Jackson Jambalaya

Lt. Robert Graham is corrupt to the core but they want to throw out Thomas.

Young people can't make corn bread. They can only use Jiffy Mix.

"The way it was is the way it should be in the future."

IF a white politician said this regarding formerly "white" neighborhoods, all hell would break loose.

Kenny Stokes needs to lay off the cornbread.

Hell, I’m a middled aged White male and I can make one hell of a pone crack’ln bread.

Sounds like JPS needs to bring back Home Economics to teach kids how to cook cornbread and collards. Good stuff!!

This group should simply put a business plan together, rent or buy the old Peaches Restaurant, and operate their business like normal risk taking Americans. But no, they want private/ public property to be given to them so they can operate some sort of cooking school that is going to save the youth of Jackson.

Who is paying for this venture? Amazing that no one on this council ask that question. Not one of them is willing to take a stand that would cut against the will of their constituency.

If she wants to help the youth, as a graduate of Lanier, she should help that pitiful school. Terrible facility and a sad excuse for a learning environment.

Any developer that might have been considering getting involved in Farish Street should have his head examined if he is aware of this video and what type of nonsense he will encounter.

Can you imagine is Stamps, Stokes and Davis were white and demanded a part of town be given to whites? This is the biggest case of discrimination I have ever heard

I ate at Peaches Café one time with David Watkins and Kamikaze. We partook of cornbread. I added jalepoenas. At the next table, Kenneth Stokes ate the whole table. Then he ate his wife's hat.

For the young people,

Shawt'n bread is the same thing.
https://youtu.be/4v5rsEa9vUI

Who owns the real estate bordering Farish? Anyone know? How many liens are there? Would bankruptcy help?

This thing is a fiasco.

The lunacy of Jackson on display and Stamps says 'Yes, Ma'am!'.

Thank goodness that Kennufy is addressing the chief problem facing black youth today - that no one is teaching them how to make a pig ear sandwich. We need a two million dollar grant to found a blue ribbon coalition to explore the perspicurocity of a inner city program to instruct young African Americans of color on the fermonicious Art of pig ear sammich making. For da children.

Imagine the nerve of asking in a public meeting rather than behind closed doors for help in reducing start up costs!
They aren't business like at all!
They could have asked for tax breaks on sales for years or better lighting, parking and sidewalks at tax payer expense or exemptions from regulations to reduce business costs ( and therefore risks). Instead they asked for public land that is bringing in no tax revenue!
They asked for an asset, not revenue! Egad!
And, they didn't say a word about the jobs they'd create in construction and operation or bringing in customers to downtown.
Where were their pretty color charts the council could use to justify giving them a taxpayer asset? It's not like the charts have to be accurate!
How brazen can you get?!

Actually, giving local Mississippians a reasonable lease on public land to start a business might not be a bad idea for Farish Street. Indeed, as long as the business could get money for building to code for their business, it could be a good investment for taxpayers to even pay the costs of keeping an historic front to the buildings.
It might be good if our city council also looked at what Asheville, Savannah,Richmond and Durham did with their empty downtown buildings and spaces during their years of decline to get businesses back into downtown.

If you can read a recipe, you can make cornbread. The recipe is clearly printed on the back of every cornmeal container.

Apparently a remedial reading course should be taught to the illiterate people who cannot read a recipe.

I am white and I would like the Jackson City Council to give me Julep's Restaurant in Highland Village so I can teach the white children to make shrimp cocktails.

@ 7:05AM - Hold on now..... you say we need to be looking at Asheville, Savannah, Richmond and Durham as comps to Jackson? Asheville is situated in one of our country's most naturally beautiful regions and Biltmore Estate alone probably brings in more tourist than all combined "attractions" Jackson can muster. Savannah has more character and history in it's little toe than we do. Richmond also has historical attractions, it's metro population is over 1.2 mil, it's home to a Federal Court and 1 of 12 Federal Reserve Banks. Durham is home to Duke, and while Millsaps is a fine college, it isn't Duke on any level.

These types of turn arounds which prove successful are driven by private money, not taxpayer gimme's. The towns mentioned have more wealth and are vastly more attractive to outsiders who have wealth than Jackson is. I love Jackson and would like to see it thrive, but these pie-in-the-sky projects need to be tabled until our infrastructure is repaired and the crime culture is legitimately addressed. Address the concerns of our current business owners who are already invested. Don't ignore them as if they're stuck here while giving handouts to the startups.

