Like a Thief in the Night…..The Demonization of the Black Vote in Small Town Georgia

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One year ago, my administration came into office with the hope, vitality and vision for A New Montgomery. From Dr. King and Rosa Parks to Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative, Montgomery’s story resonates now more than ever.

Love Is Always Available!

A commentary By: S Kent Butler

It’s called self-love! We must find our way to it! I believe doing so will change the world! We have been conditioned to sometimes hate ourselves. My thighs are too big, too thin, I have a zit the size of a mountain, I just don’t deserve to be happy. There is a slew of obstacles that get in our way and at times convince us we are unworthy.

I too have had my fair share of times when I turned on the self-hatred machine. When I just wanted to fit in. I wanted to be better at sports. I wanted to be liked by everyone. I wanted straighter teeth. I wanted to be perfect. What I didn’t realize was that I was already perfect. A human being that is beautifully and complexly made, but at times not allowing myself to accept or believe that fact. Like many others, I allowed society to dictate my perfection by viewing myself through the lens of others. To love myself in many ways meant that I was being selfish, conceited, or maybe even a bit too self-absorbed. Now, I realize that this wasn’t me talking but my listening to folks out there who didn’t love themselves, their own perfections (or flaws). These other people practiced, and modeled self-hatred and it led me to inwardly do the same thing to myself. Be careful who you take your lessons from. I learned from the best, my parents, my sisters, my relatives, my mentors, those individuals who have always had my best interest at heart. Their love of me opened pathways to ME giving myself permission to love ME as well.

With February soon approaching and being touted as the “month of love” what are the expectations people have of each other? Especially when society expects us to shower others with love and missing the opportunity to provide ourselves with the same. Ironically, some will miss the mark entirely and gravitate towards spreading hatred instead. Thus, finding gratification in life not by practicing love for one another, but by using hate.

Where do we start? I encourage you to My Role Models taught me the meaning of true start practicing the love by beginning with love! (Photo of my Mom, Dad, Sisters, Brother-inyourself. While we may not normally turn Law and, Nephews) the love engine inward and hug on, dote on, and most of all “LIKE” on ourselves, how do we love ourselves? First of all, accept that SCLC National Magazine/ King 2022 Issue

you have the right to be good to YOU. Allow love to come from within. It doesn’t make you a narcissist to do so, it actually frees you to live a life where you treat yourself well. Through this act you might actually do the same unto others. One of my favorite quotes, one I often use in my daily life, when teaching, and when presenting is by Haki R. Madhubuti in which he states that “Self-knowledge means a gut and an intellectual understanding of one’s self in connection to other peoples, cultures, and races. SelfKnowledge, if it is working, means self-love”. We can change the world when we include self-love as part of our core philosophy and belief system. This action allows us to spread love beyond just ourselves and beyond our human-made communities! It’s a collectivistic idea that comes from cultures that believe in building up others True Love! (My daughter Summer Joy and I) and strengthening them so that they can build bigger and better together! I am a firm believer that when we open ourselves to learning from the worldviews and life experiences of others we grow! I also believe that embarking upon this journey can lead us to transformative change. Experiencing the world and allowing it to feed you! (Photo in Dubai)

As ACA President, it is my hope to open doors to important dialogues and provide ACA members and others with the tools necessary to help create systemic change. Moving beyond simply talking about diversity and inclusion and creating and implementing a viable pathway to achieving this goal. A plan rooted in love that helps to create a cultural fabric, beautifully woven, that covers all of our communities. So, this February let’s take the necessary measures to love ourselves. ACA uses the tag line “Counselors Help”! I trust that we do! When we love ourselves and help others this results in our integrating social justice advocacy in our practice. Perhaps our counseling profession is the key to the changes we NEED to see in the world! Find your way to love!

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The Southern Christian Leadership Conference has lived out the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. since its founding by educating communities on advocacy, personal responsibility, civil rights, and liberty for all. As the energy industry continues to change, Alabama Power strives to create an inclusive workplace that is as diverse as the communities we serve. We are committed to fostering an equitable environment in all areas of our company, from our leadership development programs to our charitable foundations. Alabama Power is honored to partner with SCLC to continue achieving social, political, and economic justice.

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Like a Thief in the Night…..The Demonization of the Black Vote in Small Town Georgia

A commentary By Yoshunda Jones

Recently, the Georgia Republican party initiated a hostile takeover of six county election boards, one of those counties was Spalding County. In Spalding County, House Bill 769 was sponsored by Republican legislators David Knight and Karen Mathiak. This bill allowed them to fire the Black elections supervisor and force out three election board members that were Democrats which included the Chair of the elections board, all of whom were Black. The new board is composed of three Republicans, which includes a Republican chair, and two Democrats, one of whom is Black. The new board flexed their White supremacist muscles and voted against allowing for Sunday voting (Souls to the Polls) in the recent municipal election. This led to protests from Black citizens. Many people are questioning why this even matters. Let’s put some things into perspective. It may seem weird that the Republicans would take such interest in a county that overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. In the November 4th, 2020 election, Joe Biden won the state of Georgia with 11,779 votes. In Spalding County, Donald Trump won the majority of the vote, however, 11,356 votes went to Joe Biden which were cast by a majority of Black citizensDoes this make the picture clearer? If the Republicans can control the election boards of these smaller counties, they can control the votes. The Republicans took such great care to issue these bills across six different counties where some voted majority Democrat and others voted majority Republican. They made sure to do this so that to the naked eye, it would not appear as blatant voter suppression targeting the Black vote.

