Skip to content
The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen
Menu
  • Home
  • News
  • Community
  • Schools
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Obituaries
  • Sports
  • Mill
  • Flora
  • Print Archive
  • About
Menu

In memory of Dan Pollitt

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Staff

Editors Note: It does a certain something to a man to see his elected officials – local, state and federal – stand and sing, in unison, and approximately on key, the union anthem “Solidarity Forever” (“Greater than the might of armies, magnified a thousand-fold/We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old/For the Union makes us strong/Solidarity forever!…”). It gives rise to a genuine frisson.

There they were, more than a few of them, at the Friday Center on Sunday, along with 300-some others – academicians, activists, organizers and more lawyers than one hopes to ever again see in one assemblage – doing just that. And who could have occasioned such an outburst but the man in whose honor we were gathered: Daniel Hubbard Pollitt (July 6, 1921-March 5, 2010)? No one; no doubt.

A great many very lovely words were said at Sunday’s celebration of Pollitt’s life. We share with you below a tribute delivered by his friend Gene Nichol. – Taylor Sisk


In memory of Dan Pollitt

I never expected, when I moved to North Carolina in middle age, to come to know a friend, a mentor, a lodestar, a hero, who was, himself, of somewhat more advanced age, a law professor of all things, in theory retired, from whom I’d hang on every word, ask of every lesson, drink deeply of every story and learn so much of living life – as a lawyer, as an activist, as engaged academic, as constitutionalist, as a father, as a friend, as a Tar Heel, as a man, as a believer in hope. That’s more than one has a right to expect. Not all surprises are trouble. Some are magic. Like Dan Pollitt.

He could, on the surface, seem of contradiction. The Marine so powerfully committed to peace. The opposite of Dick Cheney and George Bush. Not chicken-hawk, but battle-tested dove. The man of ideas and surpassing intellect, wholly committed to action. The most formidable of adversaries – relentless, bold, stunningly courageous. But the most gentlemanly of opponents. The raised voice was not his hallmark. It was, instead, the twinkling eye. Not the tea party type.

A constitutional historian who would deploy every turn of a 500-year history in the protection of civil rights – in order to carve a better future. The legal philosopher who could out-lawyer anyone. The only one of us who could write gracefully enough to be published in Esquire or Harpers. The most distinguished of the Carolina law school’s scholars, who cared not a whit for distinction. No one ever accomplished more and spoke of it less. If I had done even one-third of the things Dan Pollitt pulled off in his career, I guarantee you everybody in this room would know it.

No one was ever more elite in attainment and more democratic in temperament – kindly to all he encountered. The law school staff loved Dan, but maybe not as much as he loved them. And nobody ever knew so much more than his students could possibly comprehend, but still believed so entirely in their promise.

I said, on the surface, these could seem like contradictions. But not to those who knew him. Not contradiction, but transcendence. For as great as was his intellect, his passion, his commitment, his learning, his determination, they all took second seat to his heart. This room would be chocked full, as it is, to mark and pay tribute to Pollitt’s singular record – literally, of doing what Daniel Webster called “the great work of humans on earth, achieving justice.” But there wouldn’t be the tears, the unrelenting sadness, the grief that lingers, born in the straightforward fact that we miss him so badly – we mourn his unbounded heart.

It is near impossible to talk about Dan’s career in an encompassing way – too much, it’s too varied, too crucial. And, for me, an amateur student of the civil rights era, it’s too marvelous, too multifaceted. Every time I’d become obsessed with some new aspect, I’d eventually talk to Dan about it. He’d usually say, “Oh yeah; I remember that.” And of course, he’d played some un-trumpeted role.

A few years ago, I became focused on Fannie Lou Hamer of Ruleville, Miss. – who was famously “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” And after I’d read two biographies and everything I could find about her, I mentioned her to Dan. He said, “Oh yeah; I represented her when she tried to unseat the Mississippi delegation in Atlantic City.” I said, “Dan, why didn’t you tell me? What was she like?” He said, “She was short.”

Actually, the most accurate description of Dan, for me, comes from thinking about Paul Wellstone’s constant refrain: “We cannot separate the lives we lead from the words we speak.” Dan met that challenge better than anyone I’ve ever known.

My favorite mental picture of him – one that I keep in my head – is of Dan sitting on the sidewalk a half-century ago – with just a couple of teenage black students – picketing segregation at the Varsity Theatre on Franklin Street. Constant, fearless, egoless commitment to the words we speak in the life we lead – even if others disagreed, or hated it, or even if he was alone. If he thought it was right, it didn’t matter if it was popular. Maybe it would become popular eventually. But if it was wrong, even if it was popular, it wasn’t ever going to become right. Mrs. Hamer didn’t do an opinion poll before she started the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Rosa Parks didn’t conduct a focus group before she sat down for freedom….

A life spent passionately, untiringly, unendingly in the cause of human freedom. For Dan, the happy struggle. I love the poet’s line: “Should my frail craft prove too slight, for waves that sweep those billows o’er, I’d rather go down in the stirring fight, than drowse to death at the sheltered shore.” Dan Pollitt’s craft – no matter how many ways you might define that term – Dan’s craft was never frail or slight. And it lifted us all.

Gene Nichol is a professor of law and director of UNC’s Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity.

1 thought on “In memory of Dan Pollitt”

  1. Claire Kirch says:
    April 27, 2010 at 6:59 pm

    This eulogy made me cry. Dan was the Paul Wellstone of NC. I knew Dan, I knew Paul, and they were both heroes, who left the world a lot poorer and a lot sadder when they passed.

    Claire Kirch
    Duluth, Minnesota

Comments are closed.

Web Archive

© 2025 The Archive of The Carrboro Citizen | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme