Former congressman Louis Stokes’ autobiography couldn’t have come at a more needed time. As racial tension climbs, his voice of humble advocacy whispers into the gap between former progress and our current reality. Writer David Chanoff spent a year immersed in Stokes’ voice, through interviews, recordings, written records and a close collaboration with Stokes just before his death to create The Gentleman from Ohio. He gives us insight into the potential impact of the book.
Q. What was it like working with Stokes?
A. He was one of the warmest, most embracing and welcoming individuals I have ever worked with. He was someone who would strike up a rapport almost instantaneously. He was such an interesting combination— he was tough as nails but at the same time open to discussion with people who had different points of view. I found it was just an extraordinary experience working with a person of this sort. That tone of strength and also generosity is what I hope comes through in the book.
Q. What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A. I’ll tell you what I took away from it. It gave me a panoramic view of this extraordinarily important era in American history from a perspective that people don’t ordinarily hear. I think it’s easy to forget, with all of the racial problems we’re having now, the distance between what the country was like in the 1930s and now. It is just extraordinary—you can hardly measure it. But many of the events and issues that were extremely important to congressman Stokes over his life, not just as a congressman but before that, as a defense attorney and a NAACP attorney, even though we’ve come this great distance, are still utterly contemporary.
Q. How does Stokes’ story speak to these larger issues of equality and justice?
A. This man was really something unusual. I think the essence of what was unusual about him was the strength with which he approached these questions of race, the absolutely unshakeable sense of the need for justice and equality but at the same time an understanding that you simply need to work with your adversaries and do your absolute best to find common ground. That’s how you make progress.