John Wiley Price quoting a country song? Yes, and he also says don’t protest at night
The guy who used to wave picket signs, shout at motorists and beat on car doors now sounds downright conservative.
Once-volatile Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price says in a WFAA/Channel 8 interview airing at 9 a.m. Sunday that he “never would have fathomed protesting at night. ... Night is dangerous.”
He argues against coronavirus curfews and laws that hurt small businesses in south Dallas. And I never thought I’d hear Price quoting the late country singer Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler.”
He’s less confrontational now, he said, because at 70, “I’m able to reason when it’s time to hold ‘em, when it’s time to fold ‘em, when it’s time to walk away and when it’s — well, I don’t want to run.”
In an interview for “Inside Texas Politics with Jason Whitely,” the 35-year Dallas activist and Democratic county commissioner told WFAA reporter Demond Fernandez he doesn’t know why the killing of Texan George Floyd has triggered more response than other racial killings or police shootings.
“To a lot of people, this is new — this is not. I’ve seen this movie before,” he said, mentioning local outrage over the 1991 Arlington killing of Donald Thomas by Dallas white supremacists and the 1991 Los Angeles beating and arrest of motorist Rodney King.
But Price added that he is “cautiously optimistic” that the Black Lives Matter movement will stir change.
“I want them to be a real student of history,” he said.
“We were on the picket line for 10 years daily. The difference is, I think we learned some things from Dr. [Martin Luther] King.”
For example, about protesting at night.
“I don’t even understand it,” he said. “You’ve got all day to be strategic.”
In recent weeks, Price has become something of a Republican celebrity. He vehemently argued against coronavirus orders by Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, considered a future Democratic contender for higher office.
It’s not new. For most of his decades in office, Price has argued for economic development, business success and growth and against overbearing government or higher taxes (“My people are poor,” he would say. “They can’t pay more!”).
A 2017 federal trial wound up with Price cleared of charges in connection with accusations of bribery and mail fraud.
He also has been a staunch advocate for public-health and county-hospital funding, and he passed a resolution last week declaring racism a public health crisis.
Commissioners agreed unanimously, with medical leaders also in support.
The county’s coronavirus results show the problems of diabetes and hypertension in a south Dallas that lacks adequate housing, internet access or grocery options, he said.
(Price also told Channel 8 that he worked to get an early COVID-19 testing site moved out of Grand Prairie and into south Dallas. The move outflanked Tarrant County leaders, left with no access to an early testing site.)
Price argued that south Dallas is far better off now than it was when he took office.
His legacy, he said, is that “I didn’t hold back — at the end of the day I spent all that I have.”
He wants it remembered that “Dallas was better because I came through.”
He will definitely be remembered.
This story was originally published June 21, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
