“A luta continua.” Those were the words scribbled on the flap of a plain, white envelope handed to me by attorney Eric E. Vickers in 1996. I was familiar with the Latin phrase thanks to Vickers. “The struggle continues” is the English translation.
My personal “struggle” at the time was in full force. The late St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Greg Freeman had just pinned a commentary about the looming death of my monthly publication, Take Five Magazine.
“Perhaps most painful to Brown was that while the paper was losing money, it was winning awards,” Freeman wrote. “But awards don’t pay the bills, and they’ve been piling up at Brown’s door. He’s gradually come to the painful conclusion that it’s time to pull the plug.”
Eric summoned me to his office, Vickers & Associates, in University City. Shortly after my arrival he handed me the envelope. Inside was a $10,000 check. On the brink of tears, I expressed my deep gratitude. Waving off my words and reminding me of the Latin words on the flap, Eric simply said, “We need Take Five on the streets.”
On Friday, April 13, Eric E. Vickers, renowned civil rights activist, attorney and former chief of staff for state Senator Jamilah Nasheed, passed away at the age of 65. Reportedly, his death was attributed to pancreatic cancer. As is often the case when a loved one passes, memories of my dear friend, confidante and inspiration immediately flooded my mind.
The first thing that came to my mind was what Nasheed described as Eric’s “goofy laugh.” It was. The laugh defied Eric’s staunch, piercing stare or his strong, no-nonsense voice when articulating various marches or fights for justice and inclusion. In private, Eric was a hoot. He somehow found a way to segue into a subject that elicited that high-pitched, body-shaking laughter of his. I will always treasure his ability to lighten heavy loads. He spoke to this in a 2017 blog post dedicated to his children and grandchildren: “I hope my legacy can see that standing and fighting for a cause can be done with a smile.”
Winston Churchill’s quote, about a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma,” best describes my memories of Eric. As close as we were, I could never quite figure out how he managed to do the things he did. For example, in 1996, he invited me and whoever else I knew to accompany him to New York City. He had chartered a TWA jet, reportedly at a cost of $30,000. Roughly 150 of us, including some homeless people, flew to the Big Apple to “shut down Wall Street.” The protest was staged to stop the merger between Bank of America and Mercantile Bank in St. Louis. There we were, many of us for the first time, on Wall Street staring down hordes of angry policemen and rude, cantankerous New Yorkers intent on disrupting our public disruption. After the protest, Vickers took us all to Sylvia’s in Harlem for lunch.
This was the same year he’d given me that $10,000 check. “How are you able to do all this?” I asked him. Again, with that “goofy laugh” of his, Eric assured me that he was backed by a cadre of passionate, diverse and influential people who supported our ongoing “struggle.”
This past Saturday, I was a guest panelist at the St. Louis Association of Community Organization’s (SLACO) 22nd Annual conference at Forest Park Community College. Our panel discussion, moderated by state Rep. Bruce Franks, was titled, “Pathway to a New St. Louis, Building on Our Strengths.” During my opening remarks, I informed the audience of Eric’s passing and that my comments would probably be influenced by recollections of my friend.
Eric’s voice was in my head when I described the Sweet Potato Project, my entrepreneurial program for young people. In 2014, he described black entrepreneurship as “the solution, the key to the economic enfranchisement and upliftment of the black community.” He said black entrepreneurs should work “hand in glove with black elected officials” to demand blacks “get a fair slice of the economic pie.”
When mentioning that the formula for future progress should be based on “politics combined with business, combined with activism,” I was speaking from examples left by Eric. Our discussion, which included fellow panelists St. Louis Police Chief John Hayden and Amy Hunter, manager of Diversity & Inclusion at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, was intense and robust.
What stayed with me most was the inspiring number of young present or aspiring black politicians who came up to me after the conversation. Like Franks, some were activated by the demonstrations after Mike Brown’s death in 2014.
Engaging with these young people reminded me of a commentary Eric wrote in the summer of 2014. There, he mused about how the “Black Power generation” could possibly influence the “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) movement and future demonstrations for justice and empowerment.
“The anthem of the Black Power movement was ‘Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,’ not ‘We Shall Overcome,’” Vickers wrote. “Maybe the only thing the Black Power generation can prepare the Black Lives Matter generation for is that ‘This is lifetime work.’”
Arguably, St. Louis stands as national and, dare I say, international example of how to stage effective protests. As creative, resilient and forceful as the BLM movement is, I hope young people remember they are brilliantly updating a platform Eric and other black leaders established with the powerful Highway I-70 shut-down in 1999. It’s one of many accomplishments of his brief life.
Rest in peace, dear friend. I will always cherish your ability to laugh in the face of inhumanity. Know that you lived a meaningful life and left us all, including our young, with an important, meaningful message: “A luta continua. The struggle continues.”
