Sheila Alldredge
January 22, 2008
Lillie Reed
January 24, 2008
While most speakers at an event honoring Dr. Martin Luther King offered messages of empowerment, Terrebonne Parish NAACP President Jerome Boykin came out swinging.
Boykin told a crowd of nearly 150 people at Houma’s Dumas Auditorium that blacks have relinquished their place in the parish, noting that not one bank in the parish has a black executive serving on its board and saying “the (Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group) is now out of business because we’re killing each other.”
First taking on the local banking community, Boykin said, “There is almost a bank going up on every corner in Terrebonne Parish – a sign we have money here.
“Yet, not one bank in Terrebonne has an African-American serving on its board. We all go there and put our money in every day. Then, when I ask them why [there is no black representation], they look at me as if they are in a daze,” Boykin said. “That is an insult to [the black] community. But we allow that and, as long as we continue to do so, they will do what they do.”
The local head of the Terrebonne National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said speaking out about the issue is “making trouble” in the minds of some.
“Now mind you, we consider them to be our friends because of the thousands of dollars they give to the NAACP for scholarships,” Boykin said. “But it still should not stop us from asking the question.”
Tackling the issue of black-against-black crime, Boykin said the problem is not limited to Terrebonne Parish.
“Frankly, the KKK is really out of business because we’re killing ourselves,” he said. “Drugs are running rampant in our communities.
“We need to come together as one,” he urged the crowd. “All this fighting with each other will not get us anywhere.”
One by one, speakers challenged the crowd to take action.
Keynote speaker E. Craig Wilson, of the Greater Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church of New Orleans and New Generation Fellowship of Kenner called for a more tempered form of action.
“We’ve tasted inequality but we don’t have to keep that taste in our mouth,” he said. “For those of us who are waiting for 40 acres and a mule, get over it because it isn’t coming. You’ve got to get out there and work.”
He urged all to “love one another” and to quit critiquing others.
“Quit the judging. You don’t know how someone has got to the point of where they are,” Wilson said. “We’ve gone from the ills of racism, hating the white man, to the ills of classism, criticizing each other.”
The theme of Monday’s event was “The Power of the Young and the Young at Heart.”
Terrebonne NAACP Youth Director Diana Collins said the previous night’s youth program, which drew a record crowd.
The Rev. E. Craig Wilson (standing) of the Greater Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church of New Orleans served as the guest speaker at Monday’s Martin Luther King Day ceremony in Houma. * Photo by HOWARD CASTAY JR
