DOWNTOWN SACRAMENTO — Sacramento social justice activist Conrad Crump went to the Sacramento City Council meeting this week to voice his opinion about Measure U, a proposal to increase the temporary half-cent tax to a permanent full cent tax that would be placed on the ballot for the Nov. 6 election.
Crump, the grandson of youth activist and Oak Park baseball enthusiast Harrison Crump, had his say about the proposal that was voted by the City Council in favor of placing the initiative on the ballot. What encountered during his stay reveals the dysfunction that has been commonplace at recent Council meetings.
While Mayor Darrell Steinberg, the City Council, and members of the public were listening to the proceedings, Crump erupted when he said another person, seated a few spots down from him in the gallery, called him the “N-word.” Crump stood up and confronted the man who allegedly made the comment, which attracted the attention of several Sacramento police officers.
“You gonna call me the ‘N- word?’ You’re out your (expletive) mind,” Crump said. “You don’t do that to me, bro. You don’t call me no ‘N-word.’ Darrell (Steinberg), he called me the N-word and that’s not cool.”
A woman seated in the area said she heard the man call Crump the N-word “three times” and another woman said that the man “called me a lazy (expletive) in front of my daughter.”
When the police came to intervene, Crump said the man tried to switch up his comment.
“He claims he said ‘leaker,’” Crump said. “But I don’t accept any of that. He said the ‘N-word’ three times. The first time I was like, ‘Wait, I know he didn’t. But when he said it the second time I knew I had the right one.”
Generally, Crump is known to be a respectful person in public and in his private life. He’s raising two young daughters, worked at the state capitol for many years, participates in many community activities, appeared in a couple of stage plays for Celebration Arts, and is the grandson of a man who had helped many youths through his Oak Park Little League and RBL baseball’s programs.
Crump just received an acceptance letter to attend the University of California Sol Price School of Public Policy as a graduate student. His reaction to the situation at the City Council meeting surprised him.
“I started thinking about my kids, my job … everything of importance,” said Crump, who does philanthropy work for an organization that is committed to reducing health disparities. “I’m still in shock. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
Crump did apologize to the mayor and members of the City Council as the storm quieted in the council chambers. Mayor Stein- berg did immediately say “If that happened, that’s completely unacceptable” about the altercation.
“If I had said something like that to him I would have been kicked out or arrested,” Crump told The OBSERVER. “But they don’t see that as a threat.”
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By Antonio R. Harvey
OBSERVER Staff Writer