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IT DOESN'T MATTER WHETHER YOU ARE BLACK OR WHITE: Norm Neverson, campaigning as head of a slate of reform-minded Democrats, won control of the D.C. Democratic Party in 2000 with the backing of Mayor Tony Williams and his political organization. Neverson vigorously campaigned, pledging to clean up the local party and end questions of financial irregularities and disorganization. After he won, he never became the kind of independent-leaning party chairman who wields political power and has public officials wooing him for support. Neverson made it clear he was a devoted supporter of Mayor Williams – and he made sure not to make Williams and his people angry.

Neverson's controversial tenure ended May 1. The man known for his booming voice, malapropisms and colorful oratory lost his job because his own words came back to haunt him. In a failed effort to explain that his statement was misunderstood when he tried to explain that sacrifices in politics are sometimes necessary, Neverson resigned rather than be ousted by Democratic State Committee members because of his published support for "the three-fifths compromise." Neverson, who is black, insisted that he meant if he were a "white framer" of the U.S. Constitution he would have supported counting slaves as three-fifths of a person for congressional apportionment when the Constitution was adopted in the 18th century.

Neverson was not alone last week in having a little trouble with black and white. Forty-year-old D.C. native Derrick Ward, a reporter for WTOP radio, had his own problem. Ward spent five years as a reporter covering the District for WAMU before joining WTOP. In a failed attempt to explain the swirling controversy around Neverson, Ward reported that Neverson was the first African-American chairman of the D.C. Democratic Party. Paula Nickens and Eric Washington, the immediate past two party chairmen, can be forgiven if either felt a sudden urge to check their lineage in a mirror. The statement was repeated for a few hours on April 30 until the mistake was caught. Mark Plotkin, veteran political commentator for WTOP, said he can't take credit for the catch – he told Common Denominator political columnist Diana Winthrop he never heard the erroneous report.

Ward, when later asked by Winthrop about his report, acknowledged that he didn't remember any African-Americans heading the local Democratic Party since former Barryite Ivanhoe Donaldson in the early '80s.

Current Vice Chairman Pat Elwood, who was elevated to acting chairman of the local Democratic Party when Neverson resigned, is actually one of the few people not of African-American descent to head the party organization in the past 40 years, Winthrop notes.

Copyright 2003, The Common Denominator