Jackson Jambalaya

 Free the land? The Lieutenant Governor talks down to me.  The Governor tried to take over the water system so he could give contracts to his buddies?  The Bidens were working with the Republicans to get rid of me.  So said Hizzoner as he shucked the corn up in Detroit recently, telling tale after tale of his travails in Jackson.  

Editor's note: The Mayor's remarks can be viewed here.  The Mayor addressed a crowd of supporters at a fund-raiser for his legal defense recently.  Posted below is a transcript with commentary by yours truly.   Some of the juicier quotes are in bold.  A complete transcript of all the remarks by the Mayor and others at the fund-raiser is posted at the bottom.  Ejoy.

Free the land! Free the land! Free the land! By any means necessary! This is one of the rare times that I can say I left home to come home. There are so many people in this room, that I just want to start with my statement of gratitude. First of all, to my Aunt Shushanna and the rest of my family, please give them a round of applause. I think I was telling Jeff and Gerald earlier that Rukia really reminds me so much of you, and you always reminded my father so much of himself. They can organize out of absolutely nothing. They pull it together. They have a heart. You asked Gerald and Jeff if you were getting on their nerves. Now they’ll never tell you that, but that’s part of what an organizer does. You can’t organize without getting on people’s nerves a little bit. That’s what it’s about. 

Free the land?  Told ya.  

I wanna thank the coordinating committee, all the people who organized, who took their time out to do something that’s… This is different. I’ve been here saying I’m running for office. I’ve been here talking about what we wanna build in Jackson, and how that connects to Detroit, and how it connects to our shared liberation. This is a little different. It’s obviously personal. I can’t say that it’s unexpected, because if you’re serious about this work, you have to be prepared for what comes along with it. I will rest in terms of the facts or talking to the case with what Jeff and Gerald shared with you. I feel compelled to look you in your face and say I am guilty of no wrongdoing. I am guilty of no wrongdoing. But be that as it may, this is where we are, and we need to talk through these things. If we’re in a battle, then we need to come together and know what the battle is about. 

He's not guilty? Of course not,   

I would greet you in the same way that Malcolm would also often greet people. This rests on my spirit. So I wanna greet my brothers, and my sisters, and my comrades, and my friends, and also the enemies. We are fooling ourselves if we believe that we’re in this discussion and there aren’t some enemy plants in this room. And Malcolm would talk about that. This is a real battle. This is not only a battle for the liberation of our people, but what we call our dignity. When we’re having this fight, and I met with some brothers and sisters from Flint, and Flint has been one of the most well-known cases in the country about water insecurity, and far too often we don’t know what our communities are dealing with.

Enemy plants in that crowd? Man, whitey and his Toms are something else.   

While the circumstance may not be line for line the same as Flint to Jackson, it is still a matter of dignity, because when people don’t have water, it’s not just an issue of not being able to bathe and wash their hands and all of their sanitary needs, or cook, and the matters of convenience, it also means that if you’re a parent, that you have to look for alternative childcare for your children because the school may be shuttered for the day. It means that if you work in a service industry, that you now have to find a way to supplement your income because the business is closed, and you don’t know how you’re going to put food on the table for your family. 

Yeah.  No kidding.  Tell the people of Jackson something they don't know . 

It means that all of the Jackson residents, when we have no water, when there is no pressure, they have to get in millions and millions of miles of water distribution lines, that they have to sacrifice their dignity. People who may live in a home that’s bigger than the average home, and they have to beg or feel like they’re begging when they ask for an extra case. These are the things that we’re fighting for. These are the things that I can’t let rest. 

It would have been nice if he fought for them instead of covering up how bad the water plants were.  

We’ve been dealing with this for 30 years in Jackson, and you didn’t know it. We moved to Jackson in 1988. There was a freeze in 1989 that debilitated our water system. We were without water for weeks. There are far too many times to recount where we either lost water pressure or we had boil water notices. Jeff, Gerald, we didn’t even know it wasn’t normal in Jackson to deal with a boil water notice on a regular basis. We had no idea. 

 Yeah, whatever, sweetpea.  The O.B. Curtis water plant was not built until 1992. Well, half of it.  The other half was built in 2007.  There were no regular boil water notices back in the 90's and 2000's.  I know.  I was here.  

And so as the mayor, faced with the choice of whether I allowed us to continue to be a locally enduring crisis that nobody in the world knows about, or was I gonna choose to shout to the rooftops that made it an international issue. What we understood is that when your people are in crisis, when your people are in need, you not only challenge your opposition, you’ve got to challenge your friends. So all of the administrations, all of the democrats that ran and said, “We’re gonna take care of a city like Jackson,” we needed to make it an international issue so you could not ignore us. We were no longer going to be ignored. In a part of that narrative, I had to lay it on the line. I had to say, “Listen, this isn’t about my administration.” The mayor before me, Tony Yarber, and my father, and Harvey Johnson, and Frank Melton, they all said, “It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.” 

Mr. Mayor, you can't claim anyone ignored you when you were covering up how bad the problem was . That EPA order told us exactly what was wrong with the water plants.  You kept that covered up for over  a year and then repeatedly lied about it when this website broke the news of the order  You lied about hiring people for the plants.  You lied about ordering parts after the plant fire. You covered up a serious ammonia leak.  You cut off the cutoffs for non-payment and surprise, people quit paying their water bills.  When people quit paying, guess what happens? No money, no money, no money.  Do we need to go on?  

And there was a willful neglect of the state of Mississippi. Make no mistake, they suffocated us. Unwilling to give us the resources. Unwilling to address the challenges that we had. So I made an international case. And we were able to secure not only historic funds for the city of Jackson, but something that had never been done before, we got $800 million from the Biden administration. 

Willful neglect? How?  Every other water system in the state manages to manage their affairs without help from the state, including majority-black cities such as Canton.. The state gave Jackson every single loan requested . It wasn't the state that had the Siemens fiasco.  Your father and friends Uncle Tommed the one guy who said the Siemens deal would blow the system up, Jonathon Lee.  Of course, your father made sure your friends got sweet "minority" contracts .  What he wanted from the state was a big fat check with no conditions.    Oh, and the Biden Administration didn't give Jackson $800 million, Congress did.  Instead of thanking Biden, try thanking Cindy, Roger, and Bennie .

But I have to tell you what happened, because while I can’t talk about the case, my father used to say, “Listen, you’ve got to give the people more credit than that.” I want you to know that the people in Jackson understand what’s going on. I want you to know that I don’t go to the grocery store or the gas station without a brother or sister stopping me, saying, “Brother, we’re holding you down. We know what’s going on. We got you.” Because they understand. They’ve lived and experienced things. They know what’s going on.

But before we got that money, before that was common knowledge that we were organizing in order to make that happen, I had a meeting with the lieutenant governor, and he was trying to convince me to just relinquish and just give them the water system. And he had a very condescending discussion with me – not our first. It was a condescending discussion when he had the first conversation about trying to take our airport as well. But what he said to me is, “Look, you should just give over the system.” He said, “You lack the expertise. You don’t have the expertise on hand, and y’all are understaffed.” And he said, “Y’all also don’t have the money. What do you think, Biden’s gonna write you a check?” Not knowing what we were organizing for. 

Hmmm....... the city did lack the expertise.  It had a shortage of water plant operators.  It was short of money, which was why the system crashed, and it not going to generate enough money on its own.  However, the Mayor isn't about making things work but of placing blame and "equity."   

And so I am Chokwe Lumumba’s son, y’all. So after we got the money, I called the next meeting. And I said, “You’re still persisting trying to take over our water system. You’re still trying to find a way, even though you haven’t supported us for decades, trying to take over our system,” and I said, “Not only do we have the expertise at hand, but you asked me did I think Biden was gonna write a check,” and I said, “I do, and he did.” And he reached over and said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you did that.” But he also issued what I now understand to be a threat. He said to me, “as you’re on the national platform, and you’re talking about the state of Mississippi and how it’s neglected Jackson, you’re embarrassing the state of Mississippi.” That’s what he told me. It was that simple. He said, “You’re embarrassing the state of Mississippi.” 

