What is it they say about politics making for strange bedfellows?
LaSimba Gray's presence at a press conference this morning (see item below) urging Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton to delay his retirement until February was intriguing, to say the least.
Gray, local president of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH coalition, was one of the main organizers of a "Draft A C" movement in 2007 that tried in vain to persuade Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton to challenge Herenton in that year's mayoral election.
Herenton at the time blasted Gray and fellow "Draft A C" leader Rev. Bill Adkins for not being residents of Memphis and called them "self-serving preachers."
Gray lives in Collierville and his New Sardis Baptist Church is in unincorporated Southeast Shelby County; Adkins lives in Southeast Shelby County and his church is in Raleigh.
"The motivations of Bill Adkins and LaSimba Gray are questionable and deeply personal," Herenton said, at the time, of the preachers who also were instrumental in challenging the runoff provision of Memphis city elections that made Herenton's narrow 1991 victory possible. "I have never, since the People's Convention (in 1991), been their favorite person. All of this is about LaSimba Gray's and Bill Adkins' need for attention. People know they can easily be bought off."
It is also true that Gray has also been one of the fiercest opponents of 9th Congressional District U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, whom Herenton intends to challenge in the 2010 Democratic primary. Gray has been committed to the idea that a black person should represent the 9th Congressional District, and was one of many pastors lambasting Cohen for backing a hate crimes bill that also covered crimes against people because of their sexual orientation.
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