Education is the key to freedom

School board member mourned
June 6, 2018
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June 6, 2018
School board member mourned
June 6, 2018
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Strong words were spoken at a community gathering commemorating the emancipation of enslaved people Saturday, in Thibodaux, along with appeals in support of education and economic empowerment.

The theme at the 2018 Juneteenth celebration at the Raymond Stafford Post 513 American Legion Hall was the “Dream Has Turned Into A Nightmare,” referencing Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

“Many slaves didn’t know what to do,” said the educator and Lafourche Schoolboard candidate Al Carter. “Lost and confused because the question is: Where do we go from here?”


“Juneteenth” commemorates when the message of freedom reached the last of those in servitude – this is thought to have happened in the “teen” digits of the month of June, 1865.

Throughout his impropmtoo speech, Carter repeated and emphasized “Where do we go from here, showing a progression from past to present. He asked attendees to question their own future, and that of their children.

Carter drove home the message that freedom was found in knowledge, “I think that the problem we have now, the question and the answer of ‘where do we go from here,’ is found in books, in schools, in knowledge and education,” he said.


Carrying this emphasis of education forward, Carter proceeded to link this idea to economic freedom.

“We’ve got to make up our mind as a people, that if we truly want to be free, it’s about economic freedom; it’s about educational freedom; it’s about taking us and moving us to a different level,” said Carter in a rhythmic fashion. “Just because you say you’re free don’t mean nothing, unless you do something with the freedom you say you got.”

This concept of freedom of the mind was furthered by yet another speaker to take the microphone, Barry Payton of New Orleans. Payton took a moment to denounce violence in the black community as unacceptable, “We are killing each other.” He stated firmly. “We are our worst enemies.”


This violence is what was holding the African-Americans back, said Payton, from achieving economic success and tarnishing the image of the black community.

“Now, granted, I’ve been roughed up by cops, pulled over, searched, whatever, pushed on the ground knee on the back and all of that,” said Barry Payton, of New Orleans. “But, it doesn’t compare when bullets are flying at you at a party. It doesn’t compare if they’re knocking down your door and trying to steal your valuables that you work hard for. That is the nightmare.”

Payton is the third great-grandson of Jack Conrad. Conrad was witness to and victim of a mass shooting of black people in Thibodaux, during an 1887 riot, by whites commonly referred to The Thibodaux Massacre.


He warned young men and women that there exist preconceptions associated with them, in his words, such as “animals” and “thugs,” but he assured them, “We are more than that.”

Calling on his ancestor as an example, Payton spoke of Jack Conrad and his service in the Civil War; then, of the service of African-Americans in wars from the Revolutionary onwards, ensuring the freedom of all Americans, “and still fighting for freedom, because they still see us as less-than.”

Payton said that, like Dr. King, Jack Conrad tried to protect his family because he wanted them to have a better life. He said that when his ancestor, and all other slaves, took up arms for the cause of freedom, he was no longer a slave.


“Just because you work on a plantation doesn’t make you a slave; your mentality makes you a slave,” Payton said. “If you want to be free, you are free.”

Between these two speakers, there was a presentation of awards. Six fathers of varying ages received Keys to the City, and medals for aspiring to create a successful life for their children.

One such recipient, Deacon Martin Dickerson, embodied the mentality which Payton spoke of. He and his siblings were born and raised on the French Plantation.


“I could identify with what was being said, because my daddy was a sharecropper,” said Dickerson. “I saw the disadvantages of being there, but it all worked out by having those being there before us who stood up for us and kind of brought us through.”

Dickerson told of how he left the plantation when he was drafted into the Vietnam War and was deployed into South Korea from 1965-1968. He said that upon his return, he found that his parents had built a house in Thibodaux. Dickerson then went on to work as an Instrument Technician for Tennessee Gas Pipeline for 43 years.

Dickerson’s two sisters, Willa Dickerson and Laura Dickerson Harris, were among the audience. The sisters explained how their parents worked hard to pay for them both to attend private Catholic Schools, and this was because at the time these provided a better education than the public equivalents.


Their parents, said Willa, saw the value of an education and saw it as a means to get them a better life, “My dad told us, ’I don’t want any of you to wind up living on a plantation having to work hard like your moma and I have done,’” said Willa in a forceful manner imitating her parent.

She said she never worked a day on a plantation, her parents wouldn’t let them. Her mother worked the factory at night and her father worked in the sugarcane fields.

She described how their parents raised enough money to pay $3 for each child to take a bus to St. Lucy, and Laura said the tuition was $2 a child.


Willa, a retired owner of a medical transport business, said they transferred to C.M. Washington High because the $2 tuition was too costly.

Elements of Carter’s message appeared to have resonated with her:

“This awakening that is coming up so late in the century, well in my years because I’m now 73, is something that I can look to see the road was long, but was travelled through faith, and hope, and above all love, because of the kind of parents that we had,” said Willa. “The parents we had said that education was the key to success and you have to go… you could not miss school.”


Deacon Martin Dickerson receives awards at the Juneteenth Celebration at the Raymond Stafford Post 513 American Legion Hall.

COLIN CAMPO | THE TIMES