James Luther Bevel, October 19, 1936 (Itta Bena, Miss.) – December 19, 2008 (Springfield, Va.)
VP candidate for Independent (aka Independents for Economic Recovery aka Justice, Industry & Agriculture aka LaRouche for President aka Independents for LaRouche aka Freedom for LaRouche) (1992)
Running mate with nominee: Lyndon LaRouche (1922–2019)
Popular vote: 24,217 (0.02%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
In 1992 Lyndon LaRouche joined the ranks of Presidential candidates running for the office from behind bars. It was his fifth run for the White House. His followers called him a political prisoner, but the courts convicted him of fraud and income tax evasion. For awhile he shared a cell with another convicted fraud, televangelist Jim Bakker. Bakker would later reflect, "To say that Lyndon was slightly paranoid would be like saying the Titanic had a bit of a leak." Even though LaRouche was incarcerated in Minnesota at the Federal Medical Center, Rochester (FMC Rochester) serving a 15 year term starting in 1989, he listed his residence as Round Hill, Va. for the ballot.
Although Wikipedia says LaRouche's run "was only the second-ever campaign for president from prison," that is inaccurate. By 1992 there had already been several Presidential campaigns by prisoners, although all of them including Eugene Debs had lacked the financial resources of the LaRouche organization.
As per his M.O., LaRouche initially ran in the Democratic primaries and then moved to an independent campaign.
LaRouche's running-mate in 1992 was James Bevel, who had a courageous and notable career in the 1960s as a civil rights and anti-war activist working alongside Martin Luther King. After King's assassination in 1968 (Bevel was present at the tragedy) Bevel went through a political and mental transformation that puzzled many of his admirers and isolated him from his colleagues.
Tracking his shift from Left to Right seems to begin with Bevel leaving the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1970. Apparently he was forced out of the organization for behaviors deemed erratic and bizarre. He became quite adamant that James Earl Ray, the man who was convicted of assassinating Martin Luther King, was innocent, being railroaded and his case should be reopened. Bevel even offered his services to the defense team.
In 1972 he suggested a Presidential ticket of George Wallace with Shirley Chisholm as his VP. Bevel told the press, "Indeed it is a serious effort. It is an effort to help our country. Those who assume it would be funny for a white Alabama governor to run with a black woman from New York assume there are different kinds of people in this country. To us, there is one kind-- Americans." He planned to take this concept to the Democratic Party convention. Back in 1965 Bevel had called for Gov. Wallace's impeachment.
According to Rep. John Lewis, Bevel once declared himself a prophet to college students and asked them to drink his urine as a loyalty test.
In 1984 Bevel ran for US Congress in Illinois as a Republican. By this period he was in the pro-Reagan camp and a critic of Affirmative Action. In 1989 he was a co-founder of the National Committee Against Religious Bigotry and Racism, an organization that was considered a political front group for Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church cult. It appears Bevel's drift into the Right wing orbit brought him into Moon's sphere in the mid-1980s. Bevel also became associated with Lyndon LaRouche, endorsing the latter's independent run for US Congress in 1990.
Some quotes from Bevel in a 1992 campaign interview--
So, if they say that prayer is an encroachment on your individual rights, we have been duped by a lady who was a communist, who filed a suit in our school system saying that prayer was a violation of her rights. Russia, the communist nation that did not pray- they fell into their own stew. Now, why would we be insane enough, as a people, to take out that which has made, our nation great? All of our great scientists, all of our great generals, all of our great educators, all will tell you, that the greatness, and the contribution they made, is a direct result of their prayer lives. If you go and read the biography of any of the great scientists, they will tell you: It is their prayer lives that allowed them to contribute as much as they did to humanity.
One of the things that Lyndon LaRouche has been working on, and trying to get the American people to see, is how to build an economy without turning an ethnic group into slaves and prostitutes. Now, all America has to admit that they have not been able to achieve that. Under slavery, black people were slaves, and the women were prostitutes- and a host of young white women were prostitutes. Under segregation, you have a whole race subjected to economic exploitation. And LaRouche comes and says, "Look, if we develop the minds of all of our children, scientifically, since the real wealth is the creative mind- it increases wealth without violating the environment or without violating people." So let's do that. He's calling for scientific education for all the children. Then he's calling for an economic system that is not built on the backs of an ethnic group or of other nations.
When you love all of the people, and when you love and obey God, it provides the basis for the science of government. And because we do understand the science of government, and because we're willing to serve God and our people, using constitutional democratic republic means, we are eminently qualified- in fact, we are more qualified than any of the other candidates. That's why the major media are working so tenaciously to make sure that our message is not heard.
Somebody asked me, "Bevel, if you had the option to be on the ticket with George Bush, would you be on it?" No. "If you had an option to be on the ticket with Clinton, would you be on it?" No. Because I will not work with unprincipled people. I work with Lyndon LaRouche, because he is a principled person. When history records the facts 50 years hence, Lyndon LaRouche will be the father of the American new nation that does not have slavery, prostitution, racism in it, but has an economy that dignifies man. He will be the father of that economy. And George Bush and these guys will be seen as the same small-minded criminal types that killed Socrates and Jesus, and the Gandhis and the Kings. They will be seen in that light. So, though he's in jail, I would be amiss, I would miss history, not to be a part of this man's struggle.
The LaRouche/Bevel ticket was on the ballot in 16 states + DC. They were also recorded write-ins an additional 13 states. The exception was New Jersey, where LaRouche loyalist Eliot I. Greenspan was the running-mate on the ballot. Their strongest results: Virginia 0.47% (LaRouche's base of operations), North Dakota 0.21%, Alaska 0.18%, Utah 0.15%, District of Columbia and Rhode Island 0.11% each. In Delaware, Bevel himself had five write-in votes for President.
Bevel was convicted of incest and sentenced to 15 years in prison shortly before his death in 2008. During the trial it was testified the criminal instances began during the 1992 campaign.
Election history:
1984 - US House of Representatives (Ill.) (Republican) - defeated
Other occupations: steel mill worker, plantation laborer, pop singer, Baptist minister, civil rights activist,
Buried: Ancestors Village (Eutaw, Ala.)
Notes:
Buried in a 17-ft. canoe.
Named the small cemetery where he is buried, which is operated by the Greater Christ Temple
Apostolic Church in Eutaw, Ala.
