[Mb-civic] 'The Right Result' Was Key to Miers - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

'The Right Result' Was Key to Miers
In Dallas, She Made A Name for Candor

By Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 8, 2005; Page A01

DALLAS, Oct. 7 -- This city was already on edge, divided along racial 
and class lines over how to desegregate public housing, under court 
order to change an election system that kept minorities out of power, 
and seething from a series of police shootings that killed innocent blacks.

So when a black county commissioner was arrested after a physical 
altercation with an off-duty police officer who allegedly had spat a 
racial slur at him, more than 1,000 demonstrators marched on City Hall. 
Many feared violence until Harriet Miers, a first-term City Council 
member and local lawyer, spoke to the crowd.

"If it means anything to you, I want to apologize," Miers said in her 
native Texas drawl. "I want to apologize to the African American 
community of this city for an unprovoked and unexcusable attack on one 
of their elected leaders."

Her apology, met with applause from the crowd, played a key role in 
defusing the tension that November night in 1990, many here recalled. 
Those who knew Miers at the time said her apology that night was 
characteristic of her tenure -- unafraid to take on controversial 
issues, sometimes even to her own political detriment.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/07/AR2005100701813.html?referrer=email
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