William L. Clay Sr., who became Missouri's first Black member of Congress, a champion of civil rights and workers’ rights and a force in regional and national politics for decades, died Wednesday. He was 94.
During his raucous 32-year tenure representing the 1st District, from 1969 to 2001, the Democrat exerted his clout widely in St. Louis, influencing major redevelopment projects and hiring for city jobs. His endorsements — or lack of — could make or break the candidacies of other Democrats.
Clay was instrumental in fostering a political environment where African Americans could wield real, tangible political power throughout St. Louis. His son, former Congressman Lacy Clay, said his father able to hold that role because he commanded respect among Black St. Louisans.
“The Black community, almost overwhelmingly, looked at him as a fighter for them,” Lacy Clay said Thursday.
He launched his elective career at age 28, winning the 26th Ward seat on the St. Louis Board of Aldermen in 1959. Clay's House biography says he "embraced his radical reputation," built over his years as an alderman, union leader and civil rights leader.
Clay was at the center of the sit-ins in the 1950s and '60s that desegregated St. Louis fixtures such as White Castle and Howard Johnson’s, Fairground Park’s swimming pool and the Fox Theatre. He was a pivotal figure in the historic Jefferson Bank demonstrations that gave Black people entrée into white-collar jobs in the service industry.
Congenial but blunt, fierce and gregarious, Clay refused to accept the practiced inequality in his hometown.
“St. Louis was no different from any of the cities in the South,” Clay said in a 1998 profile. “We had rigid segregation — not by law, but by custom.”
He spent his retirement years in Silver Spring, Maryland. When he left office in 2001, his son, William Lacy Clay Jr., succeeded him and held his congressional seat until 2021.
His start as a political streetfighter
William Lacy Clay was born in St. Louis on April 30, 1931, the fourth of the seven children of Irving Clay, a welder, and Luella Hyatt Clay.
He grew up in downtown St. Louis in a cold-water apartment near what’s now the Columbus Square neighborhood. By 13, he was working as a janitor in a clothing store, where he would later become the tailor.
Until sixth grade, he attended Jefferson School, then transferred to St. Nicholas Elementary School. He graduated from St. Nicholas High School.
When a white couple was robbed and slain in St. Louis in 1949, police arrested 18-year-old Clay. A former convict said he saw him driving the killer to the bus station.
“A policeman had me under a light with a hose,” Clay recalled for this obituary. “He was going to whup a confession out of me.”
When his mother tried to intervene, an officer pushed her down stairs.
His mother’s sister was a housemaid for a police commissioner, who promptly put an end to the interrogation.
That incident convinced him, he recalled years later, “that survival and political influence are inseparable in American society.”
Lacy Clay said his father’s upbringing made an impact on how he viewed politics and his push for civil rights.
“One thing that my mom and him impressed upon us is that no one is better than you,” Lacy Clay said. “He showed us how to respect others and also command respect from them.”
In 1953, Clay married Carol Ann Johnson, earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from St. Louis University and was promptly drafted into the Army. He was sent to Fort McClellan, Alabama.
There he encountered segregation, though it had been prohibited in the armed forces since 1948. For example, Black soldiers were restricted to getting haircuts on base only on Saturdays. A Black barber from the nearby town was brought in for the 300 to 400 Black servicemen.
Clay led a boycott of the barbershop and brought the protest to the attention of national media. Reporting by the nation’s two largest Black publications, Ebony and Jet, helped end the practice.
“We tore that base up,” Clay said and laughed as he recalled how he led change at the base. His commanding officer wanted him gone, and Clay happily agreed to be sent to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.
Upon his return to St. Louis in 1955, the future congressman found his hometown’s theaters, hotels, restaurants and swimming pools, as well as many jobs, still off-limits to Black people, including Black veterans.
Clay briefly worked as a cartographic aide for the federal government at Aeronautical Chart and Information Center, then as a driver for Metro’s forerunner, the old St. Louis Public Service Company. Later, Clay worked as a real estate broker and a manager with a life insurance company.
In 1959, he found his life’s calling: politics. After winning the race for St. Louis alderman, he began building an unshakable Black and labor constituency that later propelled him to Congress for 16 terms.
'We Shall Not Be Moved'
Clay founded an active NAACP Youth Council chapter and became involved with the Congress for Racial Equality, joining with other local civil rights stalwarts like Norman Seay, Percy Green, Bob Curtis and Charles and Marian Oldham.
“We had sit-ins in restaurants and department stores and picket lines and other peaceful protests,” Clay said in "Lift Every Voice and Sing," which profiles notable Black St. Louisans. “Restaurants opened up, one at a time.”
His interest in politics, he said, “flowed naturally” out of his interest in civil rights. He melded the two effectively.
One of the first issues Clay tackled as an alderman was opening up public facilities to African Americans. Several bills had failed, but after two arduous years of work, he saw the public accommodations bill passed in 1961.
