Toote, Gloria E.A.

views updated

Gloria E.A. Toote

1931—

Lawyer, entrepreneur, political appointee

Dr. Gloria E.A. Toote was something of a twentieth-century anomaly—a black Republican. While never losing sight of the struggle for civil rights, Toote, a self-described conservative activist, believed that the key to racial equality lay in economic opportunity and entrepreneurship. A lawyer, writer and columnist, recording-studio owner, and New York City real-estate developer, Toote was a self-made millionaire who appeared frequently in the society columns of black newspapers. She told Contemporary Black Biography (CBB): "Everything I have I got on my own." As the highest-ranking woman in the Nixon and Ford administrations and an advisor to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush and the Republican National Committee (RNC), Toote spoke out for the interests of blacks and women within a party that often seemed indifferent to their concerns.

Raised in a Black Nationalist Family

Gloria E.A. Toote was born on November 8, 1931, in New York City, the daughter of Lillie M. (Tooks) and Frederick Augustus Toote. She told CBB, "I was taken home from Harlem Hospital to the house that I've lived in now for 76 years." Her father, originally from the Bahamas, held a doctorate in theology and was a primate in the African Orthodox Church. He had been a leader in Marcus Garvey's black nationalist movement and when Garvey was deported to Jamaica in the 1920s, Dr. Toote took over as a leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Gloria Toote told the New York Post in 1974: "We were always at odds because I was so much like him…. He was demanding. He insisted upon professionalism, and I strive to be a professional in whatever I do."

Toote entered Howard University in 1949, majoring in liberal arts, and in 1954 became the youngest-ever graduate of the Howard University School of Law. She was about to fly to California for a corporate job interview when her life changed. Her young nephew was suddenly orphaned and Toote cancelled her interview and flew home to care for him, eventually putting him through college. In 1956 she earned her doctorate from Columbia University with a dissertation on constitutional law and civil rights.

Since World War II the Urban League had been pressuring Time, Inc. to hire black writers. As a college student Toote had written for black newspapers and her column "Toote's Alley" appeared in the Howard student newspaper. Toote told CBB: "The Urban League made me a test case." After interviewing with every editor at the corporation, she was hired for the National Affairs Section of Time magazine. She told CBB about her first day on the job: "I get to the building and I don't see any black folks. The first one I see is a sweeper. The lady in the next cubicle had a confederate flag hanging there. But by the time I left we had become the best of friends. Other writers would come to me for help and I ended up writing everyone's legal stories. They treated me well there. But I had to work on Saturdays and Sundays. I was young and all my friends were having fun on the weekends. So I kept my word with the Urban League and stayed for a year and a half. I was tired of being a token."

Founded Town Sound Studios

The head counsel at Time, Inc. got Toote an interview at the prestigious law firm of Greenbaum, Woolf & Ernst. The firm hadn't had a black associate since 1937. Toote told CBB: "My daddy said they would never hire me. He told me I should go into international law because that was the future for black lawyers. When Morris Ernst hired me, I asked to call my daddy. I phoned him and was told that he had just died."

Toote became one of the first black entertainment attorney/agents. Among her clients were black musicians who were treated poorly by the white-controlled recording industry and were often cheated out of their royalties. Toote saw an opportunity. In 1966 she rented the abandoned city hall in Englewood, New Jersey, a four-story brick building that had been unoccupied since 1928. Working with high-school dropouts from a local antipoverty program, Toote turned the building into a state-of-the-art recording studio, one of the largest in the New York metropolitan area. Together, Toote and her young workers learned construction, business skills, and recording technology.

At the time Town Sound was the only independent black-operated studio in the country that recorded major white artists. Toote told Ebony in 1969: "Negroes have been part of the entertainment industry since slavery…[but] we don't learn the techniques of the trade-many of us cannot even read music. So we're exploited. I want to make Negroes aware of and train them for the many existing, lucrative jobs in this industry." Among the artists who recorded at Town Sound were Miriam Makeba, The Blues Project, The Animals, Gloria Lynne, Don Gardner, Lloyd Price, the Isley Brothers, and the Mothers of Invention. Toote formed a record label with James Brown.

