Sept 7th, 2006 Ossie Davis Not From Valdsota---- LOOK AGAIN

Ruby Dee & Ossie Davis

RUBY: It was December 1943. I was still in college and, as I remember, very busy. Through government programs, I was studying radio techniques at the American Theatre Wing with Arthur Hanna...
OSSIE: I was discharged from the U.S. Army in October of 1945, and returned to my home in Valdosta, Georgia. Dick Campbell, head of the Rose McClendon Players in Harlem... more...

[THE RENAMING OF BARBER PARK IN VALDOSTA, GEORGIA]

George Boston Rhynes, September 7, 20006

TO: Valdosta City Mayor and Council Respectively

http://barberpk.blogspot.com/

http://gbrhynes.blogspot. com

As President of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Branch of the NAACP, I would like to say concerning the Barber Park issue. That the Majority Black Special Select Committee's decision and recommendation to rename Barber Park to Veterans Memorial Park, and the actions of this council have become a part of the Historical Archives of our city. Much like the Valdosta City Charter of 1860, that was posted outside these walls for over twenty years. That read in ARTICLE 100: Section XI, “That the Mayor and Council, 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.” This despicable document was removed from these walls in 2004 but not without con controversy.

And today, history records that no one was appointed to the Black Majority Select Committee. Who searched the public records, paid money for information under the Open Records act, nobody from among the fifteen citizens that were arrested, taken to the Lowndes County Jail, held for twenty-four hours without bail, then taken before a State Court Judge for disrupting a public meeting, then the Georgia Supreme Courts ruled that their constitutional rights had been violated, not one person from Rev Jesse L. Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, NAACP, Peoples Tribunal, or anyone else who spoke out boldly before this council were on the select committee.

Even though removing the name would rid the city of its segregated, disgraceful, and shameful historical past. Regardless of your vote today, our children will still need, deserve, and expect positive symbols, and images in their own community---that looks like them. For four hundred years, Black children looked up at images of a WHITE Jesus in their churches. Some Black churches in Valdosta still have pictures of a White Jesus in their places of worship. For nearly fifty-five years, I have been a student, enrolled into the University of Life. And, I have never seen an image of a BLACK JESUS, displayed in a single White Church. When I was in Ramstein Germany, Korea, Thailand, and Okinawa Japan. They all had images in their communities and places of worship that looked like them.

Ossie Davis looks like ninety-five percent of the people who live in and around Hightower Subdivision where the park is located. THE VALDOSTA DAILY TIMES FRONT PAGE COVERAGE ON AUGUST 23, 2006 WAS “VETERANS MEMORIAL” FAVORED FOR PARK NAME IF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL APROVES IT ON SEPTEMBER 7, 2006 AT 5:30 PM. http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/siteSearch/apstorysection/local_story_235003453.html

Personally I think this is an excellent name to honor our veterans. I am a retired United States Air Force veteran of the Vietnam Era of twenty-one years. But I also know that Black people do not determine when and where wars will start and stop. Therefore it seems to me, that Veterans Memorial Park should be located in someone else’s community.

Many cities across America would be honored to have had Ossie Davis from their community, and to name a Museum and Cultural Arts Center after him. But not in this South Georgia Town. I am sure many people here in the State of Georgia, the nation, and perhaps the world will ask-------what is it that Valdosta, Georgia sees wrong with Ossie Davis? Moreover, how can anyone say Ossie Davis had no ties to Valdosta when HE himself said on the Video below…..

Ossie Davis, in a television interview spoke of Valdosta and the people here more than Waycross, Albany, or any other city in the State of Georgia including Cogdell Georgia his birth place. The web site is http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1038135089229765150&q=Valdosta&hl=en read it and let the record reflect what Ossie Davis said himself. “I am from Valdosta, Georgia.” Disapprove me if you can Majority Black Select Committee, Mayor and Council.

There is another web site http://www.uthtv.com/umedia/show/2052/ that shows young Black Children picking up a white doll, over a doll that looks like them. This was not in the 1950, 60s, nor 70, but a few years ago. It is not by accident that they do this. It is a system that was introduced to white slave owners in the South by a White plantation owner in the West Indies named Willie Lynch.

