Sunday, June 6, 1999
By MARK HOLMBERG
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer

"Either it comes down or we jam."

That comment by City Councilman Sa'ad El-Amin to the president of the Richmond Riverfront Historic Foundation sparked the instant removal of the large Robert E. Lee mural that was to grace the Richmond floodwall for the weekend grand opening of the Canal Walk.

And yanking that mural triggered protests, threats and anger that are rippling across the nation.

All of which delights El-Amin.

"If I had it to do again, I'd do it just the same," he said yesterday from his North Side home as thousands thronged to the new Canal Walk.

His office has been inundated with hundreds of calls. "Nigger this, nigger that. The Klan is coming to get me," El-Amin said. "The switchboard at the city of Richmond has been jammed for three days."

But the thick-skinned activist known for his black separatist views said he had to take action when he saw a newspaper photograph of the Lee mural going up on the floodwall.

"If Lee had won [the Civil War], I'd still be a slave," El-Amin said.

When asked if he should have initiated a discussion about the mural instead of demanding its removal, he said he thought a full-court press was the only course of action.

"That's the only way to get things done," El-Amin said. "There's no ambiguity."

He defined "jam" as a street term for "getting very active, pumping up the volume." An organized boycott of the Canal Walk by blacks was a definite possibility if the portrait wasn't taken down, he said.

El-Amin said he regrets using street lingo while talking to Riverfront honcho James E. Rogers and a Times-Dispatch reporter. He now understands some people may have interpreted it as a threat of violence.

Indeed, many residents saw his comments as the kind of trench coat diplomacy that might get a high school student arrested in today's threat-sensitive climate.

Richmond resident Leslie Clark, who wrote to The Times-Dispatch, described El-Amin's words as "thuggish threats."

Another Richmond woman called the newspaper, concerned about actual fighting. "He's talking about going to war over this issue."

But El-Amin said he was not advocating or threatening violence.

"Violence is counterproductive," El-Amin said. "I was talking about withdrawing black support" for the Canal Walk. He's pleased that a panel now will assess all of the floodwall murals.

"The ball is in their court."

El-Amin, a sharp-dressed, athletic man who plays tennis and lifts weights, knew his tough talk would make him an instant lightning rod. But, he said, those who disagree with him would've been mad at him anyway if he had just complained about the mural.

"This way it came down."

He said he was doing what some white supporters of Lee have been doing since the portrait came down -- making demands that it go back up or they'll boycott.

"They bring troops to the field," he said. "I respect that."

El-Amin isn't buying the concept that Lee disliked slavery. To him, the South fought the North simply to keep its slaves.

The current flap isn't about the removal of Lee's picture from the floodwall, he said. "He's already got a monument and a school, a Boy Scout council, a street, a bridge" named after him.

"They're angry that a black man could get something done without white consultation or white approval," El-Amin said. "That's the bottom line. It's a power play and they weren't consulted. That's what made them angry."

The controversy had reached full boil Thursday night when a middle-aged white woman entering an elevator at City Hall stopped to tell El-Amin: "You made an ass out of yourself today."

"That's your view," he answered instantly, a shadow of a smile drifting across his face.

The woman's comment, he said, is typical of the bitterness bubbling out of what he calls the "self-inflicted wound" of race relations, which has been festering since slave days.

It's self-inflicted, he said, because blacks and whites never have properly shared and argued their feelings.

He compared it to a long-simmering domestic dispute between husband and wife. They yell at each other, but nothing changes to improve the relationship.

But what if someone or something causes that domestic dispute to become even more bitter, more divisive? Isn't it better that they argue instead of hitting each other with frying pans?

"Sometimes they have to be driven apart before they can come together," he answered.

That's been his style since he arrived in Richmond in 1969. Back then, he was JeRoyd W. Greene, an avowed black separatist from New York City, an Air Force veteran and a Yale Law School graduate who had married a Richmonder.

"I don't hate white people, contrary to popular opinion," he said during a 1974 talk at the College of William and Mary. "I don't deal with white people as inferiors. I don't deal with them as equals, either. I deal with white people as the enemy of black people."

Earlier this year, he proved his viewpoint has changed little, if at all.

"We are still a nigger in this society," he said during January's "Unity Day" event in Richmond staged to promote unity among Virginia's blacks. "And we will continue to be treated as niggers until we demand otherwise."

If blacks don't unite, he said, "all we will be doing is what white people have always let us do -- let a few of us slip through."

He is infuriated that former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder saluted the Confederate battle flag during Friday's grand opening of the Canal Walk.

"This fool stands up and salutes," El-Amin said. "Either he is senile, or he's a damn fool and a buffoon."

It's that sort of blunt speech that got El-Amin jailed for contempt as a lawyer.

It also helped him win his 6th District council seat.

He recently called for an analysis of the city's ABC licensing and how it affects city dwellers. He also has pushed for reworking the codes for home day-care centers, which are crucial to inner-city residents.

He speaks with pride about his unswerving dedication to the cause of Richmond's blacks. When asked whether he subscribes to the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" method of enacting change, he answered, "Definitely."

But what about wheels that get greased, but just keep on squeaking and squeaking? Don't they eventually get replaced?

"I'm not going to worry about that," he said.

He believes he's doing exactly what his constituents in the city's 6th District want him to do.

That's why, El-Amin said, "I'll be on City Council for as long as I want."