In Black America; Chairman Renee Higginbotham Brooks

From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. I'm glad you said redirection. I think they like their word better than change. Yes, I would have to agree that they do want to see some redirection, and depending on, we're a very small commission, there are only three of us. Three commissioners, and one of the proposals, under sunset would be to increase the size of this commission to six, which I think is the next one idea because it's extremely difficult to conduct any business with only three people, having to decide a lot of important issues in a very large agency, and it really needs more input from the citizens. I think that's one way to accomplish that.

Attorney Renee Hickenbatham Brooks. Attorney Brooks was recently appointed by Governor Anne Richard to serve as the Commissioner and later chosen by the Governor to serve as chairman of the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission. Attorney Brooks is the first woman and first minority member of the Licka Rectory Commission in its 56-year history. T.A.B.C. is the regulatory agency in the state of Texas that regulates the sale and enforcement of alcohol laws. The agency has come under criticism because of its enforcement of liquor laws, lack uniformity, and often favors the powerful segment of the alcohol industry over the week. Chairman Brooks is also looking to why the numbers of minorities at the agency are so low. I'm John L. Hanson, Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. This week, Chairman Renee Hickenbatham Brooks with the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission in Black America. Oh, absolutely. I'm in agreement with some of them, especially the fact that there need to be more minorities in significant positions in this agency.

That's in and of itself would help with community relations. I mean, we've seen it in the police departments. You change the way people, the people that are doing things look, then you change a lot. You really do. There's a, this agency has less than 5% minorities out of 700 employees, and that's just appalling. It's not representative of the ethnic makeup of the state of Texas, and the governor has a commitment to make that change, and it's certainly on my agenda as well. As chairman of the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission, attorney Brooks brings that at position an extensive background in public administration and regulatory practices. She has held two high level positions with federal regulatory agencies. chairman Brooks has served the assistant regional attorney at the U.S. Department of Health

and Human Services, and as a field attorney for the National Labor Relations Board. Born and raised in the Piedmont area of Virginia, chairman Brooks graduated Phi Beta Kappa at Madden Kuhlani from Howard University. She earned a jurisprudent degree at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. After many years working in the public sector, chairman Brooks decided five years ago to open her own law firm in Fort Worth, Texas. A law firm has grown to become one of the largest law practices in Taran County. Recently, I spoke with chairman Brooks regarding her appointment to the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission and her career. Growing up in Virginia during the 60s, I grew up in a very small town of only 18,000 people. It's in the Piedmont area of Virginia. It's between Roanoke, Virginia, and Greensboro, North Carolina is right on the border. It was a town that really didn't see a lot of change. Even though there were a lot of things going on in other cities, it pretty much everything

pretty much stayed the same. It took a long time for a lot of the gains of the civil rights movement to really make it to that small town. Of course, we'd see it on television, but that was probably just about the only exposure we had. One of the, once when I was growing up, I was very young. I remember a conversation between my father and my mother. They were both school teachers. That conversation was about the way they were paid versus the white teachers in this town. I think the pay difference was like they received $100 a month for teaching at the black schools and the white teachers received $200 a month for teaching white kids. That was something that really made no sense whatsoever to me. Of course, I grew up with the segregated bus, the restaurants and the bus stops.

That was something that we just really took it as a way of life and sitting on the back of the bus when we rode the bus downtown. Things like that was just really a way of life at that time. I remember I have an uncle who's an attorney. We went to the local drug store to buy some ice cream with some hot dogs or something on Sunday. I think I was probably seven. My sister was six and my cousin was nine. We sat down to wait on them to fix these hot dogs. The owner of the store said, I'm sorry, but you all cannot sit down. That's reserved for white people. You're niggas. You can niggas cannot sit down in here and get up. We've been in there for years. We always go there to get anything. Let's ride up the street from the house and we went down the street and told our uncle

what happened. He went up there and really chastised this man who on the store told him, look, you don't treat these children like that. If that's your policy, then you need to change it. This was in the early 60s and I really appreciated him standing up and talking back at that time. Who were some of the influences of your life besides your parents at that time? Well, I think I probably had a unique situation because I grew up in a family that had a lot of people who had a lot of relatives that were really involved in a lot of things. My grandfather was a physician and he went to medical school in the early 1900s. He graduated from medical school in like 1911 and I remember him telling us about World War

