TAKES From the SIGMAS

Synarus Green the current state secretary for Mississippi and a candidate for state representative district 72 in Jackson, helped spearhead a social action project that assisted thousands of citizens in the city of Jackson, Mississippi during their 2022 water crises. Bro. Green was available to provide insight into this ongoing dilemma and the moves that were taken to help combat it at that time.

If you know your his tory or read the national website, you would know that Formed in 1934, the Social Ac tion program was conceived by Bro. Elmo M. Anderson focuses on improving the general well-being of disenfranchised people. The mission of the International Social Action Program Is to encourage social, polit ical, and philanthropic leadership which strengthens our re spective communities and our membership.

After a harsh cold snap at the end of the year in 2021, The city of Jackson, Missis sippi, was hit with a water crisis the follow ing summer that left a town with over 100,000 without clean water.

“The city of Jack son has two water treatment plants and treatment plant, and one was down. And so the city of Jackson, whereas it was, for lack of better mathematical terms, was pretty much operated by two wa ter-providing facilities ended up only having one fully functional. It had been operating in that in that shape for a number of years”.

So that summer, the plant suffered a critical malfunction. And since it was the only plant providing water to the entire city, it meant that the entire city was without water. And so that’s what the water crisis was”. to categorize it, the southern region, definitely with the help of my great brother Louis Sutton, came through to help.” His help was limited to just supplying resources/support but helping to coordinate and create a structure for how the fraternity has good policies and procedures around emergency declarations. “That’s not always what we’re built for, but you learn how to manage edge and do better in those spaces in the crisis itself.”

Jackson, Mississippi, is one of the poorest capital cities in America and is located in its most impoverished state with a predominately African American population. “Mississippi has 80% persistent poverty. Hines county is one of those counties that’s in the persistent poverty area, which means that having a pallet of water is dependent upon you having disposable income.” In these terrible water conditions, late august of 2022 left people of the community trying to stay afloat and adjust to not having clean water to drink, bathe, and brush their teeth and having daily “boil water” alerts.

This crisis is far from over, and the home team will continue to hold down the forte. “I thank the brothers for what they did for Jackson because it was laudable.” “We’ve got to be conscious enough to see how communities are growing and adapting and evolving. To see that when it creates a hardship for those people who we say that we are consciously serving, that we appropriately and adequately give the response as

One thing that Bro. Green would like his blu and white family to remember: “we got to maintain a mindset of seeing our conferences, our meetings, our kickbacks as moments of revitalization moments. Similar to revivals, and if you want to give the church analogy, revivals where we come together to be reminded of what our responsibility is so that when we go back home, we’re excited about being conscious and seeing where the need is.” “And so that should be the takeaway from our regional conference and every regional conference. When you leave here, what are you message got around what the need was.”

“We had a huge amount of assistance from the brothers in the Gulf Coastal region, brothers from New Orleans, brothers from Texas really came through to provide, even well after the actual, quote/unquote designation for the emergency was removed by the mayor and the governor.”

“Months after, there were brothers who were still checking and asking whether or not we needed water and sending water. So it was definitely a lot of support that came from Phi Beta Sigma. And like I said, if you had