So, how exactly did Spalding County get here? Spalding County is no stranger to racism and White supremacy. The newly retired County Manager prided himself on being a man that “wears the hood” to quote him in his own words. In June 2021, the Spalding County Board of Commissioners voted against issuing a proclamation recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday. This resulted in Spalding County being the ONLY county in the State of Georgia that did not issue a Juneteenth proclamation. This county VOTED AGAINST recognizing the end of slavery which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about how things operate down here.

During one of the years that the County Commissioners decided not to renew the County Manager’s contract, he went to work for a technology company. Later upon having his

contractrenewed, the County Manager convinced the County Commissioners to use this same company for all of the county’s technology needs. This company has the technology contract for the county board of elections. The owner of the company is now the Republican chair of the board of elections. The chair is a Trump loyalist and promoter of the big lie. None of this is a coincidence. In a world of morals and ethics, this would be a huge conflict of interest, but in Spalding County it is just an everyday example of how the Good Ol’ Boy network operates.

After Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden, the Black elections supervisor and staff were harassed by Trump supporters over the phone with racial slurs and through physical intimidation. One of those Trump loyalists is now the new elections supervisor. This new elections supervisor is beyond incompetent. She did not give proper notice in the local legal organ for the recent municipal election. She has gone out of her way to give citizens incorrect information about candidate qualifying, absentee ballots, and felon voter rights. She has down played major issues during the recent municipal elections. Again, none of this is a coincidence. But the rabbit hole goes deeper. Back in 2018, the Spalding County Republican party was seething from Stacey Abrams almost winning the Governor’s seat. Republican Representatives Karen Mathiak and David Knight tried to introduce a bill that would put the County Manager in charge of the board of elections in Spalding County. This bill didn’t get very far, but the seed was planted for future voter suppression.

Why should this matter to you? Voter suppression bills are not just reserved for small town Georgia. The Republicans are launching a coordinated strategic attack on Black voters across the nation. Their battleground has become local politics as they realize that Black voters have begun to recognize the power of their vote. The Republican strategy can be seen in the continuous promotion of the big lie, their anti-CRT attacks on the local boards of education, and their hostile takeover of local election boards. Please do not think for one second that your Mayors, City and County Managers, and City and County Commissioners are not plugged into the state and federal government arena. Stay diligent, watchful, and proactive in your local governments. Rest assured that those of us in Spalding County will continue to shine a spotlight on this issue, fight against voter suppression, racism, and White supremacy. We will not be silenced.

Dr. Yoshunda Jones is a community advocate and activist in Griffin/Spalding County Georgia.

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“[Right to Work’s] purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone.…Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer, and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped.”

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A commentary By: Dr. Charles E. McCollum,Sr., The Roanoke Valley North Carolina SCLC

“I cannot subscribe to this emasculation of our constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the law and must respectfully dissent. We deal here with the right of all our children, whatever their race, to an equal start in life and to an equal opportunity to reach their full potential as citizens. Those children who have been denied the right in the past deserve better than to see fences thrown up to deny them that right in the future. Our Nation, I fear, will be ill served by the Court’s refusal to remedy separate and unequal education, for unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together.” -Justice Thurgood Marshall...Dissenting, Milliken V. Bradley (1974)

The Roanoke Valley (NC) Southern Chirstian Leadership Conference’s most challenging and rewarding pursuits in achieving social justice and equality for the underserved and marginalized citizens of Halifax County, North Carolina, is the pivotal critical role it played in the passage of a Supplemental School Tax to provide equitable funding for educational opportunities and resources for Halifax County School District (HCSD).

For decades, the Halifax County Board of Commissioners intentionally and discriminately failed to provide adequate and equal funding for its county schools, as opposed to the city schools. As a result, students enrolled in the county schools in Halifax County School District (HCSD) were denied their constitutional and fundamental right to a quality and equitable education.

How Did Our Children Get Here?

According to a 2011 report compiled by The UNC Center for Civil Rights, Unless Our Children Learn Together - The State of Education in Halifax County - “Halifax County is a geographically large rural county with low density population and stagnant or declining public-school enrollment, and is one of the most economically distressed counties in North Carolina. It is also one of the few counties in the state that maintains three separate school districts, namely Halifax County Public Schools (HCPS), Roanoke Rapids Graded School District (RRGSD), and Weldon City School District (WCSD).

