UP & DOWN FARISH STREET

EDITOR'S NOTES: It may have appeared from last week's column that the only contributions of worth to African Americans seeking relief from segregation, discrimination, despair and frustration came from black women. There wasn't a man to be seen. Hopefully this week's presentation will correct that notion. We bring a few worthy men to the fore ... then we answer questions and Move on Down the Line!

IT MUST HAVE BEEN 1967. I was living in Chicago. My address was 7520 South Wabash Street. When I walked out my back yard I ran smack into the middle of a huge parking lot that separated Walgreen's drug store (corner 75th and State Street) from A&P Supermarket on State. That particular morning as I entered the lot heading for the supermarket, a tall, handsome looking fella approached me and said, "Sir, please don't shop at A&P. They don't hire Negroes in sales positions, and we are boycotting them until they do. Please help us by not shopping with them until they do the right thing." I respected the boycott and did not shop at the store.

The next time I saw the Rev. Jesse Jackson was in the late 1970s at ceremonies in Jackson where I, as assistant to the mayor, had been asked (by Charles Evers) to welcome him to a "Medgar Evers Homecoming event out off Medgar Evers Blvd. I reminded him of the time we had met on the parking lot in Chicago. He remembered. I then welcomed him and presented him with a copy of a book titled "Jackson, A Special Kind of Place" by Carroll Brinson. It was a worthy gift.

In these days when Barack Obama is running for President, it is well to remember that Jesse Jackson preceded him in that effort. He ran twice in the Democratic Presidential primaries (1984 and 1988). Here is a bit more about this civil rights activist, Baptist minister, presidential candidate.

Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of an Alabama sharecropper who moved East. He was a good enough athlete in high school to be offered a contract by the Chicago White Sox, but he turned it down because a white player was offered much more money. He also turned down an athletic scholarship to the University of Illinois because he was told that "as a black, he could not expect to play quarterback." He opted for North Carolina A&T in Greensboro. He later trained for the ministry at Chicago Theological Seminary and joined the protest movement of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and SCLC. He was later named head of "Operation Breadbasket."

Operation Breadbasket was SCLC's program to persuade businesses to hire blacks. Jackson became an ordained minister in 1968 and founded his own organization, called PUSH (People United to Save Humanity). He ran for President in the years we described. In January 2001, Jesse Jackson decided to withdraw from public life following proof of an extramarital affair with a staffer. He reemerged on the political and civic scene in 2004, and remains there, prominently, today.

I WAS SITTING QUIETLY IN MY OFFICE AT THE JACKSON ADVOCATE IN THE LATE 1950S (about 1958) when the phone rang. It was a call from E.W. Banks, a prominent Jackson business leader (Peoples Funeral Home CEO). He said, "Rundles, if you can, come up here for a few minutes, there's somebody I want you to meet..." I jumped in the car and drove the four blocks up to his. office. That's where I met Dr. Joseph H. Jackson, prominent minister, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. (1953-1982). He was the center of controversy among African Americans and church leaders because he objected to Martin Luther King's method of fighting for freedom.

Dr. Jackson, a graduate of Jackson State University and a football teammate of E.W. Banks and Percy Greene, was called as pastor of the Olivet Baptist Church (of Chicago'sSouthside) in 1941. Through the years, for several decades, he preached his own brand of "justice for all Americans," but a huge controversy erupted at the Baptist convention in Louisville, KY in 1957. A progressive group led by Gardner C. Taylor of New York, Martin Luther King Sr., Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy (King's associate), Benjamin Mays (president of Morehouse College), and L. Venechael Booth, a Cincinnati, Ohio pastor, were all against Joseph Jackson. It almost became violent. They wanted Jackson "out." Following the convention, Jackson denounced the nonviolent civil rights movement, including the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He also removed King from the vice presidency of the Baptist Union and Sunday School Congress. In return, the progressive movement met (in 1961) in Cincinnati where they organized.