I and how he could only be a paramedic because he was black. They would not allow any of the black doctors to be commissioned officers. They could only be paramedics even though he had the same medical degree that the white doctors had. So he was a real influence for me. My grandmother, I guess my family was really the major influence in my life. My grandmother owned a hotel and worked in this hotel for some 20 years. I think she said 25 years.

We lived there when I was growing up until I was about three or four years old. We lived in the hotel. My grandfather had this hospital and it was right next door and that was kind of the center of all the activity in the town. My grandfather had built the first apartments in town, had an amusement park for black people in the 40s and 50s. Had the bowling alley, he owned the bowling alley, he was a businessman. Even had a brick quarry. He bought a lot of land, carved it up, sold the likes, the black people and built their homes. So I was around people that had done a lot of things. He even had a textile factory. He tried a lot of things, trying to make a lot of money. So I would have to say that my family was very instrumental in my development as a person. They would probably have to be the main influence that I had growing up.

How did you happen to select Howard University for your undergraduate studies? Howard University was a school that I'd heard a lot about. Neither of my parents had received a degree from that school but some of my uncles had two uncles, both pharmacists and they had gone to Howard. My first exposure to Howard was when I was six years old. We went to Washington to live for the summer. My mother and father, my grandmother and I, my sister. And we stayed on campus. My first exposure to Howard was like I was saying was when we went up there and spent the summer, my mother was in school and my father was in school and I wanted to go to Howard. And they had a daycare program or something at Howard and it was full so I didn't get to go but we played on the grounds all the time. And you know we spent our nights roaming the campus in the summer and I guess that was

my first exposure and I always wanted to go there. How did you happen to select law as your career path, whether it's something that happened in your life or you wanted to get away from medicine because most of your grandparents, your grandfather had been a physician, your parents had been teachers. I had an uncle who was a lawyer and like I said my role models came from my family. My first exposure to law was when I was 13 years old and I worked in my uncle's office. He was a general practitioner in Barnesville, Virginia, the only black attorney. And I worked there doing this summer and also doing the year just helping out and that was my first exposure. I didn't really know whether or not I wanted to be a lawyer at that time. I talked to, I remember one time I wanted to be a nurse and I told my grandfather that

I wanted to be a nurse and he says, he says, well why be a nurse when you can be a doctor. And I said, well you know I figured, you know that's what women are supposed to do. Is some role like a nurse or a teacher and after going to Howard, one year at Howard because I really didn't know what I wanted to do at that point, I met a lot of people at the law school and was interested in politics and administration and management of large organizations, public administration. And I just decided, well why not go to law school? I mean there was not anything else in particular that I wanted to do so I decided to go to law school. Did you find law school difficult once you made up your mind that yes this is my career path I want to become an attorney?

Going to law school was a tremendous challenge to say the least. That was a very, Joyce town law school was a very large law school. There were 600 students in my first year class, classes were fairly large, it was quite different from college because of the size of the classes and really what was expected of you. It really took a very large commitment from anyone to complete it really did, especially that first year. Once you get over that first year though, it did become easier. I at that point just really had a goal of completing law school and passing that bar and that's really the only thing I had in mind at that time was completing law school and passing that bar. And I'd have to say to anybody who wants to do anything, you have to stay with it. It's not really what you know as much as how determined you are to get what you need

to know. We call it stick to itiveness, that's what it is. You can really do anything you want to if you really decide you want to do it and you stick to your goals. Just like the basketball players do. There are lots of great basketball players out here, but what makes them great really is that the ones that are out here, they stayed with the goals. Same thing with law school, stay with you goal, you'll complete it. You can do a lot of things. We've seen in Fort Worth, next to Dallas, a lot of people think Fort Worth is to step child to Dallas. How is it living and practicing law in Fort Worth, Texas? Well in order to address that, I must tell you that I worked in Dallas for eight years. Okay.

