Above, 2012; Below, 2015
Katherine M. Garry, December 28, 1940 -
VP candidate for Independent (1984)
Running mate with nominee: Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick (1933–1986)
Popular vote: 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign:
The multi-talented Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick was a singer/songwriter, minister, civil rights activist who had worked with Martin Luther King Jr., and a recording artist who used music to teach listeners about African American history and culture. He was also fittingly named after Frederick Douglass who incidentally is also one of the third party VPs profiled in this blog.
The 1984 election was Kirkpatrick's third bid for President that I am aware of. He had run in 1976 as part of the National Black Political Assembly and in 1980 under the banner of the Freedom Labor Party. If he had running-mates in those elections I have been unable to identify them.
But in 1984 he did indeed have a VP nominee according to the FEC, Katherine M. Garry. Both of them had been Fellowship of Reconciliation Martin Luther King Jr. Award recipients-- Kirkpatrick in 1979 (the first time this award was bestowed) and Garry in 1982.
During the campaign season Garry had been arrested for disorderly conduct at the Jacob Javits Symposium, SUNY Stony Brook, Oct. 17, 1983. She was handcuffed, manhandled and then briefly thrown in jail while in the process of defending two students who were holding up a sign critical of Reagan's policy in Central America.
There is not a lot of information out there about this ticket in 1984, but it would be safe to conclude the campaign had a grassroots community activist-based progressive platform.
Both nominees were apparently residents of New York at the time, which would have posed a Constitutional problem in the event they won. And if they had somehow survived that legal challenge and assumed office, Garry would have become President upon the untimely death of Kirkpatrick on Aug. 16, 1986.
Election history: none
Other occupations: co-chair of Missing Pages of America Committee, member of Many Races Cultural Foundation, community housing activist
Notes:
Watergate buffs should try to locate Kirkpatrick singing "The Ballad of Frank Wills."
