Mr. Mellow

First, a man wanted to talk about communicating with the dead. "Brother, what's your point?" Price said, cutting him off.

Then a fellow named Clarence called in.
"I need a good attorney," he said. "They took my car, and they took my money."

With a note of irritation in his voice, Price asked, "What kind?"
The man responded, "A lawyer."
"I figured that. But do you need a civil or criminal attorney? Just call me tomorrow at the county," Price said, resigned to his role as the first-stop resource for aggrieved African-Americans.

A few moments later, a woman calling herself Tasmania came on the air. "Is that your real name, or is that a nickname?" Price asked.

The woman ignored the query and blurted out her point. "If John Wiley Price is supposed to represent the African-American community," she said in a sneering voice, "how come he is always seen walking around the neighborhood with a dog?" She drew out the last word as if to encode it with special meaning.

Was she making a snide comment about a persistent rumor that Price dates Anglo women? The commissioner didn't bother to find out. He hung up immediately. (Price, for his part, told the Observer that he feels obliged as a black community leader not to date white women.)

In addition to his radio show, the commissioner speaks publicly several times a week at other functions. On Tuesdays, he hosts St. Luke Community United Methodist Church's "Dallas Community Leadership Luncheon."

Anyone can join the audience at the church, home to many of the area's top black political and business leaders. Lunch--at $6 for catered Southern soul food--is optional. Each week Price invites a guest speaker.

At one of last month's lunches, 30 people, almost all of whom were black, gathered at banquet tables in the old, smaller sanctuary of St. Luke to hear Danny Defenbaugh, the white, newly appointed special agent in charge at the North Texas regional office of the FBI.

Price, dressed in an exquisitely cut tan suit and eye-catching two-tone shoes, arrived right on time. After the group had sampled platefuls of fried chicken, fried corn bread, and collard greens, Price introduced the speaker. As a preface, the commissioner--who's been under investigation by several government agencies in the past two decades--joked about his own Freedom of Information Act requests for his FBI file. "I'm told that you cannot acquire your file if it is active," he said with a smile.

"It's a very, very new FBI," Defenbaugh told the group when Price turned over the microphone. "Over 50 percent of agents have come in the last three years. J. Edgar Hoover died May 2, 1972."

When it came time for the Q&A session, however, Price made it clear he wasn't going to be an easy sell. "You talk about a new face on the FBI," he said. "J. Edgar Hoover is a lot to overcome. While that spin sounds good, how many of [your agents] are people of color in charge?"

Defenbaugh returned to the podium and stated that five of the 12 supervisors were minorities (including one woman). "Close to 50 percent," the FBI man said.

Behind him, Price shook his head in an exaggerated manner. Leaning forward into the microphone, he announced the results of his own calculations. Five of 12 is not half, he said triumphantly.

Insisting that African-Americans get jobs of authority has been John Wiley Price's most persistent theme as an elected official. In the last 10 years, his protests at television stations, North Dallas shopping malls, and Parkland Memorial Hospital have all hinged on the concern that blacks get low-paid, low-level jobs, but fail to make the top tiers in significant numbers.

It is startling, then, to examine the ethnic composition of Dallas County employees--the one arena where Price officially possesses the authority to make a difference. The roster of county employees, at best, resembles a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting.

Some 37 percent of the county's 5,076 total employees are persons of color; among the 1,622 workers who would be deemed professionals, 46 percent are black or Hispanic.

But whites still hold the great majority of the highest-ranking jobs. Of the 22 top administrators at the county, each paid more than $70,000 a year, only two are black: Dr. Mattye Mauldin-Taylor, director of personnel, and Betty Culbreath, director of Health and Human Services. Not one African-American or Hispanic man holds one of those top rungs. By the standards Price applies to other business and government entities, that absence amounts to a complete failure.

Price argues in his defense that one should look instead at the seven top supervisory positions for which the commissioners make hires. Culbreath and Taylor are in that group, so the way Price sees it, two of the top seven are people of color.

Hires for the other 15 supervisory positions are handled by the sheriff, the district attorney, and other white officials, Price contends, and he can't be held responsible. His argument provokes another question: Who, then, is supposed to influence the county's hiring of black and Hispanic administrators, if not Price?

The county's contracting with minority firms presents a murkier picture. Although Price frequently demands to know whether city and county contracts go to minorities, he and his staff have so far failed to keep worthwhile statistics about the county's deals with Hispanic-, black-, and women-controlled businesses. Irwin Hicks, the administrator who now handles such matters, says he's only recently been asked to develop such figures. With no relevant data on the computers, Hicks expects the task to take weeks.