Alrighty everybody is your main man your your ace boon I’m your guy you my people I I’m that dude hear me out my friend I’m that dude that’s trying to as my model says Inspire educate and entertain that’s what that’s what that’s what I got from this point on in in my
Progression in my business career in my life in my sleep in my daily goings on I’m telling people about black history and I take a positive perspective on my viewpoint and I’m so more attuned to the positive perspective because I have people that come on my channel like this gentleman right here
Watch out this guy gonna blow your mind with what he gonna tell you he is an expert and he’s come on strong inspirations so do me a favor my friends it don’t cost no money it don’t do nothing but a little bit of effort hit the Subscribe button on strong
Inspirations a little bit of more effort after you watch this video and he do what he do to you because he gonna give it to you straight no chaser he gonna intoxicate your mind you’re gonna be staggering from what you have heard hit the like button and then hit the
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Lastly you ain’t got to do nothing but in your spare time tell somebody about strong inspirations in in the moment that you have watched one of the videos share that with others just copy the link and if you want you can when you’re watching it y’all know this my friends
It’s it’s YouTube you can move the cursor where you want to get to the meat of the subject as you see fit just just get this however you get it did you see the one I did with the guy uh uh soul brother too he dressed up for
Us he’s in out of the Appalachian Mountains he said man this is where I grew up climbing them mountains and my father was a coal miner he said my dad would go in in the middle of the night early morning what have you never saw the light of day because he’s
Down in the ground and when he came out it was dark again the commitment that that man had for his family to provide for them that was the gist of that story in some respects and all the other people out of the Appalachian Mountains Black Folk in particular who was jamming and was
Making a way in a community among themselves watch that video there’s there’s a few of them up on the Appalachian Mountains my friend I got one guy just watched this video my man he lives two miles away from where the people who enslaved his great grandfather live
He drives past their house on many occasions I said man how’d that feel he said man one night I could take it I knocked on the door and said hey who are y’all because I know that’s what you did because it’s the plantation site you don’t live far watch that video
I got a guy on the channel he said when he was uh six and seven he was growing up in the South and whatnot and so this could have been about the 50s my man said he picked cotton he said and that was a hustle for us
Because you can pick enough and they give you a fair wage I guess he picked cotton by hand he said he was no good at it he said his mama was great at it she could hit that thing like that bam bam bam that’s what he says it’s on the channel
I’m not playing with you did you see the one and I know my man that is coming on he busy and all that he rocking and rolling did you see the one I did with the first black mayor of Tuskegee Alabama it happened to him
He said I’m gonna go fast he said one day I was a little kid and there was a sign on the fence in the Parks no blacks allowed and it had the name of the mayor on there you know so said the mayor of Tuskegee so my man got to thinking he
Said shoot man I want to be the mayor cause if the guy got that much power to stop me from going into a park I want that so I no one would tell me I can’t do it my man got elected to the mayor he stayed in office for about 30 years or
So and then he was a State Rep and then he and and presently he’s on the city council this dude don’t quit Johnny Ford watch that video people out of Hawaii I got a couple of them and all over the world so do that my friends I really appreciate it
Oh suck it suck it now I’m a filmmaker and this is my movie It’s called business in the black because see I’ve been self-employed a long time and this black business community and all that history kind of interests me a lot and so I did three
Years out of my life to pull this together and what about this if y’all did not know there were slaves who owned businesses and used the profits to buy their freedom I named 20 or more of them in my movie it’s streaming on Amazon and then my friends read my book black
Business book get a copy of this there is no other book as comprehensive as this this guy 200 facts I tell you what if you read my book and don’t learn nothing new I give your money back boom shakalaka a money back guarantee on a book
All you got to do is send me an email so I knew all that I don’t ask for the book back maybe you’ll give it to somebody else come on now get your copy of this it’s a lot of information and I have a campaign that I want to donate 10 000 books
