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Del. Fulton always made time to help the little guy
Gregory Kane

May 25, 2005


KEEP LOW," Tony urged. "You've got to keep low."

Tony Fulton hunched over and bent his torso forward until it was almost parallel with the floor. We were in a locker room at City College sometime during the 1966-1967 wrestling season. Fulton was a strapping 180-pounder. I was a skinny 129-pound geekling trying to master the wrestling learning curve.

It was a curve that I never quite got around. But it was Fulton, without any encouragement from coaches or other teammates, who decided to try and help this kid navigate his way through his first year of the toughest sport there is.

Before we joined City College's junior varsity wrestling team, I didn't know Tony Fulton from Tony the Tiger. But there he was, helping a guy he didn't know, for no other reason than the guy needed helping.

If you remember nothing else about the man who died Friday after serving 18 years in the House of Delegates, remember this: He helped folks for no other reason than that they needed it. Fulton apparently developed that habit long ago, probably before he joined that City College junior varsity wrestling team.

But judging from comments he made in the book Rising From The Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class, Fulton certainly didn't sound like that type of guy. Fulton told Larry Tye, author of Rising From The Rails, how he reacted to his father being a chef on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

"I was very angry as a young man growing up," Fulton told Tye. "I was angry that my dad was away. I was angry that he had to cook for [B&O President Howard] Simpson. I was angry that I had to work so hard. I was angry because of segregation. But now I have a greater appreciation for life and what my dad wanted for me and why he was so tough on me. He didn't want me to be a chef cook. He didn't want me to work as hard as he had to work."

But work Fulton did. He started back in that City College wrestling room, mixing it up in practice with guys like Pete Thompson, who would later become a Maryland Scholastic Association 185-pound champ. He did it on the lacrosse field, where he mixed it up with guys like Edmondson's Stanley Cherry, a terror in both the crease and on the wrestling mat.

Cherry would later be Fulton's lacrosse teammate at what was then Morgan State College. On the first lacrosse team to play at a historically black college or university, Fulton again distinguished himself with his work ethic.

"Tony Fulton was dubbed the 'Earthman,'" wrote Chip Silverman, Morgan's lacrosse coach in those days and co-author of the book Ten Bears, "because he usually ended up on the ground after chasing the ball. His uniform was filthy after every game, but he wore it as a badge of honor since it showed his dogged determination to succeed."

In 1986, that same dogged determination led Fulton to run as a Democrat for the House of Delegates from West Baltimore's 40th District. That same determination - and a streak of the maverick that might have resulted from the rugged individualism one learns after wrestling a season or two - might have led him to chide his own party when he felt it was necessary.

And in Maryland, it's often necessary to chide Democrats. Fulton wasn't shy about it. When he felt the party wasn't delivering for what has been its most loyal constituency for the past 40 years (that would be black folks), he stood up and said so. He did it despite threats - veiled and otherwise - from some in his own party.

As recently as three years ago, Fulton invited Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. - who was then a congressman running for governor - and then-Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend on a walk-through of Carver Vocational Technical High School, which is located in the 40th District.

Ehrlich accepted. Townsend sent her regrets and a few comments about how wonderfully she had supported Baltimore schools during her time in office.

Later, surly Democrats hinted that Fulton would face reprisals for inviting Ehrlich into the predominantly black and overwhelmingly Democratic 40th District.

"I was told by some in my party that 'we are going to take care of business if you bring a man like that into our community,'" Fulton told me at the time. He ignored the threats. The people of the 40th District came first with the man, even when he knew he was dying.

He told me over a year ago. I can only hope that, if I'm faced with a similar situation, I can face death with the dignity and fortitude Tony Fulton did.

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