I worked in Dallas as a civil rights attorney with the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in the old days and then the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. And Medicare and Medicaid litigation. So I worked in Dallas for eight years and I was very active in Dallas in the legal community. I was president of the Dallas Association of Black Women Attorneys, so I was involved in the network of black female attorneys at that time. We had 65 members and that was in Dallas alone, not counting Fort Worth. But the difference in practicing law, I would have to say, it's not very different. I have a lot of Dallas clients, it's just not that far away. Dallas is not that far away from Fort Worth, there really to be a lot of difference. Once you get down to the courthouse now, things are run differently. It's a much faster paste in Dallas than it is in Fort Worth. I prefer Fort Worth practice far above Dallas. I believe you can get things done a lot quicker in Fort Worth than you can in Dallas because the paste is so different and there's a much more cutthroat attitude at the courthouse

in Dallas. I would assume you met your husband while you were in Washington, he's a prominent physician in Fort Worth. Is it difficult in maintaining a two highly successful, professional practice? It is difficult and I think that if I had started out and had not worked in large organizations and had a job and had tried to start a practice at the same time that my husband was starting his medical practice, I think it would be a lot different but because I waited some ten years before I went into private practice after completing law school and worked jobs, it made for a smooth transition because he by that time was already established and could help me get established and that's exactly what we did. We helped each other at different times though when we were in a position to do that, just sort of happened that way but I don't think I could have really survived if I had started

out straight out of law school and I wouldn't advise anybody else to do that either. You need that training in a large organization either it's a law firm or some kind of public entity because you need to learn how to work around people and how an organization functions in order to really run a business and I can sit in my law practice the business as well as a service and I just sort of moved into personal injury because those were the kind of cases I was getting, you have to be flexible though, you can't just decide to all be this and I'm going to do this, you gotta be flexible, gotta be able to move in the different areas and learn a lot about as many different things as you possibly can and that's how I ended up in personal injury and workers' compensation, social security disability cases is another area we do. You're receiving been appointed chairperson of the Texas alcohol and beverage commission.

It's black, first female and it's 56 year history, is that significant to you or there should be a broader picture in which we should look at this particular appointment in time? It was very significant for me to be appointed to this position. I did not know anything whatsoever about the regulation of alcohol. Yes I've met the governor on one occasion, I like to tell people that I was not selected because of my tremendous campaign donations or my tremendous amount of campaigning for the governor because I did neither, actually I sort of applied for this job, my resume was sent along with many others and an interview for this job and others were interviewed too and I was selected, I think it has a lot to do with my background and civil rights and in public administration, human resources, labor relations, I think that was probably some

qualities that they were looking for at that time. Why don't you want to be chairperson? I did not want to be chairperson at first, they kept saying well then you can be chairman you can be chairman, well the chairmanship came along later, I was initially appointed to replace a Bill Clemmons appointee who was never confirmed in last July, July of 91 and when the then chairman, I think he resigned, he knows his term expired. When his term expired in November, the governor then appointed me as chairman, I like to say chairman too because I think it's important and maybe other people wouldn't but I think it's important that names not be changed because you are female, I'm the chairman, they call the previous at least 15 chairman's chairman, I'm the chairman, I don't take offense

to chairperson or chairwoman, they call me all these other things but I prefer chairman because that's what they call the others, that's what I want to be called the same thing. Now as far as the first is concerned, the first is the first that I think that's important that we as black people have people in positions and they can call them the first but the first should not be the last, there should be many many more. If you are first you need to, your agenda should be making sure that there are many many more and that you never have to say the first again. We try to eliminate the first and just make it as widespread as possible and bring more and more people in wherever you go, always bring people with you and as far as the first is concerned, I really believe that we as black people need to be to make politicians accountable for our votes, we provide the swing votes that get many many many many many