Across America so every 10th book I sell I donate one to a school I want people to hear this because I didn’t hear that I was a decent student I must have fell asleep on that class when they tell me that I had some brothers and sisters back in the 1800s
Who own businesses all I thought well it was the beat down and that’s not the case and you know it’s not the case from watching here at strong Inspirations now you hear me use this term strong a lot strong is my favorite word I just like it and in my world strong
Stands for strength tenacity resilience and a sense of Oneness nobility and Grace and that is my introduction to my guest today he’s a strong soul brother coming out of that Louisiana situation watch out come on brother introduce yourself thank you for being on the show with me
Yeah yeah good uh good evening my brothers and sisters my name is Darion Arrington I’m a historian uh originally from Laurel Mississippi um I graduated from two group College you know and that’s kind of why I gained my passion I always like to tell people
When I went to college I’m not sure how it is now but when I went to college one of the first reads that we had uh for first you experienced the class we had called uh first experience and one of the first reads we had to read was um
Um the miseducation of the Negro by Carter G Woodson that’s right I know that you know it was a uh that was kind of like a turning point for me especially intellectually because um the book kind of uh weirded out a whole lot of the misconceptions that I
Had you know growing up you know I went to law I went to Law High School um and we didn’t necessarily have a a very uh comprehensive understanding uh especially within school it wasn’t uh what we did in law wasn’t uh embedded into the curriculum right A lot of the
Stuff uh that I saw I didn’t necessarily even know the um the significance of them like for instance I played uh I played football at this uh at this Recreational Park called J.H Spriggs okay hold on let me stop reading I gotta you you owned something man but
I I mean no disrespect but I got a couple questions for you let’s get a little deeper where is Long Mississippi what is it near wait I’m sorry where is Laurel Mississippi oh Lord Mississippi it’s in the uh Southeastern part of Mississippi uh probably uh maybe two hours from
Um New Orleans uh okay yeah so it’s a it’s a real small town yeah yeah absolutely probably 19 000 people maybe oh really yeah okay let me ask you this uh and I’m in the north everybody I’m in Detroit and uh it’s big city situation for me and always have been when you’re
In a town like that is it does long look like in the movie Sounder or something like that is the the buildings are small the the you know the this the black people on one side the white people on another side that kind of thing oh well generally
Um it well speaking for Laurel Laura doesn’t necessarily it doesn’t look like a typical Mississippi Town um yeah it’s it’s it’s a it’s real Southern and it’s real small but it kind of has a city feel to it um but as far as the social Dynamic goes
You know for I just for instance uh just to give a small story in uh 1970 You Know Rich Nixon had um forced integration into the schools okay um Laurel um had Oak Park School those that was school for the blacks and then they had Laurel High School which was a school
For the um for the white so once uh they started doing school Equalization uh programs which what they were supposed to do in 1954 when Brown uh versus Board of Education was here but they obviously didn’t do it uh but what’s uh black students began to come to law we had a
Situation where it’s uh popularly named uh white flight so what happened there is uh they started going to the county schools all their economics all these students they started going to the county schools and they didn’t live in the county schools they would get partying to those uncles and cousins
Who all lived in the county so in the midst of two or so years Laura went from 100 white to 90 black yeah yeah okay now okay uh uh so with that in mind what was it what was the right side of town what was the black
Side of town called well so uh the black neighborhood got like for instance I grew up on the West Side that’s where I grew up we call that the West Side um uh General Persian uh so that’s one of the black side then you go over a few
More than you got the projects you know we call it the byp the Brickyard projects you know it was it’s literally just a housing project that’s really what it was made of bricks you know so we called it the Brickyard then uh you go to the uh east of where I’m from then
You’ve got queensburg which is called brown circle um and it’s called queensburg Uh and then you go to Wayside the black people on that oh no I’m still on the black side okay okay uh because generally don’t there’s not really a white side of Laura because they don’t live in Laurel
They may work in Laurel okay you know but they live in the counties they live in it okay uh hebrons they live in Ellisville they live in uh you know place up or in you know places like that but yeah you have some the ones who do