Does anyone believe this? 

Well, the reality is, while this is my birthplace and this will always be home, you find beautiful people in Mississippi. I don’t ever want anyone to take my charge and my fight to be a commentary about the people of Mississippi, but the leadership has been intentional in what they’re doing. The leadership has demonstrated that they have no compassion, or concern, or love, or care, or recognize the human dignity of the people of Jackson. That’s where we find ourselves at this time.

The reality, and I’ll take my seat shortly after this, is all across this nation and this world, the way we measure success is all wrong. It’s incorrect. We often look at things like nations look at the stock market or GDP, and whether we’re building new buildings. And we say, “This is a thriving nation. Even our economy is doing so well.” If the pie is getting larger, the question you must ask yourself is, “Is my slice of it any bigger?” You have a circumstance where you have so many with so little and so few with so much. And so a better measure of what is a successful city, a better measure of what is a successful nation is whether we’re providing dignity to every person.

What is the quality of your infrastructure, Flint? What is your access to things like fresh fruits and vegetables in the Mississippi Delta? The very place that is the breadbasket that produces crop for the entire nation and world, but yet the people who are there and on those plantations are living in food deserts. They don’t have access to the very things that are being produced on the land that they live around each and every day. That’s a cycle of humiliation. And so that’s how we better measure ourselves, is how are we revealing dignity.to every person. We call it in Jackson a dignity economy. Those are our goals and our aspirations, is to release dignity upon each one of our residents.

When we came into office, not only did we inherit this battle over our airport, the prior conversation was the governor telling me to give up the airport and he would give me $30 million. And I said, “I must be dumb and cheap.” But there’s no coincidence here, y’all. There’s no coincidence in the case that I’m dealing with and the fact that on the top of my head I can tell you about six mayors that you don’t even know, black mayors that are dealing with this same thing all across the country. I’m not talking about former mayors and the cases you know. I’m telling you about six mayors currently that have cases that they are trying to build on them. This is the very same team that came after Andrew Gillum. 

 Andrew Gillum? Here we go.  Now it's time to start attacking the Biden FBI.   I'm sorry Mr. Mayor but did not Latoya Cantrell keep up her police officer boyfriend in a city apartment?  Did she not hand out sweetheart deals? What about that Mayor of Oakland or up near Chicago? Of course, facts mean little to someone who can just make them as he goes along - which he often does.  

As for the $30 million offer, does anyone believe it? 

But it’s not only about the attack on black leadership. The first example that was made about coming after an airport, one of the first ones I remember is here in Detroit, Michigan, when they went after the city’s ownership of the airport in Romulus. And then they did the same in New Orleans. And they had the same fight in Charlotte, North Carolina. And then they tried to come after Atlanta, Georgia, which is the biggest airport in the nation, one of the busiest airports in the world, in fact. When they came after Jackson airport, at the time, we had lost Southwest Airlines, and they said there’s incompetence on the Board. And now that we have them back, and we’ve had the most profitable years in the airport’s history, they still are trying to come after the airport.

Our people have to understand that Jackson’s airport sits on 3,000 acres of land, and the airport as a formal entity is only about 300 of those acres or less. And the land that city of Jackson owns, some of which is incorporated as Jackson, some that is incorporated as some of the surrounding cities, but all of which Jackson can profit off of in one way or another, they’re trying to strip. It was never about the airport in terms of where people take off and land. It was about trying to control the land and the economic benefits of it. 

Actually, the state airport takeover bill states all sales tax revenue in the area owned by Jackson in Rankin County will continue to go to Jackson but who cares about the truth? 

When the governor got into a fight with me over the water circumstance, what you didn’t hear was the fact that I wasn’t defending Chokwe’s plan. The EPA, MEMA, FEMA, the State Department of Health, the governor’s office, we all came together and said this is the plan we’re gonna deal with together. He’s the one that deviated so that he could try and issue a contract to one of his friends over our water system. And so he said, “Listen, I’m gonna issue this RFP, but you’ve gotta pay the tab.” That’s like me picking out a house for you, and you’ve gotta pay the mortgage. These are the things that are happening, and far too often not enough of our people understand what’s going on. 

