Catfish Club Doesn’t Have to Angle to Land Notable Guests : Fish in Big Pond on Black Issues
Catfish Club members have come to expect three things of their weekly lunchtime meetings--the fish served will be tasty, the gatherings will be as entertaining as they are informative, and, by the end of lunch, several attendees are likely to feel that the fish weren’t the only ones that got fried by the Rev. George Walker Smith.
A prominent black minister and former San Diego school board president, Smith spices up the meetings of the mostly black lunch club that he and a handful of friends founded 12 years ago with remarks that often are as saucy as the fish that he prepares in his Golden Hill church’s kitchen every Friday morning.
Politicians or others who get too long-winded are likely to be cut off by Smith with a brisk, “All right, let’s cut the rappin’ and get to the meat.” More than one person who went to the Friday meetings hoping to get a foot through the black community’s economic door, without checking in advance with Smith, has had his sales pitch interrupted by the minister’s admonition that the Catfish Club “doesn’t exist so you can make a living.”
And then there is Smith’s usual ribbing of members and guests alike--as typified by his joking with a police officer over “a few tickets I want you to take care of”--that Catfish Club regulars have come to regard as being as much a part of the weekly menu as catfish and red snapper.
“I suppose some folks might resent my style, but then, they don’t have to come back--no one’s twisting their arm,” Smith said chuckling. “Besides, it’s all done in fun. And let’s face it, some people just plain need to be told to shut up and get down to the important stuff sometimes.”
Originally a simple weekly ritual among a few close friends, the Catfish Club has grown in stature over the past dozen years to become one of the most prominent forums within San Diego’s black community.
Smith and other members insist that the club’s purpose remains primarily social and charitable, and they chafe at any suggestion that the group, which meets in the annex of Smith’s Christ United Presbyterian Church, is merely a collection of lunchtime do-gooders.
“We have fun, but I would hope nobody would take us lightly because we also zero in on things that are important--not just to Southeast San Diego but the entire city,” Smith said. “This is like a town meeting in old New England, where people get together to discuss the issues of the day, whether it’s politics, social issues, economics, education or what have you. We tackle everything we want to tackle.”
Most local politicians eagerly solicit invitations to address the club, which maintains a nonpartisan stance despite Smith’s well-known Republicanism. On several occasions, Police Chief Bill Kolender has gone before the group to explain policies of particular import to the black community. Supportive of efforts to reduce the drug problem in Southeast San Diego, the club also is pressing the San Diego Unified Port District and the local hotel and restaurant industries for additional jobs and economic opportunities for minorities.
Though the club does not profess to speak for the entire minority community, county Supervisor Leon Williams, a longtime member, characterizes it as “a window to the black community” and its thinking on a range of issues.
“It serves as part of the conscience of the community,” added Smith, a 57-year-old Alabama native who moved to San Diego in the mid-1950s. “Anytime something happens that has even a tinge of injustice, we’re there.”
Recently, Smith and other club members bitterly protested the San Diego City Council’s ouster of City Manager Sylvester Murray, the first black to hold the city’s top appointive post. At an overflow Catfish Club meeting, Smith raised more than $3,000 in about five minutes to pay for a newspaper advertisement praising Murray.
The club lodged a similar complaint in 1982 when the city school board bought out the contract of white Superintendent Tom Goodman, whom Smith hailed as “the person who did more to bring women and minority folks into the mainstream of the school district than any other superintendent.” The club’s spirited support for Goodman proves, Smith argued, that “color means nothing to us.”
The majority of the club’s actions, however, are relatively low profile. The club awards annual scholarships to needy minority students and has raised money for sickle-cell anemia research. A promising young skater’s plane fare to national meets was financed by the club, and the group once paid for the burial of a Nigerian college student killed in a confrontation with police.
In addition, charter member Oscar Pendleton explained that the club’s members occasionally “reach into their pockets” to help poor families pay bills or buy food and necessities.
“We’re anything we want to be,” Smith said of the club. “This is a very nebulous group, and there are no limits to what we do.”