That same year, Clay began serving as a business representative for the powerful city employees union. He held the position until he left the Board of Aldermen in 1964. He continued his union activities as an education coordinator with the local Steamfitters Union, coordinating employment opportunities in the field for African Americans.
In 1963, the local arm of CORE planned demonstrations at Jefferson Bank & Trust Co. to pressure the bank to hire Black professionals. He was still an alderman when he became one of the most visible faces — and voices — of the protest.
Protesters ended the first day of demonstrations on Aug. 30, by crowding into the bank’s lobby singing “We Shall Not Be Moved.” They dispersed when the bank closed, only to have police round some of them up at their homes. Clay, as one of the “ringleaders,” was among nine who were arrested that day, and he drew one of the harshest sentences: nearly four months in jail and a fine of $1,000.
He considered it a small price to pay.
“I think things were accomplished that far outweighed the 112 days I spent in jail,” Clay said in his congressional biography.
In March 1964, Jefferson Bank capitulated and hired two African American tellers. In a matter of months, banks across the city hired more than 80 Black professionals. Other companies in the service industries quickly followed suit.
The demonstrations were ultimately successful, Clay told the Beacon in 2010, because of “the rank and file black community,” Black ministers and the Black press.
The first campaign
In 1964, Clay resigned from the Board of Aldermen and began serving as a Democratic ward committeeman. It was an influential position that controlled many patronage jobs and required him to endorse local candidates in primary elections.
While listening to the car radio in 1968, he decided it was time to return to elective office. He’d heard news of an upcoming vacancy in St. Louis’ 1st Congressional District.
“I knew no one in town was more qualified,” Clay said. “I pulled over to the curb and made six or seven calls.”
His effort to replace Frank Karsten, a 22-year incumbent, had begun. He defeated five candidates for the nomination before facing Curtis Crawford, an African American who was a former St. Louis assistant circuit attorney, in the general election.
The race ensured that Missouri would elect its first Black member of the U.S. House of Representatives. It turned out to be Clay, who garnered 64% of the vote.
He won on the issues he had long championed in and out of politics: greater employment opportunities and civil rights for African Americans.
His freshman class included two other history-making African Americans: Shirley Chisolm of New York, the first Black woman elected to Congress, and Louis Stokes, the first Black congressman elected in Ohio. His 16 two-year terms made Congressman Clay the longest serving of the three.
'No permanent enemies'
In a 1975 speech to the AFL-CIO Federation of Government Employees in Chicago, Clay shocked his mixed-race audience by declaring union members were the “new n———” in society, enduring management’s unfair treatment.
He quickly pivoted to the political philosophy he popularized.
“You must start with the premise that you have no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests,” he admonished.
His supporters feared his outspokenness would harm his reelection chances. It never did.
“People used to say to me, ‘How can you do that? You won’t get reelected,'" Clay told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1999. “I would say, ‘I didn’t come here to stay forever.’”
Still, Clay did face some bruising primary challenges for reelection – which often showcased his penchant for humor.
When he was erroneously accused in 1974 of hiring a California-based hitman to take out a political opponent, Clay told reporters at a press conference: “With the high rate of unemployment for hit men in the First Congressional District, why would a gifted politician like myself give the job to someone from California?”
And Lacy Clay recalls that in 1982, his father's opponent made an issue of how he used to fly first class on his trips from St. Louis to the nation’s capitol.
“He got off the plane one week at Lambert and said: ‘Yes and I do travel first class, because the voters in my district would expect nothing less than a first-class congressman,’” Lacy Clay said. “And that issue went away. He was witty. He was funny at times. But he could be very serious and focused too.”
His 32-year run was long enough to sponsor nearly 300 bills with a focus on civil rights, labor and education legislation.
During his 1982 reelection campaign, he famously told the New York Times that he didn’t represent all people.
“I represent those who are in need of representation,” Clay said.
He served on the Committee on Education and Labor, the Post Office and Civil Service Committee and the Joint Committee on the Library. He sponsored revisions to a pension law that was incorporated in the Tax Reform Act of 1986.
Keeping faith with labor, he threw his support behind the mandatory notification of plant closings and the protection of unions’ negotiating rights. He also sponsored legislation to prohibit the permanent replacement of striking workers.
Clay worked 20 years to revise the 1939 Hatch Act, which restricted the political activities of federal workers. His measure became law in 1993.
He supported the Family and Medical Leave Act, which also passed in 1993. The act mandated that companies with more than 50 workers offer up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for employees to care for a newborn or attend to a family medical emergency.
President Bill Clinton signed both measures, which had been vetoed by President George H.W. Bush.
But he didn't always see eye to eye with Clinton. Clay strenuously disagreed with the president on the North American Free Trade Agreement. He feared NAFTA would further decrease workers’ wages and strengthen management’s hand.
He lost the NAFTA battle, but in 1996, he guided a bill through the House to raise the federal minimum wage.
True to the adage he lived by, when the Republican-controlled Congress fought Clinton’s efforts to improve public schools, Clay returned to fight alongside the president.
