(At 5:30 pm, September 21, 2006)
MAYOR JOHN FRETTI: Is there any other citizen to be heard?
My name is George Boston Rhynes I have lived in Valdosta since 1989. (LONG PAUSE), I am really tired of the Barber Park issue! Mr. Mayor and council I too am a veteran. (Here I am responding to the previous speaker comments Mr. Phil Youngblood who spoke concerning American Veterans). I am a Black African American Veteran whose ancestors fought in every war of our great nation. We fought when we could not even go to bathrooms on a public high way. We fought before we were ever considered human beings by White America. We were seen as only three-fifths of a human being.
The first person to die in the Revolutionary War was Crispus Attuck a Black man. So I don’t want to get into what veterans did or did not do. That is the heart of what we are talking about. We are talking about for once, trying to pay some respect and honor to the Black Race who has been mistreated-----and we all know that.
So I just want to say, that I too am a veteran. I am a Vietnam Era Veteran, and many of my benefits have been taken away. That I was supposed to have earned. But I am going to lay all that aside. Because that is not what I want to say today. But I don’t play on the veterans. Most all Americans love our veterans. And that’s why I fight so hard for the rights for veterans who can’t get medical insurance. If you go on the Internet you can see how I fight for the veterans.
But if I can fight for the veterans, go to Vietnam, and Iraq and fight them. Then surely WE should be willing to fight for Black people who are ninety-five percent of the people living around the Barber Park area. But they cannot get a park named in honor of a worthy Black African American in their own community. But so much for that, that’s not why I am here.
I am here because the chairman of the committee said in the Valdosta Daily Times on September 19, 2006 that he thanked you all for what you did and each committee member, and that it was an easy task. I would like to thank you too.
But there is a little bit more I want to say. Because it is in my heart. And I am not going to take fourteen minutes and sixteen-seconds as another brother did sometime ago on this issue. But I do want to say something surrounding the selection process of the Majority Black Select Committee.
There were no original people who petitioned this city to renovate the park—was on the committee. No one who did the homework and paid to go to the achieves of the Freedom of Information Act and the Open Records Act to dig up the history of Barber Park and the man who denied Blacks the right to swim in the swimming pools and then rather than allow Blacks in the park. They covered up the pools and closed the park.
None of these people----was on that committee----Mr. Chairman of the Majority Black Selection Committee. The retired educators who stood before you---Mr. Mayor and Council not one--- was on the committee. No professors from Valdosta State University, and from other universities from across this nation who stood up for renaming the park after Ossie Davis---was on the committee. Mr. Mayor, council, and Chairman of the Black Majority Select Committee. No one who searched the records and found out the real history---was on the committee. And all have not been told; and I know more than what I have said about the Red Soda, and what would happen when the individual met a Black Person on the street.
But this is not the right place for that now. No one from the fifteen people, who were arrested, went to jail, placed in solitary confinement, held without bail for twenty-four hours for disrupting a public meeting, went before a state court judge, and then went to the Georgia Supreme Court Judge and HE ruled in our favor that our Constitutional Rights had been violated. All for trying to exercise their constitutional rights to address their government and not as three-fifths of a human being but as full American citizens---were on the committee.
We must think about the nine City Public Schools in this city and only one is named after a Black African American. I asked a judge a man in position. I, I, I’ll just say it like this---I asked a judge. How many Black Judges are on this circuit, and they looked at me as if I was from another planet. I asked, how many Black people are there working? How many are in positions (JOBS) where Black children who come to court can see them. How many Blacks are there to stand as a symbol of pride while holding jobs in or surrounding the local court process?
Yet these same children will be asked to fight in wars for this nation. But they cannot even get a Park named after Ossie Davis. A man from Valdosta and I have proved that time and time again. There were no one from the Peoples Tribunal, Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Rainbow PUSH Coalition; actively involved members of the Local NAACP-----was on the committee. No one who, who, who, who, stood so boldly committed on behalf of the people in our community-----was on that committee. Normally these are the type people to be considered in such cases.
I am retired from the United States Air Force and I served for twenty-one years and I know the games people play with other people. But I am saying this to all of us, and we can accept it or leave it alone. I, I, am your humble brother. Most all people who knew me throughout my career. Know that I am a peaceful man. BUT I SAY THIS WITH GEAT LOVE AND RESPECT FOR YOU MR. MAYOR, THIS COUNCIL, AND EACH BLACK COUNCILMAN AS WELL AS THE MAJORITY BLACK SELECT COMMITTEE. WE HAVE, -----YOU CAN IGNORE IT-----IF YOU WANT TO, YOU CAN BURY YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND AND PRETEND THAT IT DOES NOT EXIST. We have a racial problem in Valdosta and we can sit back and ignore it but I tell you.
We are no longer going to set back and let White Americans take money from the city, state, and federal government by turning deaf ear to hiring Qualified and Overqualified Blacks in these governmental jobs. We cannot continue to allow Whites to continue to take up all the good jobs. But if we CANNOT get JOBS in and around the local court system equaled to WHITES. So we can use some of that money to help take care of our own Black Children.
Moreover, out of twenty-three department heads in the city and county. And a Black African American holds less than three positions (JOBS) during my last check. So I’m telling you that if Jesus were in this town TODAY HE would say. All praise is due unto God. {I THEN RETURNED TO MY SEAT}
Then the Mayor asked if there were any other citizens to be heard and there were none. Then the Mayor called on Robert Jefferson the chairman of the Majority Black Select Committee and HE gave his report. That the committee had recommended that the park be renamed “Veterans Memorial Park” instead of Ossie Davis Park. I wish every citizen of average intelligence in Valdosta-Lowndes County could have witnessed the chairman presentation. Especially Black African Americans and at some point I may script his complete comments from the Valdosta City Council Meeting that took place on September 21st, 2006.
This Barber Park issue will be a part of Valdosta Historical Archives for generations to come. As Paul Harvey would say stay tune for “The Rest of the Story.”…
George Boston Rhynes
A concerned citizens and brother of humanity!
This is my message for our local community! I though this meeting would complete the Barber Park long process! Simply put I am happy whatever the park is renamed. However, I think it is a supreme, and ugly disgrace that Valdosta-Lowndes County Georgia seem to continue to follow the Valdosta City Charter that we removed from Valdosta City Hall in 2004.
That read: ARTICLE 100: Section XI, “the Mayor and Council, they shall pass all proper and necessary laws and ordinances for the control of slaves and free persons of color in said town and suppress and abate all nuisances arriving from hogs, dogs, horses, or other stock straying at large in said town, or from other causes.”
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