travel. Looking at places far on the horizon that you’d only seen on documentaries or read about in a magazine. I’m still hopeful that mankind can get this thing right.