Live in Laura guess you could call this the white side they live in North Florida you know okay but most of the areas in Laura occupied by black people oh okay let me ask you this question and I’m gonna go straight to the point I
Don’t mean no no harm and you get it have you ever been called a no not to my face no no no but you’ve heard you’ve heard the turn oh absolutely I mean a white person using the turn uh but not not in my not in my see the
Thing is in Laurel how I grew up you know the white people they just weren’t around you know oh really yeah they just were they just weren’t around uh they literally they it was the second like for instance I graduated with two white people and those from uh probably Elementary to
The 12th grade those are the only two contacts that I really had that’s the only two white people I really had constant contact with okay and they were kind of they were uh okay they were relatively liberal I guess you could say yeah I’m sure yeah
They had to be yeah yeah they were relatively liberal um and but they kind of they stayed out the way you know they didn’t they didn’t really cause much records let me ask you did did your parents tell you what not to say what not to do be mindful of
White people did you did you is there a conversation like that yeah man I remember growing up uh it’s uh especially like in the early 2000s like we had a there was when we we got our first black mayor in 2005. you know really okay
Um and Laura was founded in 1882 so that was uh over A Century of Mayors and we first got out but I would just remember around that time my mom used to always tell me my mom and my father they used to always tell me you
Know if you ever get into it with an adult do not try to handle it yourself because there are certain experience that an adult would have that you wouldn’t at your age you know and uh I I never understood it until I got older I
Got you let me ask you this so when you when you went to town the white man was the ones wearing the suits and it worked in the whatever corporate businesses and stuff like that what did the black people do what was their major employer
And you know how did the you know what do black people do for a living mostly and that kind of thing yeah so so Laurel is an industrial town you know um most of the uh economy is um is basically plants you got manufacturing plants Hollywood industry you got the
Chicken portraits Anderson farms uh okay you have the uh uh the wood company Lumber Company uh Masonite and that’s where most of the black people like that those are almost 80 90 black you know so most people most black people yeah they they do industrial work
Is uh is there uh do you know this and then we’re going back on you and your family do you know where the plantation is in your family um no well I don’t know where because Laura was a bit and law was a bit different it
Was it was founded uh about 19 years after uh the Civil War had ended and um in Mrs like in southeast Mississippi with it within itself the law was kind of I guess um for a lack of a better term privilege because they had some white Midwestern from Clinton
Midwesterners from Clinton Ohio uh they came and they uh built most of these industries that we have in law to this day when it go on the company and they pretty much gave black people Fairways now it wasn’t a it wasn’t a Utopia I don’t want to uh paint it that way
Because even in that time uh it was this guy by the name of uh uh um John Hartfield he was lexed in 1919 um he was what this side of Story Goes you just never you never know with these stories but the story goes that you know it was
This white girl who worked for this I was a white girl okay yeah yeah and this white girl who worked for this hotel and uh she claimed that he assaulted her you know and uh he went on the run for a little while um and they ended up finding him and
Lynching him so it wasn’t this it wasn’t a Utopia um you know white people especially the midwesterners the one who came they had mansions and whatnot uh but you know black people they they had their own business district they call it the Front Street establishment you know okay with
A bunch of black doctors Black Law uh black Lord had a black lawyer uh black Dennis’s you know and so on and so forth so kind of privileged in that regarding that particular uh so we didn’t we didn’t necessarily have slaves in law um but if you track it back to the free
State of Jones days you know obviously in the eligibility because eligibility have been around much longer than law about seven years longer than long they did have it you know and uh obviously you know that story how they had their succession and uh uh the knights uh when
You know and then fought with the Union you know which was kind of uh now what you talking about now uh the free state of Jones well I don’t know that story okay let me just give you a small break so yeah yeah hold on what are you calling this to
What now the free state of Jones it was a movie a movie came out the free state of Jones yes yeah okay go ahead let’s tell us that yeah so uh what happened there it was this guy by the name of Newton knight uh his uh grandfather