Joseph Jackson was a firebrand. He opined, "The most important thing is to save the nation in order to save the black race." He argued, "Christianity permits protests against unjust laws, but not rebellion against civil order. The difference between Negro Christians and White Christians is the meaning of the cross of Jesus Christ. You can't build a great church preaching hate, envy, and revenge, sending people out on the street after the service, mad at the world. No matter how nonviolent, civil disobedience lays the ground for civil hatred, and the desire to destroy." Joseph Harrison Jackson disagreed with Martin Luther King until his death in August 1990. He died in Chicago.

WE HAVE GONE INTO LARGE DETAIL ON THESE FIRST TWO MEN BECAUSE THE INGREDIENTS FOR DISCUSSION STILL REMAIN IN SOME MINDS. We shall now go briefly on. I saw and heard this next man speak at College Park Auditorium. You have, perhaps, never heard of him. Robert C. Weaver, a native of Washington, D.C. was sworn in as the first Negro cabinet member of the United States government. Only one man was his superior (in the newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development). That man was the President. I was amazed at the brilliance of his speaking when he appeared here. Robert Clifton Weaver brought 33 years of experience as a specialist in public affairs. We cannot treat him lightly. Therefore we will resume our glance at his vita next week.

YOU MAY ALSO HAVE TROUBLE IDENTIFYING THE NAME OF JOSEPH E. WALKER, a pioneer in African American business in this nation. You would not have forgotten him if you'd seen him walk Farish Street, up near the corner of Oakley Street. He, above all, personified what Farish Street was all about. Farish Street was not an entertainment district. It was a street founded and maintained through the genius of African American men and women that proved we could compete and survive, affording everything we needed for ourselves and our posterity.

Joseph Edison Walker was born March 31, 1880, in Tillman Mississippi. He graduated from Alcom State College in Lorman Mississippi in 1903, and he also graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee and on October 26, 1906, he married Lela O'Neal. They became partners of two children, Jonetta Elmo and Antonio Maceo Walker Note: A. Maceo Walker visited Farish Street more than his father In 1923, J.E. Walker founded Universal Life Insurance Company in Memphis with branches in Jackson, MS, and served as its president until 1952. He died in 1958.

THEN THERE WAS THE MAN OF WORDS WHO AWAKENED THE NATION AND THE WORLD TO HIS GENIUS THROUGH HIS WRITINGS. I saw him only once His name ... Richard Nathanie Wright. The grandson of slaves was bom in Roxie, Mississippi (a small town about 20 miles east of Natchez). His father abandoned the family, and his mother and brother moved to Jackson where they lived with relatives. Wright grew up in Jackson. He attended school in Jackson. Most people are unaware of a black newspaper published in Jackson (tabloid size) as the first black paper published here, Strangely enough, I remember seeing copies of it as a child of five or six.

Well, Richard Wright penned his first story, "The Voodoo of Hell's Half Acre" in Jackson. Then Wright moved to Chicago, where he began to write. It was reported he became affiliated with the Communist Party. In 1937, Richard Wright moved to New York and quickly gained national fame with four short stories, and his first complete novel "Native Son" (1940) was the first book of the month selection by an African American author. That was Richard Wright.

WHEN I FIRST MET JESSE OWENS (at my home in Jackson) he was traveling with a documentary movie fighting against venereal diseases in the black community. Also traveling with the show were two ladies. The theater where the film was shown was the Rex Theater on Farish Street, near the corner of Church Street. The lady in the ticket box was my sister in law, Margaret Rundles, who lived right around the comer on Church, so she made her home available to the ladies.

I met Jesse when he came around to the house looking for the ladies, and that began a friendship that lasted for decades until his death March 31, 1980, at age 66. Jesse visited me here many times, up to and including, the years I served with Gov. Bill Waller (note photo taken at Governor's Mansion).