The club’s roots can be traced to the early 1970s, when Smith and several friends met weekly in his church’s basement for lunch, generally on the day when Pendleton, a mail carrier, had a day off. Over time, their friends and acquaintances began attending the lunches, and the club was born.
Though catfish now is a constant on the club’s menu, that was not the case at the time that the club was named, according to Hartwell Ragsdale, owner of the Anderson-Ragsdale Mortuary.
“The name was really kind of a joke,” Ragsdale recalled. “At first, we were going to call it the C.F. Club. That could take on many meanings, like maybe the ‘Colored Folks Club.’ But since we did eat some catfish, we eventually took that on as the name.”
Saying that he did not want the club to become “overly muscle-bound with unnecessary organization,” Smith has deliberately kept the club’s structure to a minimum. There are no records or secretary’s minutes, and anyone with the audacity to even mention Robert’s Rules of Order would be laughed down.
The club has about 100 members who pay $25 monthly dues. The average meeting attracts about 50 people for a lunch that usually features catfish and another type of fried fish, as well as other dishes prepared by Smith. However, amid issues of particular note--such as the recent controversy surrounding Murray’s dismissal--the club will draw as many as 200 people.
The club’s diverse membership includes business leaders, lawyers, ministers, educators, officeholders such as Williams and U.S. District Judge Earl Gilliam, sports figures, and city and county officials. Smith jokingly referred to former school Superintendent Goodman as the club’s “first token white,” noting that several whites attend most meetings. For years, women were allowed to attend only as guests, but the club now has female members.
Regardless of the issues being discussed or the guest speakers present, Smith himself inevitably dominates the meetings. Part moderator, part stand-up comedian and part preacher, Smith, a burly man with a thin mustache and twinkling eyes, keeps the meetings moving along at a lively pace, alternately tossing out one-liners and cogent observations that stimulate debate.
“Without question, it’s the George Walker Smith Show,” said one businessman who frequently attends the lunches. “I don’t think anyone has a problem with that because they all look on George as being a godfather of the black community. But it’s always clear who’s running things.”
At one recent meeting, Smith began by scanning the audience, looking for targets for his quips, a few of which produced winces from some listeners. Smokey Gaines, for example, was introduced as the basketball coach at “the rape center of the United States”--a reference to a number of recent rapes at San Diego State University.
When City Hall gadfly and frequent candidate Warren Nielsen introduced his 92-year-old mother, Smith bellowed, “Let’s give her a hand! Madam, you must be a good woman to put up with him. Warren’s a pain over every part of our body!”
Then, just as quickly, Smith turned serious and directed the discussion to the topic of the day--the dismal 29% voter turnout in Southeast San Diego in the Nov. 4 election.
“That 29% is an embarrassment, especially when you had a guy leading the ticket who is black,” Smith said, referring to Los Angeles mayor and unsuccessful Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley. “We’d better get ourselves organized in this community or we’re done for. Done for!”
With Smith constantly on guard against pontificators, the meetings, which begin promptly at noon, rarely last more than an hour.
“It’s like in church--if you can’t get it done in an hour, you’re never going to get it done,” Smith said. “I have a low tolerance for verbal longevity.”
Because Smith’s personality is so inextricably linked with the Catfish Club, the club’s members say that the rare meetings that he misses usually are dull by comparison. To protect against a precipitous drop in attendance, Smith generally does not tell members in advance when he will be unable to attend.
“George has special talents that God didn’t give to everyone,” said Ragsdale, who has known Smith for 30 years. “It would be hard to replace him because he does the organizing, the cooking, gives us a place to meet for free and is a drawing card in his own right. So I hope nothing ever happens to George.”
Smith, meanwhile, argues that the club has become a community fixture that could serve a valuable purpose “even after I move on, whenever that is.”
“Look, all this is is just folks talking, trying to make things better for the city,” Smith said. “That’s the club’s real value. When the mayor or police chief or anyone else comes here, at least we get their ear, they listen. My attitude is even if I’m sitting down with the devil, I can persuade him to do the right thing sometimes. As long as folks talk, we’ll be all right.”