The most unique characteristic, according to the report, however, is the “stark racial and socioeconomic isolation among their students, which has its roots in the Jim Crow

segregation that led to creation of the tripartite system. Although segregation in public schools was held unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, enforcement and implementation of the Court’s ruling did not begin in earnest until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, under which the federal government required school districts to make good faith efforts to start to desegregate. As state and local governments began to be held legally accountable to end segregation within school districts, the continued separation of Black students from White students was most effectively accomplished by the creation and maintenance of separate school districts. In North Carolina, White lawmakers determined where the district lines should be drawn, and they took advantage of residential segregation patterns and concentrations of wealth in the White community resulting from slavery and Jim Crow. This strategy, revived in the wake of the Civil Rights Act, has its roots in the founding of public education in North Carolina, and is still reflected in the eleven counties in the states that still have more than one school district. Halifax County is a stark example of this historical gerrymandering. When the legislature separated the Weldon City School District and Roanoke Rapids school districts from the county system, both towns had significant White majorities, in sharp contrast to the rest of the county, where African American were the overwhelming majority. Maintaining a divided system, the county and the state's more deeply entrenched patterns of racial segregation cause irreparable harm to the academic opportunity for all children in Halifax County, and stunt the economic viability of the region.”

Halifax County’s two city schools, Roanoke Rapids Graded School District (RRGSD), which is make up five (5) schools, and Weldon City School (WCSD), which make up three (3) schools receive supplemental tax, sales tax, and traditional local funding to maintain quality standards of education, where as opposed to rural Halifax County School District (HCSD), the largest of the three school districts, only receive traditional local funding, but is expected to maintain quality standards of education. Every time anyone spends money in Halifax County, part of the sales tax for every purchase goes toward funding education in Weldon City Schools and Roanoke Rapids Graded School District!

RV/SCLC Push for Supplemental Tax

Since its genesis, Roanoke Valley (NC) Southern Christian Leadership Conference (RV/ SCLC has been on the forefront combating injustice wherever and however it may exist. Denying our children of their constitutional and fundamental right to a quality education is an injustice that RV/SCLC refuses to overlook. From 2014 to 2016, Dr. McCollum, president of RV/SCLC and Mr. James Mills, vice president, appeared before the County Board of Commissioners on numerous occasions to get them to approve a referendum for a supplemental tax that would provide fair and equal funding for the students enrolled in Halifax County Schools, although a similar referendum for in 2012 for a supplemental tax was struck down by a 71.38 percent to 28.62 percent margin in earlier years.

After being repeatedly being told by a mixed multitude of doubters and naysayers who was clear in their convictions that a supplemental tax will never pass, and after having met with disappointment at times due to ‘unproductive’ meetings with a board who seemingly had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, RV/SCLC however stayed the course.

Mr. Mills’ and Dr. McCollum’s argument before the Board as to why the Organization supported the supplemental tax included the following:

• Approval of a supplemental tax can be geared toward empowering educators to create equitable learning environments to ensure all students have the opportunity to achieve their greatest potential. • A Supplemental tax can help improve test scores, produce higher graduation rates, provide quality buildings and facilities, and updated instructional materials and equipment. • The tax has the potential to equip schools with the latest technology and much needed supplies and resources, such as science labs, audio-visual equipment, new computers, art supplies, and resources to provide field trips for enrichment. • A thorough and efficient education is delivered by qualified teachers. Offering competitive supplements and benefits will attract, hire, and retain qualified competent teachers to prepare students for future successes. • Extra funding is a way to create better education and better job opportunities for opportunities for students to succeed and compete in today’s advanced industrialized society.

After months of debating on the supplemental tax issue, the commissioners decided to leave it up to the Board of Education to come up with a workable plan. McCollum was granted permission to meet with the School Board, advising them that the most feasible plan is to ask the Board of Commissioners to approve a petition from the Board of Education which will put a referendum on the November 8 general election ballot requesting voters’ approval of a supplemental school tax.” The Board welcomed McCollum’s advice and approved the referendum to be placed on the 2016 November 8 ballot. At the Board of Education’s request, the law then required Halifax County Commissioners to put the referendum on the November 8 general election ballot requesting voters’ approval of a supplement school tax. The deal was sealed: the referendum was on the 2016 November 8 general election ballot! With the referendum before the citizens to be voted upon, RV/SCLC employed a strategy to traverse the county, holding voters' education and informational forums to educate the citizens on the issue.

Despite opposing forces with negative agendas used as scare tactics to keep voters away from the polls, the supplemental tax passed by a 53.97 percent to 46.03 percent margin! Voters from 16 precincts throughout the county were eligible to vote for the issue.

The passage of the supplemental tax was undoubtedly a monumental and historical victory for all the citizens of Halifax County. Giants do fall.

When asked by Mr. Lance Martin, a local newspaper editor, “How they felt about the win,” McCollum was quoted as saying: “Praise God for that. I was pleased that the commissioners agreed to put the referendum on the ballot. Hopefully, it will change the educational and economic destiny of all children in Halifax County and its constituent members,” as where Mr. Mill was quoted as saying: “I hope we can move forward as a county by having a better educational system. It was morally the right thing to do. It’s an answer to a lot of prayers.”

To this end, I quote Dr. Charles Steele, Jr., SCLC President/CEO, “Education is the new civil rights.”

Like any other human being, every child, regardless of race, disability, ethnicity, or status, is endowed by the Creator with a fundamental human to a quality and equitable education, and to deny them of that right is an injustice of the worst kind. As in the words of the late Dr. King, “Injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere.”

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