There is someone here who gives contracts out to his friends and it is not the Governor. 

Oh yes, there is one other little thing the Mayor failed to mention.  If there was one thing everyone agreed on whether it be the EPA, the Congressman, the Senators, the Justice Department, and the state all agreed it was the city of Jackson should have no control whatsoever over the $800 million.  For some strange reason, they didn't trust the Mayor.  Can't imagine why.   

It’s no coincidence that even the day that the media asked me, within 30 minutes of them asking me whether I was gonna run for re-election was when I received notice from the federal government. Within 30 minutes. It’s no coincidence even the people they have in the election. A brother who talks about and brags about the relationships that he has in the state. If you’re willing to give up everything, it ain’t hard to build a relationship. If you capitulate to every single thing that they want, then we could be friends. The problem is he doesn’t understand the difference between being friendly and being a friend. Friends come together when a brother’s in trouble. Friends come together to represent you and defend you. Friends operate in your interest. Friends fight for you. 

Yeah, the Biden Justice Department is persecuting the poor little Mayor.  Got it.  

Sitting looking and Jeff and Gerald, I just realized in this moment I’m more like my father than I thought. All the times that y’all had to come and represent and defend him. But I love you brothers. I appreciate you brothers. And I love you all. As I said, this is an incredibly personal one. I think of my little girls. I think of my beautiful wife. I’ve had this rare pleasure that the Lord always placed me in a household where I have the rare honor of living with my hero. I lived with my mother and father who were heroes to me, who had a sense of justice and injustice and felt that they needed to give us that sense just as much as giving us food, water, and shelter. And my wife would’ve been here, but she had to do some work in Atlanta this week. I want to say publicly that I still live with my hero. She is amazingly strong and supportive and just a force in her own right. I felt like I married the biggest competition, because if Ebony ran for mayor, it’d be over for me. She’s that amazing.

Hmmm.... about those strip clubs in Miami.... They sure are Unique, aren't they?

I want to thank y’all for being here. We will keep you as much as we can in tune with what’s going on. Tell everybody what’s happening to our people, because this is not only the plan for Jackson, Mississippi. This is the plan for us wherever we are. Free the land! Free the land! Free the land! By any means necessary! 

......

 Right now I’m in a battle, not only for my reputation, a battle for my life, but a battle, more importantly, for the people of Jackson, where there’s an effort to come at me with erroneous legal charges. I’ll just say that. And so tonight was just indicative of the love that community has, and I’m grateful for it. Not only am I grateful for all the people in Jackson who keep me lifted and let me know that they’re supporting me, but to know that my Detroit family would be here, and come out strong, and have the room packed full of people. That not only speaks to what we’re trying to build in Jackson, but it speaks to the long history of the work of my parents, and that’s something I’m very proud of. 

This has been an issue going on for some time. The EPA recently released a report where they acknowledge that they said that the state of Mississippi’s health department was derelict in its duties. Many of the environmental issues that our community suffers from, we’ve got to go a step further than just acknowledging that things are failing. We have to make certain that there is support and funding for the correction. Because most often, these communities know the condition. It’s just a matter of how they’re able to get to a point they can rise up out of it. In Jackson’s circumstance, the EPA stepped up to the plate under Biden’s administration in an incredibly unique way. Now what our fight is is to ensure that the funding that we receive is disbursed equitably, not only in terms of the communities that it ensures a sustainable and dependable water system, but also our mission, like any other community, has to be how do we turn our crumbling infrastructure into an economic frontier so that we continue to generate the wealth within our community, to make sure that we sustain the infrastructure even after the immediate repairs 

Actually, that report was full of bull . It blamed the Health Department for Jackson's problems when it was the Health Department who called in the federal government because Jackson kept blowing it off . The Health Department approved every single water loan Jackson requested . Simply put, Michael Regan was going to make sure someone who looked and thought like him would not be held accountable. 

