Few members of Michigan’s progressive community can say definitively that they have gone to fisticuffs in defense of a candidate. Though many may have nurtured the desire (and perhaps let a Twitter update suffer their wrath instead), Ray Plowden may be the only one yet to have thrown punches for Jack Kennedy.

“The first fight I got into at school was with a guy in the same grade, and he was for Nixon and I was for Kennedy,” Plowden remembers. “We argued about it on the playground; he pushed me or I pushed him, I don’t know who it was, but we started tussling over Nixon and Kennedy.”

Playground shenanigans aside, it was a chance encounter with the dynamic young presidential candidate in 1960 that got Plowden hooked on the political bug. As the son of a civil rights activist, Plowden grew up in a world surrounded by progressive gatherings and political campaign work – in fact, it was his father, a vocal member of the NAACP, that hoisted young Ray up onto his shoulders so that he could watch Kennedy give a stirring Labor Day speech while campaigning in Detroit. Given this atmosphere of civic interest and community involvement, it’s not hard to see why Plowden would have elected for a lifetime of groundbreaking activism.

“My dad would take me to rallies; he would take me to meetings… I was bored out of my mind, I guess. [But] things seeped in, because when I went to college, I became an activist on campus,” Plowden says. “I went to Morehouse College in Atlanta: the college of Martin Luther King. You always had these activists from the sixties and early seventies who always came on campus; always got us involved in things; always told us that, ‘You get your degree here, but don’t forget your community.’ So with that background from my mom and dad and their activism, and my college and that activism, that’s what guided me to my progressive principles.”

Interestingly, although a career in progressive activism seemed all but etched into stone, Plowden opted to join the world of banking upon graduating from Morehouse. Like any good tale of betrayal and redemption, Plowden’s transition from banking to political involvement occurred almost accidentally, through a series of serendipitous accidents. After being passed over for transfer to another department, Plowden – out of spite – decided to give his bosses at the bank their just desserts by quitting his position to go work with progressive heavy John Conyers, a force to be reckoned with by any standards, let alone Congressional ones.

“Congressman Conyers saw my work and asked me to come join his staff as the deputy chief of staff. And I agreed; I [thought that] this [would] piss the bank off. They told me, ‘look: we’ll hold your job open for a year. We think you’re more conservative than that and you shouldn’t be going to work for a liberal politician like John Conyers.’ I joined his staff and he just took me everywhere, schooled me in politics and campaigns, community activism; although I had that foundation through watching my dad in the NAACP, this was insider baseball-type of stuff.”

Eventually, Plowden’s one year of political service turned into 13, and it wasn’t long before the idea of returning to a managerial position at the bank seemed as long-gone and distant as the notion of belting a Richard Nixon supporter in the sandbox. Plowden’s position as the chief of staff to Conyers soon blossomed into a fulltime stint with Michigan’s chapter of America Votes. Following a brief disbanding of the organization in 2005, after the previous year’s disappointment of the presidential election, Plowden took a position with the SEIU, serving for two and a half years as the state council director for the union organization. Currently, Plowden continues to serve as state director for the newly reformed America Votes table, and has been integral in adapting the foundation of the Michigan Voice table.

In addition to crediting his parents and Congressman Conyers for inspiring his life of community service, Plowden also makes a special point of recognizing his wife of 35 years, Jerri, for supporting him through a multitude of career changes, life-altering decisions, and a partnership that transcends all earthly bounds.

“She has been my rock, my foundation, my number one advisor and consultant,” says Plowden fondly. “When I was hemming and hawing about law school, she pulled out the law school study book, and told me to get cranking. I wouldn’t be where I am today without her.”