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A longtime Lafourche Parish community activist received special honors last month from a local church group, during its annual recognition of local African-American history.

Burnell Tolbert, president of the Lafourche Parish Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was chosen as Citizen of the Year by a consortium of local churches, as part of its Black History Month celebration.

“It means a lot to me,” Tolbert said. “I don’t go around looking for recognition like that because what you do good, you get good back. It is not to see appreciation for what you do.”

At the Feb. 27 program, held at the Allen Chapel AME Church in Thibodaux, the Rev. Nelson Dan Taylor praised Tolbert’s founding of the Lafourche NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet, which has enabled more than $50,000 in scholarships over the past five years. Taylor also addressed Tolbert’s long-standing relationships with both the community at large and law enforcement.

“He has earned the confidence of citizens and has served as a liaison between law enforcement officials and local citizens,” Taylor said, referring to situations where Tolbert has arranged the surrender of people wanted by the police.

“He has been a visible and vocal advocate for civil rights and has helped many citizens who have been victims of discrimination and unfair treatment in the workplace and public schools,” Taylor said. “Over the past 20 years, first as vice president and now as president of the Lafourche NAACP, Mr. Tolbert has made himself available to the public, has intervened to assist citizens, white and black, in a variety of situations involving unfair treatment. He has worked tirelessly for the cause of justice and equal protection in the black community.”

The program – and a booklet commemorating it that was given out to people in attendance – paid homage to local African-American citizens and leaders from the local area including:

• Gerald Peltier, the first black elected official in Thibodaux, who served on its council.

• Thomas Shanklin, educator and first black member of the Lafourche Parish Police Jury.

• The Rev. Lloyd Henry Wallace, WWII veteran and educator.

• Cordelia Matthews Washington, the first black person in Thibodaux to old a master’s degree in education.

• George Curtis Bryant, Thibodaux’s first black physician.

The program also noted events of the past, including the Thibodaux Massacre of 1887, which resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of striking cane field workers.

“That’s history, part of United States history as well,” Tolbert said. What we’re doing here with the NAACP is also history.”

Being included for recognition on a night when so many past leaders were also recognized – even if only posthumously – and the record of it being in the program was, for Tolbert, a humbling experience.

“It made me feel so good to be in that book,” Tolbert said.

“That’s history and we’re doing here with the NAACP is also history. It is part of United States history as well.” Cornell University student Melanie Sand may have been nearly 1,400 miles from home, but she looked at home lending a hand cleaning up Bayou Lafourche.

Sand was among the 1,000 volunteers who pitched in with the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program’s (BTNEP) annual Bayou Lafourche Cleanup earlier this month. Their haul along the 106-mile bayou included an assortment of trash – plastic bottles and full-sized tires.

“Once I got to know what BTNEP and the Bayou Lafourche Water District does and attended some of their meetings, I just wanted to come out and volunteer,” said the 29-year-old native of Kokomo, Ind.

Sand is performing work for her dissertation related to city and regional planning at Cornell, an Ivy League university based in Ithaca, New York.

She holds an undergraduate degree from Ball State and a master’s degree from the University of New Orleans.

“I have been here since last fall and am working on a project where I am learning about how Native American communities in the bayous experience coastal and post-disaster planning,” Sand said. “I am also taking a look at larger issues of coastal erosion and environmental degradation.”