This is crazy. Amos and Andy is still with us.

Not but one person in the room that understands how an economic system works. " Give me and take back" not are not even words that apply.Judge Thomas is the last of the sane Ds and he will be gone soon. Time to blow Jackson up and start over and I sure that will come in time.

The Career Development Center on Ellis has an amazing culinary program. I'd rather my money go to that building and strengthening and expanding its programs than to these fools.

7:05...I'm not criticizing your comment but what is the one thing that Savannah, Richmond and Durham DON'T have in common with Jackson?

Who's Silky?

Who ever came up with revitalizing Farish Street should be forced to live there. The whole city of Jackson is a sewer and Farish will not ever be any different no matter how much money is wasted or who it is given to. Can you imagine anyone parking their car there after dark? Can you imagine anyone trying to return to their car after dark? Can you imagine anyone going to any business on Farish Street then having to drive through Jackson? The streets would be littered with bodies, stolen and stripped cars, and the jails full of people who would be able to pay their fine for driving in Jackson.
It would be a money maker for the criminals, lawyers, city cops, and chop shops. A bird's nest on the ground.

8:35 is exactly right. Well said.

Stokes. Oh my God, Stokes. He really said in a city council meeting that young people need to learn how to make "a pig ear sandwich or a sausage sandwich", thus further cementing his minstrel-like reputation.

Black people of Jackson, do you realize how badly this man represents you? Do you realize how he makes you all look like clowns and throwbacks to times of broad, offensive stereotypes? We white people cannot stop this. You need to realize what an miserably bad example this man is and vote him and his equally bad wife out for good.

And for any young black folks who are curious, the recipe for a pig ear sandwich is bread, pig ear, fixins, bread. Substitute sausage for pig ear and you have a sausage sandwich. I have just rescued the Jackson African-American youth population. My work is done.

They are going to want $15 an hour on their fist corndbread cooking gig. By the way, how many cornbread cooks does Jackson need?

Mayor Yarber now wants to take Farish street away from the JRA so the city can GIVE it back to Black folks, you know, like it used to be. And the dumbass actually said he promised it to them at their church meeting. holy crap, Mayor. way to go. you're just the leader we need to move this city forward, NOT.

Since Farish is already an unmitigated disaster how 'bout resettling some Syrian refugees down there? I'm sure President Obamatollah is ready to immedidately fund new NoGo Zones. Though the pig ear sammiches won't go over very well and the twerking won't be enthusiastically received.

10:29: You're correct about the refugees. There's easy access to highways I55 and 20. What better way to gain access to TN and other Northern states, AL, GA, and the Midwest. Farish Street could become the central receiving/training center for the ISIS Terror network. Surely the bleeding hearts will welcome them. They won't care if the plumbing doesn't work, either.

at this point-just give it to them. who really cares? BB kings isn't going to happen. Magic Johnson isn't opening a Starbucks there . I'll never go to anything there anyway and most of you feel the same way. make small business loans to fix it up. never know- perhaps the jackson community could embrace something like this and make improvements in the area that could actually help reduce crime and drugs


and if it fails- add it to the pile of failures.

You have to be TRAINED, to make cornbread?

You have to LEARN how to make sandwiches?

Of course B.B. King's will never come to Farish! It never was going to come to Jackson. The business humored the city because they kept playing that "B.B. is from here and we're a black majority city...help a brother out!" angle. Can you imagine a Starbucks on Farish? It would be in business for maybe three months.

Why not turn it over to these people? Give them a chance. In two years we could have a street full of wig shops, nail salons, African hair braiding joints, EZ check cashers, Payday loan establishments, sandwich and cornbread culinary academies, and F. Jones Corner.

That would be better than three blocks of empty storefronts and brick sidewalks with grass growing between the cracks, which is what we have right now.

Oh, and when are Stauffer and Ladd going to move the JFP offices to Farish to jump start the activity? Crime is just a perception, after all.

Cornbread U

Geaux Skillets!

HOLY SH*T! I KNEW that Mississippi was full of racists, but I never thought that racism would be this publicly embraced by city leaders.

I hope that someone shows up at the next council meeting and requests a resolution that Fondren is KEPT WHITE, because, after all, whites built and ran those businesses for years and it needs to stay white.

No wonder Magic Johnson or BB King would never invest in the "black community" in Jackson. It is full if stupid, racist leaders and citizens. True business leaders are only interested in profit. Jackson is just interested in RACE.

