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For years, local celebrations of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s life and commemoration of his loss had a Kumbaya-quality, as mostly white local officials joined civil rights advocates for speeches and expressions of brotherhood.
This year’s Terrebonne Parish commemoration at the Dumas Auditorium had a more defiant tone as NAACP President Jerome Boykin took aim at local state representatives for their opposition to creation of a minority judgeship in the parish.
Opposition by Rep. Gordon Dove (R-Houma) and Rep. Joe Harrison (R-Napoleonville) to a bill that would have accomplished that was derided by Boykin. He likened the opposition to the late Gov. George Wallace of Alabama barring black students from all-white schools during King’s lifetime.
Boykin also – while not calling for an outright boycott – told the almost exclusively black audience of more than 300 at Dumas that Dove is part-owner of a popular Houma restaurant, Copeland’s, which is situated on Martin Luther King Boulevard.
“Don’t support people who don’t support you,” Boykin said.
Contacted later by telephone, Dove said he was disappointed by the comments.
“It is a sad day that on the Martin Luther King holiday he is speaking that way,” said Dove, noting that he has three partners in the Copeland’s restaurant who have done nothing to offend anyone.
The judicial seat issue, not discussed much publicly since the bill was defeated in 2011, is destined to have a high profile once again.
Boykin said Monday that attorneys for the New York-based NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a separate entity from the NAACP, have announced to him an intention to file a federal lawsuit challenging the judicial selection scheme in Terrebonne Parish.
Boykin said a timetable has not been laid out but that the legal action will likely commence in the spring or summer.
Terrebonne has five judges, each elected by voters at large. That, Boykin and supporters of the minority judgeship contend, dilutes votes of the parish’s 20 percent black population. Doing so, arguably, violates federal voting rights laws.
Allegations that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was violated resulted in minority slots for judicial elections in 14 Louisiana judicial districts following a 1993 suit.
According to Boykin and other supporters of the minority scheme, a sub-district drawn along lines that would favor the choices of black voters would be created, allowing an additional bench in Terrebonne.
The judge elected to that bench would not have to be a minority group member. But the suggestion is that black voters will have much greater say in who sits on the bench in this manner.
Opponents of the concept say it is possible now for a minority candidate to be elected to any of the benches in existence.
Dove has maintained since last year that the courts, and not the Legislature should decide the matter.
“I welcome a lawsuit,” he said.