Moreover, I believe the rejected stone of the majority Black committee, and perhaps you too will reject the stone of naming the park after a worthy Black person. But there will be another Master Craftsmen that will pick up the rejected stone of a Black Museum, and Cultural Arts Center. And it will become the capstone or peak of the pyramid within our children brain. So it can be fitted into the temple of their eternal soul.

Then just maybe, other children will say to God! We were ignorant to the internal pain, suffering, discrimination, unfair treatment, and the enslavement of Black people and their ancestors. But NOW, that the rejected stone of a Black Museum and Cultural Art Center has enlightened us-----we now know the truth. That Black people had to fight for every right they received in this nation. They fought against being-forced onto a slave ship called Jesus, captained by one Sir John Hawkins, a White slave trader in the year of 1555, as recorded in the Library of Congress.

When the rejected stone is put in place, (Black Museum and Cultural Art Center) White children will know that Blacks, fought against being kid-napped in Africa by terrorists, and forced against their will to the New World. Only to be called three fifths of a human being, work from can’t see morning to can’t see night-----for nothing.

Mr. Mayor and Council truth is not to be feared in a museum. Jesus said, that ye shall know the Truth, and the truth would make and set you free. This is not only applicable to Black Children, but once White Children are given truth. They will inform their parents and grandparents. That Blacks, fought against being called three-fifths of a human being. They fought, just to use a bathroom on a public highway, fought President George Washington for the right to fight and die in every conflict of this nation, while at the same time fighting to get a drink water from a public water fountain, own land, register to vote, not be separated from their families and love ones. Taken from plantation to plantation, from state to state, leaving their mother, father, sisters, brothers, and little children behind. And if by chance they escaped from bondage and got away. If caught they were brought back, lynched, or brutalized in the most inhumane manner as an example to other Blacks.

Blacks fought, to assemble in groups of more than five. They fought against white sheets that moved in the night, and against Black Robed Judges in the daylight. Blacks fought President George Washington who refused to allow Blacks to get a charter from England to become members of the Masonic Lodge. Even though Blacks were the fathers of Masonry. Blacks fought, for the right to worship Jesus without a white person being present fought members of the Black Clergy who too often buried their heads in the sand like the legend concerning the ostrich and ignored the sufferings in their own community. Therefore, we the Peoples Tribunal, Jessie L. Jackson Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and the NAACP, the oldies civil rights organization in this nation are carrying on the tradition of The Honorable Nobel Peace Prize Winner the Rev. Martin L. King Jr., and others. By fighting to rename Barber Park after a Black person as any self-loving people would do under our form of government.

All children will be better off when the rejected stone is erected, (Black Museum, and Cultural Art Center), and elevated so our children will understand. That sometimes, it is necessary to fight other Blacks whose eyes are too tiny to see. That they are transforming Rev Martin L. King Jr., dream into a nightmare. So be it known that the local NAACP does not condemn Mr. Barber. He was only a reflection of that period in history. But we also know that the light from the moon is only a reflection from the sun. So the moon must give way to the greater light of the sun.

This is why our community will eventually become as Montgomery, Selma, Nashville Tennessee, Omaha Nebraska, Atlanta, Macon Georgia and many other communities with historical landmarks, museums and Cultural Arts Centers. That are worthy to have tourists from Africa, Spain, Germany, Canada, Tokyo Japan, Mecca, Israel, and the Caucus Mountains come from afar to see Black People Rich, Historical and Peaceful Past.

I commend the committee for their actions. Now it is time for us to educate our own children. About the week of terror in Brooks, Valdosta, and Lowndes County Georgia, when Hayes Turner, Mary Turner, eleven other men and an 8^th month old fetus was lynched in 1918. With the Black Fetus being cut from the mother’s womb (Mary Turner), its head crushed beneath the foot of a white mob member’s boot.

The roll must be called of the eighteen deaths in the Lowndes County Jail of which no one seems to care. The deaths of Earl Evans, the Wooten’s, the Demps and many others who died under strange circumstances in Brooks County Georgia could have been quietly placed in the Ossie Davis Museum and Cultural Arts Center instead of having to relive these ill events. But some people believe our historical past should fade into the sunset of the rubbish pile of time-----unlike the Jewish Holocaust wherein SIX MILLION Jews were killed. It has been recorded in history that Blacks cannot began their count under ONE HUNDRED MILLION.

