Rolling out sat down with former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick at the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Atlanta over the weekend and talked with the fallen political hopeful about his new book, Surrendered: The Rise, Fall & Revelation of Kwame Kilpatrick. Dubbed the “hip-hop mayor” by business mogul Russel Simmons, Kilpatrick was the youngest and first African American to lead the Michigan House of Representives. He took office as Detroit’s No. 1 executive at the age of 31 and left it at 36 amid a firestorm of outrage and indignity also known as “the Text Message Scandal.” Kilpatrick spoke with remarkable candor about his administration, incarceration and life after prison. –roz edward
The fall …
I lost any type of balance as mayor of Detroit. My headache started when I took office and it continued right up until I wound up in that cell. Detroit had always been behind the eight ball and it was a constant thing to get Detroit to play big. … I built seven hotels in five years, and we were hosting Super Bowls, Major League Baseball All-Stars, and the Final Four. It was profound pressure. It was all Detroit all the time, and I lost any notion of balance … and I had an affair with my chief of staff. And in a case that was totally unrelated to the affair, a lawyer asked me when I was on the stand, “Did you have a romantic affair with your chief of staff?” I said, “no.” I lied.
If race played a part…
Absolutely. Detroit is called the most racially segregated region of the country. Detroit is an 85 percent plus African American city, and it’s surrounded by 85 percent plus white suburbs. So argument wise, while Atlanta, Dallas and other regions of the country are talking about Hispanics, Asians, [east] Indians and diversity, Detroit is still trapped in a black/white argument. … So when you are the mayor of Detroit, you represent quote,unquote the black folks, and when you’re the outlying executive you represent quote, unquote the white folks. … The position of mayor of Detroit is automatically the black leader. … Alphonso Johnson the HUD secretary told me, “You’re sharp, you’re 6-foot-4 — you know all that’s a negative, don’t you? People are going to fear it and they’re not going to like it.”
Time in prison …
I was in solitary confinement for six weeks, even though I was classified an Unsecure Level One, the most minimal risk [category] that Michigan has to offer, but they threw me in the hole. The state of Michigan wanted to punish me … they said it was administrative segregation and they were protecting me, but it was actually just punishment and them flexing their political muscle … showing me that they were in charge.
In the hole you’re in lockup 24 hours a day, except for three times a week when you’re handcuffed and allowed a timed, 10-minute shower. And when you do get a chance to go outside, you go in what is called a dog cage, which is a very small space surrounded by barbed wire. It was an incredible experience. The first 10 days I was going crazy, not literally, but I was tripping about it. … A psychiatrist came to see me when I first got there and told me, “If you start to see the walls move, or experience vertigo, you need to holler.” About day seven you start to see stuff moving around … but instead of calling out, I was able to laugh at myself and go to the next level, and that’s when the memories started to flow. That’s when I truly began to transform.
The book …
This book was born in a tight cramped space — in solitary confinement — sitting in a prison cell that was so small that I could sit on my bed and literally touch all four walls. I was being fed through a slot in the door. I had never been arrested before and I had never [until then] been in trouble before. … To go from Air Force One and meetings in the Oval Office, meetings with kings and queens around the world to sitting on that concrete floor — that tiny, cramped dark space became a womb for thought and rebirth. I had to surrender in that situation to my creator, my God, and allow him to do with me what he will, and the words just started to flow. The title actually came from Minister Louis Farrakhan. I was talking to him on the phone just before I went to prison and he said, “Sometimes brother, you just have to surrender.”
Detroit’s political climate …
The city is still finding it very hard to rise above the emotion of the moment into a different kind of thinking. Right now, Detroit needs everybody to be on the same page. the economy has crushed the state of Michigan. As Coleman Young used to say, when American catches a cold, Detroit gets pneumonia.
What’s next …
I am in the process of developing a new curriculum for correctional education. … Hopefully, we can get back in and start to curb some of that prisoner recidivism and get people to change and connect the learning to them.