Returned to Politics

During her final year of law school Toote had worked on the re-election campaign of Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, an experience that left her disillusioned with Democratic politics. In 1958 she ran unsuccessfully for the New York State Assembly as a Republican. She returned to politics in 1971, campaigning for Richard Nixon's reelection. She was rewarded with the assistant directorship of ACTION, an umbrella agency for federal volunteer programs. During her two years there, Toote directed the Office of Voluntary Action Liaison, placing former Peace Corps and Vista volunteers in school and jobs. At White House breakfasts Toote was seated next to Press Secretary Ron Ziegler. She told CBB that her orders were to "be quiet, listen, and learn."

At a Glance …

Born Gloria E.A. Toote on November 8, 1931, in New York, NY. Education: Howard University, JD, 1954; Columbia University Graduate School of Law, LLM, 1956. Religion: African Orthodox. Politics: Republican.

Career: Time magazine, New York, National Affairs Section editorial staff writer, 1955-56; Greenbaum, Wolff & Ernst, New York, associate, 1956-58; New York State Workmen's Compensation Board, assistant general counsel, 1958-64; New York, private law practice, 1958-71; Toote Town Publishing Co. and Town Recording Studios, Inc., Englewood, NJ, president, 1966-70; ACTION,Washington, D.C., assistant director, 1971-73; HUD, Washington, D.C., assistant secretary for equal opportunity, 1973-75; Trea Estates and Enterprises, Inc., New York, president, 1976-2006; Ronald Reagan's Presidential Campaign, senior advisor, 1980; President's Advisory Council on Private Sector Initiatives, Washington, D.C., vice chair, 1983-85.

Selected memberships: American Arbitration Association, board member; Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), board of directors; Hoover Institution, board of overseers; National Black United Fund, founding member of board of governors; National Political Congress of Black Women, co-founder, vice chair, co-chair of the Commission for Presidential Appointment of African-American Women.

Selected awards: National Association of Black Women Attorneys, special achievement award; National Council of Negro Women, Inc., two-time honoree; National Newspaper Association, Newsmaker's Award; National Political Congress of Black Women, honoree, 1992; YWCA, World Service Award.

Addresses: Home—282 W. 137th St, New York, NY 10030-2407.

In 1973 Toote was appointed assistant secretary for equal opportunity at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), making her the highest-ranking woman and black in the administration. She had hoped to head the newly formed Consumer Product Safety Commission; however, she told CBB, "President Nixon called me in and said ‘I need you at HUD.’" He reminded her that since housing was the primary issue for black Americans, HUD was, in effect, the main federal agency addressing civil rights. Four months short of qualifying for a federal pension, Toote was asked to leave by the incoming HUD secretary, Carla Hills, under pressure from the real-estate industry.

In 1976 Toote returned to New York as a real-estate developer, the president of Trea Estates and Enterprises, Inc. She told CBB: "I was the largest property owner in Harlem who happened to be black." She continued to hire and train dropouts from the neighborhood, many of whom went on to skilled jobs in the building trades.

Advised Ronald Reagan

Toote was an uncommitted New York delegate to the 1976 Republican National Convention. She delivered a speech seconding Ronald Reagan's nomination as the party's presidential candidate. A supporter of Accuracy in Media (AIM) pointed out to CBS chairman William S. Paley that during Toote's speech CBS News had aired "chitchat between Eric Sevareid and Bill Moyers," depriving viewers of what David Brinkley had called the "best address" of the convention thus far. However other networks carried her entire address.

In 1978 Toote ran for the co-chairmanship of the nearly all-white RNC, losing to the incumbent. According to Time, a Republican leader remarked on her candidacy: "We're getting Jesse Jackson tomorrow. That's enough."

