How Central Won Right to Incorporate

How Conservatives, Scotlandville Blacks Fought a Powerful Mayor-President to Give Central Right To Become a City

by Woody Jenkins

CENTRAL — This week’s game between Central and Scotlandville got me to reminiscing about the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1973 and the unexpected role it played in the future of Central.  You may be surprised to learn that some key black leaders from Scotlandville were instrumental in a decision that, many years later, allowed Central to become a city.

In the legislature, single-member districts were ordered by the federal courts in 1971. In the election that year, I ran for and was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives from District 66, which included the Istrouma area.  Central was part of another Baton Rouge-based district, and no one from  Central served in the legislature.

Many people from Central called me to assist them with legislative matters, and I often spoke in the Central community.  After one speech at the Central Jaycees, several members told me about their desire to someday incorporate Central as a city.

It seemed like a far-fetched idea at the time, but they were insistent.

However, they told me Central could never become a city unless the Louisiana Constitution were amended to allow it.  That didn’t make much sense to me either until they explained the legalities.

When the East Baton Rouge Parish Plan of Government was narrowly adopted by the voters in a low turnout election in 1949, it contained a provision saying that East Baton Rouge Parish could have no more than three incorporated municipalities — Baton Rouge, Baker, and Zachary.

In turn, the Louisiana Constitution of 1921 provided that the East Baton Rouge Parish Plan of Government was part of the constitution and could not be amended by the legislature.

Therefore, while state law provided that any group of 200 or more people living anywhere in the state could petition to become a municipality, that law did not apply to East Baton Rouge.  Only in East Baton Rouge were citizens forbidden to start a new city.

Woody Dumas, who was a Parish Councilman in 1949 and later became Mayor-President, saw the City-Parish government as a great way to extend city services into rural areas such as Central, and he was adamantly opposed to the creation of any new municipalities in the parish.

I believe it was all in God’s plan that during the 1972 legislative session, Gov. Edwin Edwards passed a bill to call a state constitutional convention to completely rewrite the Louisiana Constitution of 1921.  I ran for and was elected a delegate.

The Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1973 (CC/73) met from late 1972 through early 1974.

I was only 25, but, as a delegate to the convention, was suddenly in a position to attempt to remedy any and every wrong in state government.

For 18 months, the 132 delegates battled on every issue imaginable. Every basic premise of government was debated, and each word in the constitution was analyzed and turned inside out to try to determine how that word might be interpreted by the courts generations into the future.

The convention broke into committees, each with a different article of the constitution to write.  Then the entire convention met to debate each section one by one.  Sometimes a single sentence would be debated for days.

As we neared consideration of Article VI on Local Government, I remembered my friends in Central and their desire to someday have a city.  Delegate Gary O’Neill of Glen Oaks shared my interest in the idea, and we soon found some unexpected allies — in Scotlandville!

The late Mr. Acie Belton was a prominent black leader in Scotlandville and chairman of the 2nd Ward Voters League.  He was known for his honesty and devotion to the Scotlandville community, which he felt was being neglected by the City-Parish government.  Scotlandville wanted to be inside the city limits, but Mayor-President Dumas refused to annex it.  A tall, powerfully-built man who could have played tackle for Southern University well into his 60’s, Mr. Belton felt that Scotlandville’s only alternative was to incorporate as a municipality.  Privately, Mr. Belton told me he never thought Scotlandville would be able to incorporate, but he hoped the move to incorporate would pressure Mayor Dumas into annexing Scotlandville into the City of Baton Rouge.

Delegate George Dewey Hayes was a black businessman elected to represent Scotlandville in the constitutional convention, and he shared Mr. Belton’s view.  We became close friends.  He, Gary O’Neill, and I began lobbying other delegates.  We proposed amending Article VI of the proposed Louisiana Constitution to include language that no parish Plan of Government could supersede state law on incorporating new municipalities.  In other words, the law on incorporating new cities should be the same in every parish in the state, and EBR would not be able to limit the number of municipalities to three.

We knew our plan would face opposition, but we had no idea of the ferocious opposition Mayor Dumas would mount to this proposal.  He called me personally and made it clear what he thought about my IQ.

More importantly, he called Gov. Edwards and told him that if our amendment passed, he would lead a statewide effort to defeat the new constitution.  He said he would make sure that every mayor, councilman, and police juror would oppose it.  “You are violating our

Plan of Government!” he said.

But Gov. Edwards was not persuaded.  Although Mayor Dumas and Edwards were allies, in a pitched showdown, Edwards chose the black leaders in Scotlandville.

City-Parish lobbyists worked the delegates and City Attorney Gordon Kean, a delegate and one of my close friends, led the opposition to our amendment.

I presented the proposal to allow Central, Scotlandville, or any other community in East Baton Rouge to incorporate itself, and the delegates approved it!  It was a great victory— a victory that few people could have imagined would be so significant to the future of Central.

When the proposed new Louisiana Constitution of 1974 went to the voters, a coalition of conservatives and liberals, blacks and whites, business and labor, and rural and urban supported the document.  By then Mayor-President Dumas had changed his mind and reluctantly endorsed it.

The constitution was ratified by the voters and is today the current constitution of our state.

In 1984, we in the legislature passed a bill to establish a uniform  law on incorporation of municipalities.  In 2002, the state court of appeal ruled that the Plan of Government provision limiting to three number of municipalities in East Baton Rouge Parish was unconstitutional, in light of Art. VI §8 of the Louisiana Constitution.

In 2008, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the incorporation of the City of Central on grounds that the Louisiana Constitution had superseded the Plan of Government.

Then, in 2009, the voters of East Baton Rouge adopted an amendment to the Plan of Government formally removing the three-municipality limit.

Along the way, Scotlandville was annexed to Baton Rouge, and Central got a city!

East Baton Rouge Plan of Government

Adopted in 1949

Section 1.05

The incorporated town of Zachary and the village of Baker shall be parts of the rural area as defined in section 1.08 and shall continue in existence as municipalities subject, except as specifically provided in this plan of government, to the general laws of the state relating to incorporated towns and villages respectively, and may enlarge their boundaries as provided in such laws.  No additional city, town or village shall be incorporated in East Baton Rouge Parish.

Louisiana Constitution of 1974

Proposed by Constitutional Convention in January 1974

Adopted by voters in statewide referendum in April 1974

Article VI §8.  Home Rule Parish; Incorporation of Cities, Towns, and Villages

Section 8.  No parish plan of government or home rule charter shall prohibit the incorporation of a city, town, or village as provided by general law.