Greetings absolutely awesome E-T readers, and thanks for all the support!
For those of you wondering why I have grown my hair down my back, well, it’s simple — I’m preparing for the first annual “Johnny Depp Ponytail & Pulled Pork Festival” in Imagination Mississippi.
Everyone with a ponytail gets in for half price. Wearing a Pirates of the Caribbean costume gets you in free.
And as your bright-buttered-brown-bow-legged brother and former MVSU Center for Economic Development professor, I have a very profound true story for you.
What happens when the master of manuscript writes his life story in The Enterprise-Tocsin newspaper?
The heavens will open and lost loved ones will be oh so proud. I’d like to send a shout out and thank Judge Lisa Bell for the last four years of helping with many of my community projects.
While most of Sunflower County’s exceptional ageless angels are so passionately precious and powerfully priceless that we should wrap them in bubble wrap to preserve them, my dear friend is the epitome of intellectual emotional tranquility, masterful mannerism, genuine balance of strength, calmness, kindness and harmony.
As smart as a Merriam- Webster dictionary and as intoxicating as Absolut Vodka and this week’s column is dedicated to her commitment to community.
With the emergence of African-American leadership in Mississippi politics, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, many whites feared that the potential of electing Blacks to leadership positions would have a very negative effect on white-run communities as well as bring violence and uncertainty to those communities.
Fear was everywhere so as a way to deflect this potential uprising most communities adopted the political sign ordinance prohibiting political signs from being placed on both city property and personal property.
These ordinances deemed as a way to keep communities clean were actually constitutional violations hidden under the colors of municipal law.
Convinced of the fact that the ordinance would keep the city clean, Indianola’s Board of Aldermen, without hesitation, voted unanimously and adopted this unconstitutional policy, denying 1st Amendment rights of freedom of speech to all its constituents.
The right to express oneself freely.
In 2015, after speaking with Constable Mike Myers, I decided to go before the Indianola board and point out the ordinance’s constitutional violations in hopes that they would abolish the ordinance.
I enlisted the help of Dr. Carolyn Steel-Johnson to go before the board with me. However, the board didn’t make any decision and only looked at me as if I was speaking Japanese.
I then went before the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors as a guest of then-Board President Glenn Donald in hopes that the board could pressure the city into changing the city ordinance, since the upcoming election was a county election.
The board did understand but didn’t make any ruling on the matter.
Then April 15, 2019 (4 years later) Constable Mike Myers said that he wanted to go with me this time and help present this matter to the Indianola city board.
However, hours before the meeting, then-mayor of Indianola, Steve Rosenthal, handed me a letter that he had received from the Mississippi Municipal League urging all municipalities that had a political sign ordinance to remove them immediately, citing potential constitutional rights violations.
Reading the letter brought tears of joy to my eyes.
Mayor Rosenthal then told me that he would allow Constable Mike Myers and me to do our presentation and if we had any problems, he would mention the Mississippi Municipal League’s recommendations to the board.
The board unanimously voted for the removal of the ordinance, giving citizens the freedom to express themselves freely when it comes to their private and personal property.