So in the final analysis our Children MUST and WILL be told and exposed to the sixty-sixth Governor of the State of Georgia by the name of Hugh Manson Dorsey. A white man with a conscious that challenged the status quo, and had to call on President Wilson to address the ills conditions in Brooks, Valdosta, and Lowndes County Georgia because of the mistreatment of Blacks. Without these two men intervening in 1918-1921 only God knows what could have happened in South Georgia.

Now in 2006, it seem that we need an outside person or persons of conscious to foster real change in our beloved Metropolitan Metropolis. .

In conclusion: Mr. Mayor, and Council respectively. I am sure that the rejected stones that you and the committee rejected for a Black Museum will one day become the capstone of the pyramid. Then the Chief Corner Stone Director will rejoice and say. I did, what others refused to do. So the community and the world would know that all souls are mine. And I exalt no child of mine over another---Amen.

GEORGE BOSTON RHYNES
President, Valdosta-Lowndes County Branch NAACP
A concerned citizen and brother of humanity

Some in Valdosta say Ossie Davis had no ties to Valdosta! Where did this come from? And did it have any impact on the committee recommendation NOT to name the park after Ossie Davis a Black Person-----in a community that is 95 percent Black. First the land was donated by the Barber family, then He had no ties to Valdosta, the .........just keep on .......

So did Ossie Davis have any ties to Valdosta, Georgia, See and hear for yourself!

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/lifestyle/html/20050204T190000-0500
_74476_OBS_OSSIE_DAVIS_DIES_IN_MIAMI_BEACH_HOTEL.asp

Returned to his home town of Valdosta GA
http://www.actorsequity.org/AboutEquity/
HowIGotMyEquityCard/EcardHome.asp

PS: VOTE ON BARBER PARK DATE CHANGED FROM SEPTEMBER 7^TH, TO SEPTEMBER 21^ST, 2006, BUT NOT PUBLISHED TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC. THEREFORE SOME CITIZENS WERE AT A GREAT LOST.

CITY COUNCIL REVIEW: On September 7, 2006, at 5:30PM at Valdosta City Council Meeting. I stood and addressed the Valdosta, Mayor and Council under Citizens To Be Heard. WHY? Because the issue of Barber Park was not on the agenda, and people from the Peoples Tribunal, NAACP, Rainbow PUSH Coalition, and other concerned citizens were expecting a decision to be made on the renaming of Barber Park an issue that has caused many ill feelings in our community.

It was the Valdosta Daly Times article on August 23rd, 2006 front page coverage that read, “Veterans Memorial Park may be the new name of Barber Park. If the Valdosta City Council approves it on Sept 7, 2006.”

COMMENTS: Mr. Mayor and Council My name is George Boston Rhynes my address is Valdosta, Georgia 31605. I am President of the local Branch of the NAACP. I read in the VDT on the August 23, that this body would take some action on Barber Park ON Sept 7^th. Since renaming Barber Park was not on the agenda I asked why were citizens not notified that the date had been changed from September 7^th, 2006. I have not heard of any changes in the press on this most important community issue.

Mr. Mayor: I did not come to talk about the park. I have e-mailed each of you a copy of my comments on the park (as above). But I will give each of you a hard copy of that letter. (I handed out a copy to each elected official).

CITY MANAGER COMMENTS: Mr. Larry Hanson: We post the agenda at city hall as soon as it is created. Which is the last week and on the web site so the agenda have been on our website since last Friday. Anyone wanting to check if the dates were changed can do so.

The Mayor also made several comments and justififed the city position in a respectful manner.

However, my question was a simple one. If it was reported in the Valdosta Daily Times on August 23, 2006 that Valdosta City Council would take action on Sept 7^th and the date was changed to Sept 21, 2006. That the general public had a right to know on a topic as hot as the renaming of Barber Park in a community that is 95 percent Black.

In my humble opinion a simply remark such as: WE will do our best to keep the public informed in the future, especially on an issue with this much community interest from concerned citizens. Eventually, the Mayor and City Manager thanked me for bringing up the question. The Mayor said: "your point is taken," and I thanked them.

So keep listening as the renaming of Barber Park continues in Valdosta, Georgia. This has been going on for years NOW. On September 21st, we all will see and read what will happen. Until then keep in mind that heaven and earth may pass away. But truth, love, equality, and justice will stand forever. Peace!

George