Page 84 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

CHAPTER 7

LEADERS ROOT

OUT PREJUDICE

IN THEMSELVES

AND OTHERS

It was 1975, and even though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been in
effect for eleven years, racism was still far too prevalent in American
society. Cliff Stanley (WHF 88–89), an African American, had been in the
Marine Corps for five years and had risen to the rank of captain at that
time. Although he worked long hours teaching at the U.S. Naval Academy,
he made sure he set aside time to be with his wife, Roz, their baby daughter,
Angie, and his close-knit extended family.
Around five o’clock on Sunday afternoon April 13, 1975, Stanley and
his family were returning to Annapolis from a quiet family dinner at his
brother’s home in Wheaton, Maryland. Stanley was driving his car with
Roz beside him in the front seat and his mother and father holding Angie
in the back. Leading the way in his own car about a block ahead was
Stanley’s uncle Connie. The Stanleys chatted away as their little caravan
headed into Washington, D.C., down Georgia Avenue and south on Uni-
versity Boulevard, when suddenly the windshield shattered. “I put the car
in park, and Roz just leaned over on me—she said she was okay. My dad
and I saw my uncle’s car stopped ahead, and we jumped out and ran to
him and found that my uncle had been shot in the chest and stomach. He

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