From Protest Organizer to Political Veteran

The DeLand, Fla., of Joyce Cusack’s youth sent her to segregated schools and denied her access to something as simple as a soda at the Woolworth’s lunch counter because of her skin color.

Nearly 50 years later, that east central Florida town has four times elected Cusack to the state legislature. She is the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the state House, a member of the Democratic National Committee and a delegate to the national convention that will nominate Sen. Barack Obama as the party’s presidential candidate.

Cusack, 66, still marvels at how far her hometown has come since her high school days, when she helped lead lunch counter sit-ins to protest segregation.

“Same folks who didn’t want me to have a drink at the lunch counter sent me to the state legislature,” she says.

The civil rights battles of the 1960s sparked her interest in politics and developed her leadership skills. But it would be decades before she herself was elected to office. First, Cusack married, had two daughters and held a series of nursing jobs. She worked behind the scenes on other people’s campaigns until eventually Democrats noticed she’d be an ideal candidate.

One of those Democrats was T. Wayne Bailey, a political science professor at Stetson University in DeLand. He describes Cusack as someone who is “well organized, has a well-defined sense of purpose and is committed to helping the poor and those who are less able.”

Bailey calls her courageous for giving up her county government nursing job to enter her first campaign, a long-shot race in 2000. Running in a district with few minorities, Cusack not only beat her Republican opponent but was the only Democrat in the state to defeat an incumbent.

Cusack has deep ties in the community—her mother lives a few blocks away, and her daughters and three granddaughters are nearby. During Cusack’s third campaign, in 2004, her twin granddaughters, then age 4, wore shirts that read, “Vote for My Mema,” their nickname for Cusack.

In her fourth race, in 2006, her deep-pocketed opponent outspent her, but still Cusack racked up 61 percent of the electorate.

The Denver convention will be Cusack’s fifth national convention, but not her last, she vows. Her legislative career ends after the Nov. 4 election because term limits prevent her from running again. But she plans to stay active in Democratic politics, where she toiled long before she became a candidate.

This convention will be special, she says, as her party nominates its first African American candidate. Like DeLand, the country has come a long way since her sit-in days, she says.

“Just like I never thought I would go into public office, I knew one day this day would come, [but] I did not expect it in my lifetime,” she says.

Obama’s nomination will “show the world that finally America respects all people and every person has an opportunity,” she says. “This will say we’ve come full circle. We truly are a part—truly a part—of America.”

Tamara Lytle was Washington bureau chief and a correspondent for the Orlando Sentinel from 1997 to 2008.