Southern Echo

So, did you Google “Southern Echo”? Did you find the Program for Southern Echo’s 20th Anniversary Celebration that was held in Jackson, MS on 10 Dec 2010?

Page 7 of the Celebration program contains an announcement of Southern Echo’s Exemplary Leadership Award being given to Tunica County resident, Melvin Young. So there will be no mistake about what was stated in the program, here is the quoted material:

“Melvin Young has been the Executive Director of Concerned Citizens for a Better Tunica County for more than 15 years. Melvin led the 4-year battle to prevent the Tunica County plantation leadership, with the assistance of a state-appointed school conservator, the State Dept. of Education, and the state’s Attorney General from creating an all-white public elementary school in Tunica County in violation of federal court school desegregation orders. As a result of the intense community organizing training and civic engagement work within the county there is now an all-African American school board on which a majority of the members have come through the processes of Concerned Citizens. The Tunica County School Board has undertaken a 5-year experimental program designed to create a quality public education and which is intended to be a model process that other districts can consider. Melvin has enabled Concerned Citizens to assist emerging grassroots organizations in at least four other counties in the Delta in developing the skills and tools of community organizing strategic planning and organizational development. Melvin is an active participant in the work of the MS Delta Catalyst Roundtable, the Education Stakeholders Alliance, the MS Coalition for the Prevention of Schoolhouse to Jailhouse, the South x Southwest Experiment, the Pushback Network and on the Board of the Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network.

In addition to his work on public education issues, Melvin has become an accomplished trainer of community organizations, leaders and public officials on how to draw political redistricting maps that create fair districts for African American communities and provides this training to communities across the Mississippi Delta.”

You have got to be kidding. I thought we were looking for the most qualified candidates for our Board of Education no matter what the color of their skin happens to be.

And since when did the residents of Tunica County agree to have “Concerned Citizens” involved in our public educational system?











Exemplary Leadership Award