I flipped on my computer to watch the Atlanta City Council meeting Monday and saw a eulogistic video about the life of Vincent Fort, a professor turned state senator and long-time irritant to those in power.
Damn, he died, I thought. We spoke in August, as we do about politics, government or people behaving foolishly.
He texted me saying we need to get together for “coffee or cocktails.”
It never happened. I was kicking myself because there have been times before when I’ve said “we gotta get lunch” to someone sick or elderly. Then they depart before it happens.
And here I’ve done it again.
But the video ended and Fort is still with us.
Barely, it seemed. The City Council decided it was time to celebrate him — while he was still here.
Fort has been fighting cancer since at least 2011, when he announced he had prostate cancer. It has returned. The Rev. Timothy McDonald, a longtime Fort friend, told me in March that Fort had told him: “The doctors said they have done all they can do.”
At Monday’s meeting, Fort sat in a wheelchair as a flock of local dignitaries — including preachers, politicians, activists, hell-raisers and even Mayor Andre Dickens — crowded around the dais and extolled at length. Great length. Atlanta City Council meetings are known to be marathons of excessive proclamation and commemoration.
This observance, running one hour, 15-minutes, might have broken a record.
Fort is very sick. You could almost call the effort a living wake. Why hold onto all that loving salutation until after someone’s gone? Most of us would like to witness our own funeral, to witness the eulogies and finally comprehend how the tapestry of our lives touched others.
The Rev. Angela Brown told the City Hall congregation that years ago, a bank called in the $43,000 loan on her West End home. She said Fort, a long-time crusader against banks squeezing people, stepped in and helped save the house. It is now worth $650,000.
“Talk about a legacy; I am the result of what he has done,” Brown said. “Whatever accolades we can give the brother; he needs the flowers now so he can smell the flowers that we give.”
Fort, however, may be more accustomed to receiving brickbats than bouquets. If you’re mixing it up with powerful forces, expect it.
Credit: KENT D. JOHNSON / AJC
Credit: KENT D. JOHNSON / AJC
I’ve known Fort 25 years, since the 1999 state legislature.
At the time, Fort was a senator representing South Atlanta sponsoring a bill to confiscate the cars of prostitutes’ johns. He also pushed bills to close crack houses and install red-light cameras at intersections. His efforts raised the eyebrows of both Republicans and fellow Dems. The ACLU even shadowed him at committee hearings, concerned about civil rights, property rights and privacy concerns.
I wrote that during a tough-on crime session, “Fort, a diminutive college history professor who’s proud to be called a liberal, may be the session’s toughest guy on crime.”
Fort chided me after the article. “Why’d you call me diminutive?!?” he asked.
I got to know him well after Nov. 21, 2006, when Atlanta police waged an illegal drug raid on the home of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston and shot her to death. I was the paper’s lead reporter on the case and spent months canvassing neighborhoods on the front lines of the War on Drugs. I often ran into Fort.
He railed against the “No-knock” warrants that let police barge into the woman’s home, along with the city’s DC-6 ordinance, which allowed cops to arrest just about anyone in a “drug area,” and the “militarization” of police, embodied by APD’s Red Dog unit.
Credit: Bob Andres/AJC
Credit: Bob Andres/AJC
“I’m outraged,” Fort said at one of the many public meetings he called, “about how things went down on Nov. 21!”
Outrage was his stock in trade, which often put him sideways with power-brokers both inside and outside of politics.
Take former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, for instance.
In 2017, Fort left his senate seat of 20 years to run for Atlanta mayor, trying to succeed the term-limited Reed.
Hizzoner, who is not one to hide his true feelings, derided many of the 15 or so candidates who had answered the political cattle call. But he saved special animus for Vince.
Fort, who relished tangling with the combative Reed, had sponsored bills to stop the city from outsourcing parking enforcement, place Atlanta’s streetcar under MARTA’s control and block a pedestrian bridge the city was building at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. (The latter two, I must say, are world-class white elephants.)
At a luncheon, Reed was asked about that year’s crop of mayoral contenders. He dissed several of them and paused to consider Fort.
Credit: Screen grab of mayoral debate
Credit: Screen grab of mayoral debate
“Let me look into the camera and guarantee you Vincent Fort will never be mayor of the city of Atlanta,” he said, drawing nervous laughter from the crowd.
Reed continued, calling Vince “Wile E. Coyote Fort” because “he never wins.”
Fort didn’t win. Keisha Lance Bottoms, whom Reed backed, did.
Wile E. Coyote might be an insult. But without him, you don’t have a cartoon.
All you have is a geeky bird running amuck.
Post Script: I called Derrick Boazman, a former councilman and Fort running buddy. He said Fort was suffering from an infection and was driven to the hospital after the City Hall marathon. He said he could be bouncing back some.
Perhaps we can still knock back that drink. Even if it’s just coffee.
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