Why isn't the federal government investigating this?

@3:17 one word: Bennie

Ho. Lee. Sh*t. Did I hear that video correctly? That woman says they want ALL of Farish Street, not just two or three blocks, to be black owned, which was followed by three councilmen agreeing.

So Cathead Vodka - you guys who just moved your distillery to Farish - You had better be black owned. If not, these people, led by DeKeither and Kenny, are going to CONFISCATE your business and hand it over to the people from Farish Street Baptist Church and the Jackson Freedom Riders and ROBD, etc.

That is a very fair interpretation of this video. Someone moves in to encourage economic growth, but because their skin is not the proper color, they should be forced to turn over their establishment or move - in the name of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, surely.

Illiteracy and unsophistication on parade, on both sides of the desk.

From the Clarion Ledger 10 months ago:
"For me, Farish Street is not a lynchpin. Farish Street is an albatross," Yarber said. "Farish Street cannot be the defining two blocks of the success of downtown Jackson. It will not be. We're going to treat Farish Street like it's an old car in the front yard that needs some TLC. We're going to move it to the backyard, put it in the shed, and put some really good mechanics back there to work on it."

Plans to revitalize the Farish Street district, a historic black entertainment district downtown, have faced a plethora of obstacles since its initiation in 1997. The project has remained dormant since September 2014, when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development sanctioned the city, JRA and developers for misspending federal funds in relation to the project.

The federal entity ruled that the city must repay $1.5 million because the city never established JRA as a legal entity to receive the HUD money and once JRA received the money, the city failed to provide proper oversight over JRA's handling of the money.

The Jackson city council set up a repayment plan and will pay HUD $503,603 in December 2016, $503,603 in December 2017 and $503,603 in December 2018.

Until December 2018, unless an alternate agreement or easement is granted by HUD, the city cannot touch the Farish Street redevelopment project, leaders said.

In case anyone doesn't know, here's how to make the good, crispy cornbread that WON'T send you into Sugar Shock. Most cornbread around here is so sweet, you might as well be eating cake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQITurEv6vM

Ol' Davey Watkins was a no-show for the command performance, er, court-ordered Farish Redevelopment Circus show he arranged. Bro. Leroy's ready-to-move-pronto-to-invest-gazillions bombast was yet another load of downtown dung. HindsCo property tax bills were sent out this week Davey. How's your redemption hole looking this year? Deep? Those 18% penalties add up real fast.

Most of Farish Street, while catering to Black families, was owned by White merchants and investors But if they want to invest in it set up a low interest program and give them a shot. How could it be worse

There are other places people in Jackson can go to be robbed, carjacked, or shot. Why make a few blocks especially for that?

I agree that the JFP should move to Farish St. Or even better-West Capitol near the Zoo. She needs to put her money where her mouth is. Reference the Dead Kennedys song "Holiday in Cambodia"

Someone might want to tell her that judge thomas will never have an opponent with any serious backing.

Thomas may be retiring soon anyway.

This, by far, is some of the worst foolishness I have EVER seen the city council co-sign on! And, I'm a black woman saying this! You mean to tell me, that black folk want to throw out one of the very white judges who actually give a damn about black people? Silly rabbit! It's obvious that this woman and her ilk are illiterate about legal matters. Poor thing. Give you Farish Street? I wish the hell it were so! I would love to give you and your ilk the whole damn street and leave you alone! Uugggh! First of all - YOU DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY!! Until you have some black millionaires in here - SHUT UP! I'm embarrassed to even listen to this crap. This is so seriously stupid! This is not, nor will it ever be, 1960 again, lady! And, the city council is weak, spineless and useless! Nothing but politics! Instead of speaking truth to power, you cowardly go along with such nonsense? I was wrangling about abandoning Jackson, but this crap right here......? I'm simply embarrassed to say I live in Jackson now. Many of my black friends already left Jackson, and you made it easy for us to do it, too! All you car about are keeping blacks in and shutting out whites that don't go along with your BS! No one has any business sense on the city council, or balls! Pitiful! This is why I wish Clinton could be the capital city! Hey City Council - YOU DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY!!! You don't understand that? Complete and utter silliness. you should be ashamed. but, obviously not! Oh, one more thing, Judge Dewayne Thomas WILL BE back on the bench! I sure don't want one of your cousins up there! If so, Lord help us all!