– I definitely had the opportunity to witness their struggle, to learn that so many of our communities deal with water insecurity in so many various ways. But also, an important part of Flint’s struggle was to make certain that the world knew. And so by that same nothino and idea, that’s what we wnate to do in Jackson. We needed the world to know so that we could get the support we needed.

[Interviewer] – So they actually successfully took the water away from the citizens of Detroit; I’m sure you know that. So they’re attempting to do the same thing? 

[Mayor Lumumba] – Absolutely. And what people in Jackson don’t know, and maybe some people have lost the history here, is that it’s not only about water quality, protection, and health, but when you take a water system from a city, then you take the lifeblood of the city. You take the ability for the city to stand in a self-determined way. And so that’s why these strategies have been passed along around the country. It is a strategic approach that many groups like ALEC are passing along. This is a legislative exchange they’re passing on to cities across the nation, or state leadership across the nation, to try to seize and weaponize control of these type of resources. 

 More lies.  Flat-out lies.  "They" did not take away Detroit's water.  When Detroit filed bankruptcy, the federal bankruptcy judge forced Detroit and its burbs to create a regional authority.  The authority pays Detroit $50 million a year for its water/sewer assets.  The Mayor has told this lie time and again but why shouldn't he? It's not like Anna Wolfe is going to challenge him on it.  Earlier post.

Plenty of cities across the country do not operate their own water and sewer systems.  Utility districts, some private, some public, operate those systems.   Only in Jackson is a common practice touted as something evil. Got to keep the masses stirred up so you can keep the fingers in the good ole cookie jar, I guess.  

Next, he starts slamming the Black Caucus in the Legislature.

I have some black leadership that’s there, but like anything, there’s some that may have some difference or some inability – I’m talking about locally, in Jackson – to really distinguish the difference between being friendly and being a friend. They sit in a republican supermajority, and they listen to them talk about and degrade Jackson, and instead of taking a position of not only learning what the true issues are and defending their city, they talk about how hard their job is with these things going on. 

I'm sorry but I seem to recall State Senator John Horhn fighting like hell against HB #1020.  Want to see the video, Mayor? In fact, the whole black caucus fought tooth and nail against it and similar bills.  I'm sure this quote will amuse Robert Johnson.  Actually, if you really want the truth Mayor, most of the Black Caucus thinks little of you, when they think of you at all.  That's what happens when you try to intimidate them and tell them you can raise all the money you need from all over the world for re-election, right? 

That’s exactly what the plan is, and one of the ones they have waiting in the wings has been in the legislature for 30 years and has a history of capitulating to the state. We have a historic college. We’re a college town, but one of the historic colleges we have there is Tougaloo College. Tougaloo, as an effort to grow not only their institution, but to grow revenue for the school, built the plan for the civil rights museum that we now have. Now, he wrote the legislation, and he actually stabbed Tougaloo in the back in order to move that museum downtown, taking it out of the community, and this is one of the most well-visited civil rights museums in the nation. It’s that type of thing. As residents of Jackson have fought for water, he put a paternalistic commission that isn’t representative of the population of Jackson over the decisions of where projects will be. People become excited, it’s their tax dollars that are going towards these projects, but they are dominantly attributed to the more affluent community, and it doesn’t go into their community. So they’re left with the misunderstanding that maybe their mayor – these are the only resources we have available to us – doesn’t understand when we’re doing that. But that’s the kind of compromises and decisions he makes. And I’m not saying that we live or should ever exist in a political environment where we’re not willing to have operational unity and focus more on our common ends and objectives, but if the only thing you sacrifice is our values and our vision, then you’re not our friend, and we wonder why your friends ain’t our friends. 

 Making up things again, are we?  Well, Tougaloo couldn't raise the money to build the museum.  Period.  Your own father said so.   The Legislature wasn't going to budge on funding a museum on private property . The downtown site is more visible and easier to visit.  Your father and his crowd had a chance to raise the money and they failed. 

 Oh, and guess what Mayor? Do you know how to read a map?  I understand Rukia doesn't but you probably do. Tougaloo is in Madison County.  There were real concerns most of the tourism benefit would go to Madison County.  

 Instead of blaming Republicans, why don't you thank Republicans for actually funding that museum.   Ingrate.