Under attack
Coming off a landslide victory for his second term in 1970, Clay and a dozen other African Americans founded the Congressional Black Caucus.
The group soon found itself at loggerheads with Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, whom he had once called “an intellectual sadist.”
Nixon had initially refused to meet with the group. Clay drafted a letter that informed him that the caucus would be boycotting Nixon’s 1971 State of the Union address.
Nixon met with the caucus later that year.
In the early 1990s, Clay, along with more than 300 others, was accused of improper use of the House “bank.” The bank permitted members to write checks with insufficient funds, a practice that caused a public outcry when it was revealed.
Clay, once dubbed “a lightning rod of criticism" by the St. Louis Beacon, said he came “under extreme attack,” for that incident and during the rest of his congressional tenure.
Efforts to disparage him had no discernible effect on Clay’s popularity back home. He continued to win handily, even when several reapportionments pushed the district into St. Louis' outlying suburbs.
He chronicled his political and civil rights upheavals and triumphs in eight books. The first was "To Kill or Not to Kill: Thoughts on Capital Punishment" in 1990; his final book, in 2018, was "U.S. Presidents: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly Pimples, Warts and All."
In between, he wrote "Just Permanent Interests"; "Bill Clay: A Political Voice at the Grass Roots"; "Racism in the White House"; "The Jefferson Bank Confrontation: The Struggle for Civil Rights in St. Louis"; "Power of Principled Politics" and "Clarence Thomas: A Black Knight in Tainted Armor."
The book on Thomas is a scathing rebuke of the nation's second Black Supreme Court justice, whose appointment Clay called an “ideological hijacking of the Supreme Court.”
“He’s been a major source of embarrassment to those who believe that all people are equal,” he told the Post-Dispatch when the book was published in 2015.
Proceeds from his last four or five books were donated to his scholarship foundation.
Recognition in retirement
The reverence Clay enjoyed as a congressman never waned, and his enduring popularity is visible.
In addition to his eponymous scholarship foundation, Clay has several St. Louis entities named for him, including a post office; a street; the former Bernard F. Dickmann Bridge, commonly called the Poplar Street Bridge; the Early Childhood Development and Parenting Education Center at Harris-Stowe State University and the Center for Nano Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
He received an honorary doctor of public service degree from his alma mater, St. Louis University, in 2018. Clay said he cried, moved by 2,100 graduates giving him a standing ovation.
He has three “fame” stars: on Atlanta’s International Civil Rights Walk of Fame, the Gateway Classic Walk of Fame and the St. Louis Walk of Fame in the University City Loop.
Following a 2006 introduction by Loop Walk of Fame founder Joe Edwards, Clay jokingly accepted: “Joe, what you are doing today is giving all those people who always wanted to walk over me, walk on me, you are giving them a choice when you add me to your Walk of Fame.”
St. Louis political community honors Clay
Clay’s passing brought about a wave of praise from prominent St. Louis leaders – some of whom received his support and encouragement.
State Sen. Brian Williams, who worked as an aide to Lacy Clay and knew Bill Clay well, said he was “heartbroken by the passing of former Congressman Bill Clay, a civil rights icon, legislative trailblazer, and personal mentor.”
“As Missouri’s first Black member of Congress, he paved the way for so many of us, including me,” Williams said. “His courage, intellect, and unshakable commitment to justice changed the course of history.”
Congressman Wesley Bell, who represents Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, called Clay a ”giant — not just for St. Louis, not just for Missouri, but for the entirety of our country.”
“I counted Mr. Clay as a grand mentor, as a trailblazer, and as a dear friend,” Bell said in a statement. “But more than that, I carry his example with me every time I walk onto the House Floor.”
State Sen. Karla May, D-St. Louis, called Clay “a tremendous leader and trailblazer who transformed politics in St. Louis.”
“He left an incredible legacy that will inspire generations to come to follow in his footsteps of dedicated public service,” May said. “Congressman Clay impacted countless lives during his time in Congress, and he will be greatly missed.”
St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer said that Clay’s “courageous legacy of public service to St. Louis and the country is etched in his historic legislative battles for the poor, underrepresented and disenfranchised.”
“Millions have him to thank for the Family and Medical Leave Act and raising the minimum wage,” Spencer said. “Generations of Black congressional leaders have followed in his footsteps as members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which he co-founded in 1971. We thank him for his generous service to a city he cared deeply for.”
During a visit home to promote a book in 2017, Clay told the Post-Dispatch that becoming a member of Congress was “a humbling, awesome experience.”
Clay's wife, the former Carol Ann Johnson, died in February, according to the St. Louis American. He is survived by three children, Vicki Flynn, William “Lacy” Jr., and Michelle Katherine.
The family would appreciate memorials being directed to the William L. Clay Scholarship and Research Fund, wlcsrf.org.
This story has been updated with comments from Clay's son and others.
Jo Mannies and Jason Rosenbaum contributed to this report.
