To the Editor:
Top elected officials in Quitman County are basically homegrown residents determined to enhance the quality of life and jointly assist residents to rise above their circumstances.
Prosperity over poverty is more than a slogan, it’s a mantra for collective uplift. The old Deposit Guaranty Bank slogan of “Grow With Us” comes to mind.
Concurrent with the recent rise to leadership of homegrown black elected officials has been observance of the 50th anniversary of the Poor People’s Campaign 1968 Mule Train from Marks to Washington, D.C. The combination has generated excitement and resurgence.
The school system has risen from failing to a C rating coinciding with the 50th anniversary celebration. The three levels of public schools—elementary, middle and high school—ranked A, C and a near B for 2018. Appreciative community activists voted the superintendent Educator of the Year.
The Quitman County Board of Supervisors has been energized since hiring a homegrown county supervisor to not only implement board plans, but also conceive and generate new economic and infrastructural initiatives.
The results have been phenomenal. Over $2 million in grants, an Amtrak train stop, the annual Mules and Blues Festival, the Mule Train Interpretive Center, hosting of tourists and tour groups, and the entertaining of overtures from would-be investors are self-evident of spiraling progress.
Again, community activists recently presented the Board of Trustees an award for public service.
The county sheriff is a homegrown black law enforcement officer. The tax collector is a homegrown, well-respected, highly regarded black woman accountant. Two remaining countywide elected officials - although not black - are nevertheless also homegrown and in office due to black votes. The circuit clerk and the chancery clerk are both white, but highly regarded in the majority black county.
Non-elected county position holders are racially diverse as efforts are made to appoint the best person available in positions. These include attorneys for boards and commissions, clerks and other such support personnel.
Things aren’t necessarily all peaches and cream, but a prevailing sense of unity exists that observers are applauding.
Some residents point to the 50th anniversary of the 1968 Mule Train as the unifying stimulant. Surprisingly, the observance was not one of race baiting or hate mongering. Instead, it was about fighting poverty and rising above it.
Quitman County is positioning itself as a national model of how homegrown unity in diversity can lift residents from poverty to prosperity.
Hilliard Lackey
native of Marks and professor at Jackson State University
