He was on our side. The Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, was in our corner. Now he has resigned. What does this mean for the multiracial movement?

I waited two years for a meeting with the Speaker. I was told I had TEN MINUTES to talk with him. At our first one-on-one meeting I quickly outlined the problem of multiracial children and adults without a racial classification. I handed Newt a bound report with the history of the movement and statistics. He quickly flipped through the report, put it aside and said, "This is the right thing to do for the children." He outlined what he would do to help—it was an impressive list.

Newt Gingrich sent a personal letter to the Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census on our behalf. Newt Gingrich repeatedly included us in speeches. Newt Gingrich spoke to educators about the multiracial classification. Newt Gingrich tried to come out to testify for us in Washington, but the budget talks prevented that at the last moment. His testimony was read and entered into the record.

Newt’s downfall was that he surrounded himself with the wrong people. His advisors gave him bad advice. He underestimated the power of the "competition." Three men on Newt’s staff advised Newt about a year ago to not pursue the multiracial issue: Krister Holliday (Legislative Director), Arne Christenson (Chief of Staff for the Speaker), and Jack Howard (I never was able to get a title out of him). Three white men who knew very little about what we were about. Howard had tried to nix the multiracial classification years ago, when I first met with Newt. One by one, Howard turned the Speaker’s staff against us. The white, male, self-imposed "experts" on race relations negated our efforts.

Why would they do that? Jack Howard expressed his racist beliefs to me directly. Arne Christenson feared that if the Speaker was FOR the multiracial category, it would jeopardize the black vote that the Republicans were out to get. Krister Holliday got cold feet after Congressman Thomas Petri folded and withdrew his multiracial legislation.

Dealing with Newt’s staff was an endless experience in frustration, but through it all, the Speaker stayed with us—he just could not do the day-to-day work on our issue that his staff was supposed to be doing. Newt Gingrich’s failing was in surrounding himself with the wrong people.

Support sometimes comes from unexpected corners. It is NOT in our best interest to roll over and play dead to the OMB and Census Bureau, as some of the other so called "check all that apply advocates" have done. The last time I met with Newt I told him about the OMB’s decision to disallow multiracial, but allow multiple check-offs. He looked at me and said, "That’s not a compromise! It only makes it worse!" He was right.

So, what does this mean for the multiracial movement? First, like him or not, the multiracial community has lost an important supporter; a person who could have assured us of getting legislation PASSED. Second, it’s not the end of our world. Ten years in the political realm of Washington has taught me never to put all of our eggs in one basket. We have worked relentlessly on gaining more and more support in Congress. Every member of Project RACE has to become involved in this if we are to gain enough support to make a difference for our children.