people put in office and we should extrapolate more for our votes than we do than just the first. Our agenda should be change that affects our community and I believe that's my agenda. Speaking as we are now during the political presidential campaign, in your opinion our opinion, we as African Americans and this country at a crossroads in how our futures will be dictated, of course we've had the last decade under Reaganomics of the trickle-down theory about African Americans, Browns and other Americans are not seeing the true reality of the American dream. I think your statements are very valid and very true and I think that the 90s could be could be another 60s, I mean let's face it, there are a lot of things that have happened

with the Rodney King situation and the riots, it seems like people just don't want to hear you until you yell and scream, that needs to change. I want to get back to a constructive way of addressing our frustration and I know a lot of young people say their votes are useless, I disagree, your votes do count. Whenever we go out in large numbers to the polls, we always make a difference, we always make a difference. We have elected far more politicians than we get credit for. What happens I believe and currently what happens must change and what I believe currently happens is we supply the votes that determine who's elected and who's not, if we stay away from the polls, a lot of people would not be elected. We supply those swing votes that really put people in office and then you have a small

group of people who supply the money and they control the agendas and that has to stop the agendas being the agendas of the politicians. That needs to change, we need to control agendas, demand agendas for our votes, agendas that address our concerns, our frustrations in our community. Is there a likelihood that in all probability that a third party is needed in this country? The two parties have not lived up to its creed, its ideologies for America in general. Well I think we could talk about history and how third parties have cropped up in the past over the history of this nation. At this point in time it probably is a very healthy thing to have a third party. I would certainly have to say that at this time the current parties are totally different

totally different and there are a lot of people that are just not willing to say or wanting to say that they are a member of either party. That style and majority that I believe was Reagan used to refer to, that he is no longer a member of the Republican Party, that cannot be depended upon to vote Republican and at the same time a lot of that particular group probably does not see the Democratic Party as the, or its current philosophy as the way that they want to go. And I believe that a third party is a very viable concept right now because of the political times. As Chairman of the Texas alcohol beverage commission, is there an agenda in which you have set for yourself as you would like to see the commission go towards or undertake under your particular

leadership? I'm glad you asked me that question. Yes, I believe I do have an agenda, there are a lot of things that I would like to accomplish as the Chairman of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. This agency has a very, very, very small number of minority employees in any significant positions. The numbers are so few I don't even want to mention them. I would like to increase the hiring of minorities on the executive staff and in professional field positions. I'd like to create a community relations department in headquarters with field representatives. I believe that's necessary. We need to be about educating the public about what this agency does, improving its reputation, changing the perception in the community of this agency, selectively enforcing the

local laws to the detriment of minority permitties. I would like to see this agency have a summit between minority permitties and elected officials. I'd like to see this agency create a statewide public service campaign to really address a lot of the concerns of the public about what this agency as again does and should be doing and is not doing. I believe there is a place in state government for the regulation of this industry as a separate entity that this commission should continue to exist. I believe that at this time I think that changes are long overdue and change is going to happen here.

I really want to push the items that I've mentioned and accomplish some change in this agency. There are a lot of people that don't want to see any change in this agency or as little change as possible. I believe only change can benefit the citizens of Texas at this agency. They've mandated the change take place and I want to accomplish that change. Attorney Renee Hickenbatham Brooks, chairman of the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission. If you have a question or comment regarding this program, write us, remember views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for In Black America's technical producer, Dana White here. I'm Johnny O'Hanston, Jr. Please join us again next week. Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing In Black America Cassettes, Longhorn Radio Network, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin, Texas 78712. From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, this is the

Longhorn Radio Network. I'm Johnny O'Hanston, Jr. Join me this week on In Black America. I do believe that there's been selective enforcement. I think that that's been proven based on the many phone calls and letters that I received from the public. For more information, visit our website at www.deaf.co.uk and visit our website at www.deaf.co.uk.uk.