Black Leaders to Honor Darden as Role Model

Some of Los Angeles’ most prominent blacks plan to honor Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher A. Darden, the only African American on the O.J. Simpson prosecution team, to repudiate the notion that Darden is an outcast in the black community.

Darden, who was reviled by some African Americans for his role in the Simpson case, will be feted next week at an affair organized by county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke. Among the sponsors is Darden’s most heated nemesis in the Simpson trial, lead defense lawyer Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.

Monday’s affair comes as Darden is distancing himself from the district attorney’s office. On Tuesday, Southwestern University School of Law announced that he is joining its faculty on a full-time basis next month. The district attorney’s office said Darden is taking an indefinite leave of absence. He began teaching at the Mid-Wilshire school part time last year. “I think I have found a new calling,” he said in a statement issued by the university.

The Simpson trial relationship between Darden and Cochran--a dean of Los Angeles’ black lawyers--often appeared deeply acrimonious, even though the men are longtime friends. The reaction against Darden by the black community, largely sympathetic to Simpson, was often bitter, personal and unforgiving. On occasion these critics characterized Darden as a traitor to his race and an apologist for a racist: key prosecution witness Mark Fuhrman.

At one televised hearing on whether the Simpson jury should learn that Fuhrman, a white former LAPD detective, had used a racial slur to refer to black people, Darden and Cochran squared off in a highly personal exchange.

Darden passionately contended that the slur was the “dirtiest, filthiest, nastiest word in the English language,” and would only inflame the mostly black jurors against the prosecution and cloud their judgment.

Cochran, in just as passionate a rejoinder, apologized to blacks throughout the United States for what he described as Darden’s attack on their ability to judge fairly.

The conflict prompted some media observers to predict a permanent rift between the two lawyers and their respective supporters, lasting long after Simpson was acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman. But this week Cochran dismissed the confrontation as inevitable in the heat of battle.

“I have a warm spot in my heart for Chris. . . . You can disagree without being disagreeable,” he said.

Added another sponsor, John Mack, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Urban League, who was critical of the prosecution during the trial: “Johnnie Cochran is clearly an outstanding role model and hero, but it’s important that we send out the message that Chris Darden is a role model too.”

Burke blamed the media for playing up “a divisiveness” among blacks during the trial without emphasizing that both men were fulfilling their professional responsibilities as advocates.

Darden declined comment on the tribute. The district attorney’s office said that other Simpson team prosecutors would join him there.

Fred MacFarlane, an aide to Burke, said response to the tribute has been unexpectedly heavy. The guest list of community leaders, state and local politicians and others is mushrooming toward 1,000, he said.

Burke, whose district includes the South Bay community where Darden lives, said she had planned a much smaller affair for county employees and local lawyers, but the event has “sort of gotten bigger than we thought.”

The affair, to be held at the California Afro-American Museum, is also designed to reinforce respect for black prosecutors, organizers said.

Darden “didn’t win, but he represented the people, including the black community,” MacFarlane said. “It’s important to note that we need black prosecutors. If we don’t have black prosecutors, at some point in time we won’t have a black district attorney or a black state attorney general or a black U.S. attorney.”

Besides Cochran, Burke and Mack, other sponsors of the tribute include Danny Bakewell of the Brotherhood Crusade, the John M. Langston Bar Assn., a black lawyers group, and the Rev. Cecil Murray, pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the city’s most influential black congregations.

The tribute “is a healthy thing,” said Langston board member Stanley Williams, who like Darden is a deputy district attorney. “If there is a rift between Chris and the black community, then it’s a rift between the black community and black prosecutors across the country.”

“We have to be clear that Chris Darden represents a talented and gifted African American who was doing his job,” said Bakewell, who noted that he had taken issue with some of Darden’s stances during the trial. “He represents one of those who are the best among us, and we need to honor him for that.”

At Southwest, Darden will teach trial advocacy for the remainder of this academic year. Next academic year he will branch into criminal law, constitutional criminal procedure and advanced criminal procedure, the school said.

Darden already is effectively on leave, using up compensatory time that he accrued during the nine-month Simpson trial. In a Times interview a week after the Simpson verdicts, he expressed his disappointment with the criminal justice system and said he did not know if he would work as a trial prosecutor again.

A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office said the leave of absence that Darden requested allows him to return to work if he should choose.

Darden negotiated a $1.7-million book deal after the trial and is teaming with “Forrest Gump” co-producer Steve Tisch on a movie based on the book.