When reading Chris Sikich’s recent story in the Indianapolis Star, it brought back some memories for me.  It was either 1970 or 1971, it’s been so long ago I do not remember the precise year.

I had graduated from high school in 1969, finished my work at a trade school for broadcasters and had my first full-time job in radio working for a suburban station which no longer exists today.

To this day, I do not know why the station manager wanted me to conduct this interview, but he did.  I was to host a live radio interview with a man named William Chaney, at that time, the Grand Dragon of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan.

I wasn’t looking forward to this assignment, and certainly knew I had to prepare lots of questions to fill the time.  There was only one question I really wanted to ask Chaney – why had he so publicly supported Unigov?

If Unigov is a term unfamiliar to you, Chris Sikich’s story in the Star goes through that in some depth.  It was the consolidation of some, but not all, of the government entities within Marion County.  (More on that later)

I had interviewed people with the Klan before because it was my job to do so and found them generally combative and not very interesting interviews.  But Chaney had a much different demeanor, almost grandfatherly and respectful.  If you didn’t know he was the Grand Dragon, he would have appeared to be a fairly “regular guy.”

So, after some brief pleasantries, the live interview began.  My first question -why did you, as the Grand Dragon of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan, support Unigov?  His answer was immediate and direct – because it would mean there would be no Black mayor in Indianapolis in the foreseeable future.

I was stunned, but thought about it.  Everyone in Marion County would vote in the election of the Indianapolis mayor.  Outside the pre-Unigov city limits at that time, Marion County was very white and Republican.

I was just beginning my media career, and would’t go to college until 1973, but I recall the debate over Unigov in the General Assembly.  The argument for the change was government efficiency and city services becoming available to many rural areas of the county.

The biggest story of Unigov wasn’t what it did, but what it did not do.  There were some “exluded cities” that elected their own mayors and city councils.  The excluded cities were Lawrence, Beech Grove and Southport, with Speedway remaining a town.  Within those municipalities, you went to the polls and voted for the mayor of Indianapolis and also voted for mayor in Lawrence, Beech Grove and Southport, along with the Speedway Town Council.

When you were able to get Republican politicians alone and off the record in those days, they would admit Unigov was really about politics and keeping Republicans in charge of Marion County government, and it worked from its inception in 1970 through 1999, when Democrat Bart Peterson was elected mayor.

The IndyStar story by Sikich explores the racial side of Unigov, which had the impact of freezing-out Democrats, particularly African-Americans, out of the political decision-making in Marion County for a very long time.

I do not believe the GOP enacted Unigov for racial reasons, but they certainly did it for political reasons.  The impact on African American political leaders was large, as Sikich documents in his story, talking to a number of people from both major political parties.

There was a lot left unsettled when Unigov became law in 1970.  For example, the Indianapolis Police Department (IPD) had jurisdiction over the pre-Unigov parts of Indianapolis and the Marion County Sheriff’s Department handled the rest of the county.  That changed in 2005, when the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) was charged with law enforcement in all of Marion County. There remains a Marion County Sheriff, with responsibilities over the jail and security at the City-County building.  It took 35 years to get that done.

The township school corporations within Marion County were never consolidated, and remain separate to this day.

Chris Sikich delves into other aspects of race & politics in Indiana, including how legislative districts are drawn,  He also looks at how women have been rarely respected in their governmental work.

But my memory goes back to 1970 or 1971, with  me looking William Chaney in the eye, asking him why he supported Unigov.  I know Republican politicians at that time were very uncomfortable with being on the side of the Indiana Klan on this issue.

Marion County has a much different demographic make-up today compared to 1970.  The biggest question is, what will the future bring?