What an Honor It Has Been to Serve

Growing up in the 1950’s as one of 10 kids on a small farm in Darrow, Louisiana, a mostly black community on the Mississippi River, I could never have imagined all the things that have happened in my life.  I certainly couldn’t have imagined living in a place called “Central” that is over 90 percent white and being elected the Mayor Pro-Tem and serving in that role for nine years!

It’s funny, but in Central the issue of race never comes up.  People don’t talk about it, and I don’t talk about it.  By and large, it’s a non-issue in the day-to-day work of our city government.  But I think I will talk about it a bit today.

I grew up in a large family and we were poor.  My mother and father were hard workers.  In Darrow, just about everybody was black, but our next door neighbors were white, and we got along good.

I made money picking pecans and doing odd jobs.

When I was 14, we got a brand-new school for the black youngsters, and I was very happy with it.  But that’s when integration came along, and instead of going to the new school, I was one of the black kids assigned to attend all-white East Ascension High School.  It wasn’t my choice.

There were a lot of threats, and my dad and some of the other black fathers got their shotguns and rode in their pickup trucks behind the bus we black kids were in as we headed to East Ascension High.  When we pulled up to the school, there was a large crowd of angry white students hollering and screaming and pounding on the bus, daring us to get out.  Deputies stopped our dads from coming onto campus.  They had to watch from a distance.  Some of the black kids got off the bus and got roughed up pretty good.  They scrambled back on the bus.

I sat there a long time and thought what I should do.  I’m pretty big now but was undersized and thin when I was 14.

I had to make a decision — whether to get off the bus and face the music.  That’s when I decided to get off the bus!  I was going to that school, no matter who tried to stop me!  Always remember this: In life, you have to decide to get off the bus if you want to improve your life!

Four years later, I graduated from East Ascension High School and won numerous honors for my work there.

After that, I started at Southern University and worked my way through school as a busboy.  I learned about politics and participated in demonstrations.  I realized I had a voice and could be heard.

Then I got an entry level job at one of the plants near my home in Darrow.  My goal was to run that plant.  I worked with whites and blacks and rose rapidly through the ranks.  Carolyn and I got married, and we were making good money.  Eventually, I managed that plant!

I learned about business and the free enterprise system.  A lot of my perspectives were changing.

My mother revealed some things to me that were surprising.  My great-grandfather was white!  I looked it up in the courthouse and found out that he and my grandmother were married in the 1890’s.  That was virtually unheard of in those days.  Eventually, he got in trouble of some kind and left the state, but he left the land and house to his wife, and it remains in our family today.  Boy, my perspective changed even more when I learned my great-grandfather was white!

We bought a house in Central, and when the plant was sold, I took a buy-out. Carolyn and I started Red Stick Cleaners.  Over the years, we came to love Central, partly because of the rural atmosphere but mostly because of the wonderful people

who welcomed us with open arms.

Yes, I admit it, I am black, but that’s only a small part of what defines me.  I’m a Christian man, and I love the Lord!  I’m a husband and a father, and I love my wife and children!  I’m an American, and I love this country, which is the greatest in the world.  I’m a businessman, and I believe in the free enterprise system!  I’m a conservative Republican and proud of it!  And I’m an adopted son of Central who believes this is the very best place in this state to live and who won’t stop working to make it even better!