Toote had become a close personal friend to Ronald and Nancy Reagan and she served as a senior advisor on Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. With her own staff Toote traveled the country by Lear jet and limousine, acting as a Reagan "surrogate," making campaign appearances and issuing statements and comments on his behalf. She was a member of the GOP Truth Team that followed President Jimmy Carter's campaign trail, refuting his positions. It was rumored in the black press that, with Reagan's victory, Toote would become a major player in the new administration, possibly with a cabinet-level appointment. In 1981 Toote was featured on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine for an article entitled "The New Black Conservatives." Although Toote was not appointed to a cabinet-level position in the new administration, she was appointed vice chair of the President's Advisory Council on Private Sector Initiatives, a committee composed of corporate chief executive officers, in 1983. Toote was also a member of the 1984 U.S. delegation to the United Nations Conference on Women in Vienna.

Co-Founded the NPCBW

At the founding of the National Political Congress of Black Women (NPCBW) in 1984, former presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm was elected chair with Toote as vice chair, a position that she held until 1992. At the NPCBW's 1989 meeting to draft its national-policy agenda, Toote said, according to the Washington Post, "We're not asking for affirmative action that gives reverse discrimination, but we are asking for affirmative action that promises 20 acres and a mule. For had the ex-slave of America received the 20 acres and a mule, we would not now be the underclass of America, the illiterate of America and the last-hired, first-fired of America."

Toote continued her bipartisan political approach. In 1989 when other black Republican leaders pulled out of the African-American Summit protesting the inclusion of radical blacks, Toote, a steering-committee member, remained. She was quoted in the Columbus Times as saying that the Summit "must have a loud Republican vocal presence. It must have input from all Black Americans. We must think goals, think our people, not politics. There are critical problems facing Black Americans and we must address them." Toote pursued her goals for facing the problems of black Americans in a variety of other political committees and appointments. She served on President George H. Bush's African-American Advisory Council, and he appointed her to the board of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae).

Although bipartisan in her political approach, Toote had strong ideas about African-American membership in the Republican party. Toote said in a Heritage Foundation lecture: "For those African-Americans who refer to themselves as being conservatives, I would like to remind them that I am considered one of the oldest of the new breed of conservatives…. Even though the Republican party has not in recent years courted the African-American vote, young educated African Americans are registering as Republicans. Our heritage and culture attracts us to a party that speaks of entrepreneurship and self-development." In 1993 Toote founded and chaired the Policy Council, a think tank modeled on the Heritage Foundation, with the goal of returning African-American issues to the forefront of national politics and increasing the participation of blacks in the Republican Party. Toote was quoted in the Afro-American Red Star: "There is a vacuum in the leadership of Black America. Our leadership is spread too thin and has to answer to too many people; gays, lesbians, White women, and other so-called minorities. It's time that Black people have a group that is dedicated to our well being."

Toote retained her allegiance to the Republican Party. She wrote in the Crisis in 2000: "It's frustrating to know that within the hierarchy of my party, there are people as committed to the equal rights of all Americans, especially those of black Americans, as I am, yet we cannot achieve the goal that government be colorblind…. We want both parties to provide the remedies we are asking for."

Selected writings

(With Phyllis Berry Meyers) Today's Conservative Movement: Historical Perspectives and Current Dialogue from the African-American Community, Heritage Foundation, 1992.

"Dukes, Ferrer and Toote Speak Out on Voting," Crisis, September/October 2000, p. 23.

"The Door Is Open," The Fairmont Papers, www.amatecon.com/etext/fairmont/V-9.html (October 6, 2007).

Sources

Books

"Gloria E.A. Toote," Notable Black American Women, Book 2, Gale Research, 1996.

Periodicals

Afro-American Red Star (Washington, D.C.), September 25, 1993, p. A1.

Columbus Times (GA), October 30, 1980, p. 1; April 9, 1981, p. 10; April 25, 1989, p. A1; March 8, 1994, p. B1.

Ebony, May 1969, pp. 73-80.

New York Post, February 16, 1974.

New York Times Magazine, October 4, 1981, p. 20.

Time, January 30, 1978.

Washington Post, August 13, 1989, p. A10.

On-line

"Aiming at CBS," AIM Report,http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/1977/05a.html (October 5, 2007).

"Gloria E. A. Toote Biography," The HistoryMakers, http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=1407&category=Businessmakers&occupation=Attorney%20%26%20Real%20Estate%20Developer&name=Gloria%20E.A.%20Toote (October 5, 2007).