By Herb Boyd

In his eulogy for Richard “Dick” Gidron Sr. during funeral services at Abyssinian Baptist Church on Friday morning, October 19, the church’s pastor, Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, invoked the metaphor of two lamps that shape impressions and guide our thoughts. “One lamp is the lamp of hope, and the other is the lamp of memory that takes us by the hand and leads us through the mist of the past,” he said.

Most of the speakers who reflected on Gidron’s significant legacy chose the lamp of memory, recalling that he was much more than a highly successful entrepreneur, a trailblazing car dealer. “He was a credit bank in the Bronx ,” said his longtime friend and associate Edward Meyers, president of Meyers, Smith and Granady, Inc. And his largess extended well beyond the Bronx ,” he continued, “touching the lives of people in need in Harlem , Queens , Staten Island and Brooklyn .”

“Dick Gidron was bigger than life,” said Congressman Charles Rangel, offering a plethora of fond memories for Gidron who died on Oct. 11, one day after his 68 th birthday. “He was a kind, gentle, caring man…even to Republicans.”

As Rangel and others noted, Gidron was an eternal optimist, always facing the most daunting situations with a favorite phrase: “Everything is going to be all right.”

“He was a true optimist,” Rev. Dr. W. Franklyn Richardson of Grace Baptist Church in Mt. Vernon observed. “He was such a treasure to us…a presiding elder, and we thank his family who provided him the strength so he could share the stage with us.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton’s remarks were as poignant and quotable as ever as he talked about Gidron’s sacrifices and his support for unpopular causes. “He embraced me when I was in jogging suits and medallions and it was not a popular thing to do,” he said. “Dick combined entrepreneurship with showmanship. He once told me that if I got three months behind in the payments (on my Ford) don’t pull up in a rally in the car.”

After the laughter subsided, Sharpton commented on the trials and tribulations Gidron endured after being convicted and imprisoned for a year for failure to pay corporate taxes. “I felt they treated him wrong. The only thing he was guilty of was being Black and successful in America .”

“I think Dick got a bad deal on all of this,” Rangel had said during his remarks.

Former Mayor David Dinkins spoke of Gidron’s “temerity, his guts…and one who never lost sight of where he came from. He used his personal resources to help (other) businesses to strive and survive.” These sentiments were passionately echoed by Minister Kevin Muhammad, representing the Honorable Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam; Norman Seabrook, president of the New York City Correctional Benevolent Association; Gidron’s friend Richard Naclerio; the daughter of Judge Jerry Crispino; and in notes from several dignitaries who were unable to attend, including Percy Sutton.

Warmly and strongly interwoven through the stream of encomiums was the remarkable voice of Eunice Newkirk and Jim Davis’ phenomenal accompaniment on piano. Their version of Gidron’s favorite song Paul Anka’s “My Way” evoked a thunderous response from the audience.

Doing it his way, the Gidron way is to recall a path marked with monumental achievement.

Born in Chicago in 1939, Gidron was raised by his mother and grandmother after his father died when he was 7. At 19, he was employed in a Cadillac dealership on Chicago ’s South Side. Though he picked up a few lessons about selling in night school, it was on the car lots and showrooms that he really polished his sales technique.

He was only 26 when he became Cadillac’s first Black salesman, and quickly outdistanced his colleagues, earning a national reputation. Gidron was so good that in 1972 when GM sought a minority owner in the Bronx , he beat out Sammy Davis, Jr. and baseball immortal Hank Aaron. Not only was he the first African-American Cadillac dealer in New York , he was the second in the nation.

In less than a decade, his annual sales surpassed $40 million, and Gidron lavished the earnings on himself and many of his close associates as well as those in financial trouble who called for assistance.

But helping others in dire need meant he often neglected his own financial affairs, and by the nineties he was in trouble with the IRS and the state for nonpayment of corporate taxes.

According to an article by Robin Nash in The Positive Community, things began to unravel for Gidron in 2000 when a fire in the service department of his Cadillac/Oldsmobile dealership on Central Park Avenue in Yonkers destroyed 16 customer cars along with parts and equipment valued at over $400,000. “Though his company had occupied the premises since 1998, leasing it from General Motors, two weeks after the fire GM informed him that they had no insurance on the building and did not have the money to repair it. GM then asked Gidron Cadillac to renovate the building, and offered to sell Gidron Cadillac the building at the negotiated price of $2.2 million. He was even given a letter of commitment,” Nash wrote.

Two years later, in 2002, he was indicted on charges of evading more than $1.5 million in state and federal taxes from the sale and leasing of cars from 1995 to 2000, according to a news account. He subsequently pled guilty to two counts of “grand larceny and one of offering a false instrument for filing — admitting that he kept car payments meant for lending institutions — and was ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution and sentenced to three years of home confinement and five years of probation,” a New York Times story related.

Gidron served a year in prison, and when he was released last year he sued General Motors for $150 million, charging that the automaker had reneged on a deal to sell him an auto repair center in Yonkers that he had restored at a cost of millions after it was damaged in a fire in 2000. The suit is pending.

When asked about his relationship with Gidron, his longtime friend and Bronx political leader Stanley Friedman said: “I never met somebody who made so many friends from so many walks of life - rich, poor and in between. Dick lent his hand to all those who needed his help, and didn't brag about it, either.”

Before Gidron’s body was removed from the church by the pallbearers, Richard Gidron Jr., in a deeply emotional moment, thanked those who had come to provide comfort and succor to the bereaved family. The list of honorary pallbearers represented a cross section of America , particularly those who purchased a car from him or had other business arrangements—George Steinbrenner, Joe Frazier, Adrian Council, Basil Paterson, Mario Cuomo—

His widow, Marjorie, did not speak, but this last stanza of her poem to her husband captures some of the love and devotion they shared:

“It broke my heart to lose you/ but you didn’t go alone. For part of me went with you/the day God took you home .”

On the back of the funeral program was a fitting farewell for “Mr. Cadillac.” “No more hurt, no more pain, you have driven your Cadillac to heaven.”

Yes, many of his friends and associates evoked the lamp of memory; throughout his life Dick Gidron lifted the lamp of hope.

Along with his son, Richard, Jr. of Scarsdale, Gidron is survived by his wife, Marjorie; a daughter, Bridgett Gidron of Scarsdale; two sisters, Dorothy J. Holmes of Stone Mountain, Ga., and Freddie M. Kessee of Aliso Viejo, Calif.; a brother, Thomas Parker of Little Rock, Ark.; and two grandchildren, Blaine and Richard Gidron, III.