Just a brief word about his life. We will expand on it in later issues. James Cleveland Owens was bom in Lawrence County, Alabama, to Henry and Emma Owens. When he was nine, the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio. Throughout his successful career, Jesse attributed his success to his junior high school of coach, Charles Riley.

In 1936, Jesse Owens arrived in Berlin, Germany to compete for the United States in the Summer Olympics. Adolph Hitler, the Nazi tyrant, was using the Games to show the world a resurgent Germany under Nazi rule. He shunned the blacks in the Olympics, but Jesse surprised Hitler and the world by winning four gold medals on August 3, 1936. And so it was!

AND NOW WE ENTERTAIN A QUESTION OR TWO. First from Mrs. Carrie Lou Funches of Jackson. "Dear Mr. Rundles, I have been seeing birthday cards from Barack Obama all over the place. Is it his birthday or something, or is it just for publicity?

ANSWER: A bit of both. The handsome cards may be purchased at your local bookstore or wherever cards are sold. You can send them to anyone having a birthday as you desire.

NEXT QUESTION ... from Clara Hamilton of Vicksburg, MS: "Dear Jim, I seem to recall a man named Thompson who brought many sparkling events to the Lynch Street Masonic Temple and headed up many charitable drives for poor people of the city. Do you know who I am talking about?"

ANSWER: Yes, I do. He was my neighbor. H.M. Thompson was that rare man who not only led one of the state's largest Masonic Orders, but led in other phases of endeavor in the city. Many others. For example, when he needed grant money to complete the Smith Robertson Museum, it was Mr. Thompson who through his vast Masonic connections got us to the grant and the museum was completed. He was later honored by Mayor Dale Danks Jr. for that, and many other fine deeds he spearheaded in the city. (See photo)

OUR NEXT QUESTION COMES FROM JACKSON ... It is regarding a piece we did on Hazel Scott and asks: "Mr. Rundles, we enjoyed the story on the great Hazel Scott, but you did not tell us anything bout her great husband (in my opinion) the Right Reverend Adam Clayton Powell. Why not?"

ANSWER: We don't like to overtell things in the same family in the same week, but Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a representative from New York, was bom in New Haven, Conn.November 29, 1908, and attended public schools in New York before graduating from Colgate University. He also was a graduate of Columbia University and Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. He became an ordained minister in 1934, was a newspaper publisher and editor and was co-founder on the National Negro Congress. He was elected as a democrat to the 79th and to 11 succeeding congresses. Powell died on April 4, 1972. He was cremated and his ashes scattered over South Bimini in the Bahamas.

AND NOW, OUR FINAL QUESTION FOR THIS SESSION COMES FROM MRS. LEROY TERRANCE OF TOUGALOO, MISSISSIPPI: "Dear Mr. Rundles, I notice, in passing, that a building on the Jackson State campus is named for a Dr. Lee Williams. Is that the same Dr. Williams who was a member of Mt. Helm Baptist Church when I attended there some years ago?"

ANSWER: It certainly is! For those who are not familiar with Lee Williams, here is a brief background as we close this week's discussion. Dr. Lee E. Williams . . . MS . . . Ph.D. ... LL.D. ... was an instructor of worth for more than 40 years at Jackson State University. The Lee E. Williams Athletics and Assembly Center where they play basketball games, hold commencement exercises and concerts, is named for him. Dr. Williams wrote a book titled "Mount Helm Baptist Church ... The Parade of Pastors." Mt. Helm is the second oldest black church in Mississippi. Every American should have a copy of this book that chronicles the days of slavery, and the march of freedom for blacks in this city and state. For many years he led the discussions at the Brotherhood Bible Class attended by men of all denominations at Mt. Helm. He was a much admired man until his passing several decades ago, and is still remembered fondly by those who knew him.

WEEKLY QUOTATION: "Know the value of time. Snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. "

Chesterfield ... From "Letters to His Son "

By Jim Rundles

Jackson Advocate Feature Historia