Then he turned up working for a project financed by Rev. Sun Young Moon’s Unification Church. And that somehow led to him being put in charge of an unofficial “investigation” into lurid charges of a satanic child abuse ring, which was allegedly based in Omaha, Nebraska, but serviced powerful pedophiles as far away as Washington DC.
The Omaha “investigation” was financed by a LaRouche group. But the charges of satanic child abuse were soon thrown out of court, and Bevel left town. But he stayed with LaRouche for some time. When LaRouche ran for president in 1992 from his prison cell, his standard was carried on the outside by his vice-presidential candidate — James Bevel. Apparently Bevel operated from an apartment not far from LaRouche’s estate headquarters in Leesburg. One wonders whether, given the open racism that pervaded LaRouchian rhetoric and ideology, how Bevel fit in with that cadre.
When Bevel called me, he had a declaration and a question: the declaration was that he had reformed his seducing ways, and was atoning for damage done. I wished hm godspeed in that personal work, but inwardly I wasn’t sure I believed him.
The question was: would I ghostwrite his autobiography? He’d pay me, though amounts were not specified.
It didn’t take me long to decline the offer. Surely, somebody should tell his story, in its full complexity and often harrowing detail. And withal, I still admired what he had achieved in Selma and with Dr. King. But what on earth had led him into LaRouche’s orbit?
I was not the one to write this. There was too much else that I knew, or had credibly learned. I had too much baggage, too many scars, from it all. Did I even have the talent or wisdom to do the job? Besides, as queasy as much of what I already knew made me, my gut sensed that this was not the end of the story. I wished him well, and hung up the phone with a trembling hand.
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