JAMES CRAVEN 
Aug. 7, 1925-Jan. 12, 2015
As a judge, James Craven wasn’t the sort to embarrass lawyers by calling them out publicly while court was in session.
“I run into all kinds of people who appeared before him once, twice, many times,” says his son, Don Craven, one of four children, all of whom became lawyers. “They describe him as always wanting to take time to teach, to help. If he saw someone doing something he thought might not be productive for them in the long run, he pulled them aside and said ‘Don’t do things that way, do things this way.’” But James Craven was his own man in the well of a courtroom. His son recalls the first time he appeared in court with his father and tugged at his dad’s sleeve in mid-argument to make a suggestion. His father kept going.
“In the hallway afterward, he said ‘If you ever pull on my coat sleeve again, we’re going to have a conversation,’” Don Craven said. “That was the first and last time I pulled on his coat sleeve.”
James Craven, an unabashed liberal, became a state appellate court judge in a conservative central Illinois district through an accident of timing. He won election in 1964 on the coattails of Lyndon Baines Johnson and named his dog Barry that same year.
“I think it’s fair to say that he was rather pithy,” his son recalls.
After leaving the bench in 1981, Craven lost a 1984 race for the state Supreme Court. The following year, he took on the biggest case of his career, suing the city of Springfield in a federal voting rights case that forced the city to abandon a commission, invariably white, form of government in favor of an aldermanic form that divided the city into wards so that minorities had a real shot at representation in city hall.
“Basically, Jim Craven laid everything on the line,” says Frank McNeil, one of the plaintiffs who was elected alderman in the city’s first aldermanic election. “He took on the system of Springfield.”
It wasn’t easy. Don Craven recalls receiving ugly letters containing the n-word. McNeil says that he got plenty of criticism from unexpected sources.
“I guess the thing that surprised me more than anything else was the number of African-Americans who didn’t see what I saw – ‘We don’t see any problems, you’re upsetting how things are done around here,’” McNeil recalls. “It was rancor all over the city. People who you thought would be with you weren’t with you and people who you thought would be against you were with you.”
McNeil and Don Craven, who assisted his father on the case, said the conclusion was nearly foregone, given a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision that came after the local case was filed. The court threw out a North Carolina redistricting plan on the grounds that it effectively barred blacks from winning public office. It was, essentially, the same situation in Springfield, but the city dug in, raising parking fines to pay legal expenses. While confident that the law was on his side, James Craven, who was born in a small Tennessee town, wasn’t prepared for the battle outside the courtroom.
“Did he know how hard it was going to be?” Don Craven says. “I don’t think he had a clue. In addition to the legal questions, it was just a difficult case personally. Springfield’s a small town, and you’re talking about a kid who was born and raised in Greenfield, Tennessee.”
Two years into the fight, Craven let fly during a meeting of the American Business Club, telling the mostly silent audience that the city was controlled by party bosses who cared only about patronage jobs. And he named names.
“Nonpartisan in Springfield means (former Democratic Party chair) Todd Renfrow and (Republican power broker) Bill Cellini sit down and decide who the candidate’s going to be,” Craven thundered, according to a story published in the State Journal-Register. “If you think there isn’t a political clique that runs your town, you’re in error and you ought to look and see. Because if you don’t confront the reality, then it’s always going to be thus and you will find yourself in the awful role of groveling to get the approval of that clique so you can advance and move. And if you don’t grovel, you won’t move.
“If you set off a stink bomb in Washington Park, you’d suffocate the whole leadership of Springfield.”
Craven’s speech came three months after U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baker ruled that the city’s form of government was in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. Still, the case dragged on as the city pondered an appeal and debated various forms of government, including one that would have had voters choosing city department heads, before the first aldermanic elections were held in the fall of 1987.
James Craven also filed voting right lawsuits against the Springfield Park District, Springfield School District 186, the Springfield Metropolitan Exposition and Auditorium Authority and other governments as far away as California, with varying degrees of success.
In retirement, Craven and his wife moved to Ashland, Oregon, in 1999, a bastion of liberalism. He never lost his way with words. Noting the moderate climate, the abundance of forests, the closeness of the Pacific Ocean and the beauty of the Cascade Mountains, he had a ready answer when asked why he moved from Springfield.
“There are two reasons to live in central Illinois,” he would say. “If you have a job or if you farm pigs.”
Craven died after contracting pneumonia following heart surgery. He drew his last breath on Jan. 12. It was the 28 th anniversary of Baker declaring that Springfield’s form of government was illegal and must be changed.
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com.