Uh was a slave owner you know he owned a lot of slaves but they owned him in like the Smith County area which um was all kind of close Smith County Forest County Jones County y’all kind of interconnected in some way Wayne County okay um but um his father his grandfather had
The slave and uh he ended up falling in love with it uh you know so they they ended up you know dating and uh they ended up going uh so then the Civil War ended up happening you know if their grandfather died the Civil War ended up
Happening and uh with him having a black I don’t I guess I guess you could say wife I don’t girlfriend wife whatever you want to call it um he kind of didn’t want to fight for the Confederacy anymore he’s he looked at it okay he was like you know yeah he was
Like they’re not really fighting for the poor I don’t have any money you know fighting against you know robbing them he was basically Robin Hood in a sense uh okay even though Robin I’m taking things and you know they had their battles uh and so on and so forth and uh
He was one of the success he was one of he was one of the guys who left you know left the uh South to fight for the North and um yeah that was just kind of that’s kind of that’s kind of the basis of it that’s kind of what happened no no hold
On so how do you know this story is this a story that they tell all the kids in school or no is it a famous Story down there that kind of thing I didn’t learn that until I became an adult you know I didn’t hurt any of that at school but
You know they made him it was it’s a movie about it a starring uh Matthew McConaughey uh it came out about what 2016 2007. really yeah yeah and uh yeah it’s I mean it it became thing but it wasn’t growing up no I never even
Heard of that before now now you know in in a town like yours and we’re gonna get to some more what you you’ve written about in your book and stuff like that it sounds like yours the the the the big movies and shakers are who in the black community
Uh so now but then you know growing up and even as far back as you could probably cite who are the big movers the Shakers there yeah as far as black people mostly the people in the medical field um uh like for instance this man by the
Name of Dr Benjamin Murph he he wasn’t uh from Laurel he was from Sumter County um North uh South Carolina and uh he was with Dennis and he was real he was well renowned he he um he went to uh this uh black college in uh Nashville Tennessee called uh uh
Yeah yeah yeah in America school and uh he came down in uh July 17 uh 1935 uh during the Great Depression and that’s kind of where when Laura was kind of in their uh in a real Groove economically and you know black black people rather were in a real Groove economically so
Most of the people in the field the doctor you know uh uh TJ Barnes he was a a physician um okay you know you know so those were the high rollers those were guys who pretty much caught the shots them and the preachers obviously and the preachers okay yeah I thought the
Preachers now what what about this as uh as we move up just a tag it’s long big in the Civil Rights era do they have marches and stuff like that going through Laurel uh now no you know back in the in the in the 50s and yeah
Yeah yes absolutely see the the thing is um you don’t you don’t hear a lot about law within the Civil Rights Movement you had people who kind of talked about them like uh um local People by John dipner he talked a little bit about it uh in struggle by
Clarence uh Clarence Claiborne uh he talked about it a little bit it’s a Woman by the name of uh uh uh Patricia Patricia Michelle Boyer she wrote a book about the painting with she talked a lot about the loss of rice movement uh but in my particular book
You know I kind of get into the meat and potatoes of it you know I’m I’m from there I got family there I know people there you know I got it you know I got a degree in history so okay uh I did a whole lot of a reading and writing and I
Wouldn’t have never known anything about this if I would have never done it for myself so yeah hold on let me stop you there you got a copy of the book oh no well it’s actually it’s not going to be released to December okay so tell
Us tell us the name of the book and uh yeah that’s the intro to the book conversation yes so uh my book is called standing firm in the Dixie um that name was that name was inspired I like to tell people this part that name was inspired by
Um a uh a Jet magazine article written on Benjamin Murphy uh Benjamin Murphy in 1965 his uh house was shot in uh in July in September of 1965 and uh is this in law yeah this is in law yep in the Queensborough Community okay um and uh his house was shot into and
You know you know despite all that because I’m I’m gonna get into him he was I’m gonna get into him a little later um because he he was he was it was kind of a dichotomy between him and some of the local people you know in the city but um Benjamin Murphy
Um he’s a black guy white guy yeah he’s a black guy yeah he’s a black guy yeah he’s black and some other black people don’t like him yeah it was that’s what you about to say okay yeah it was it was a definitely some uh and so it might have been black
People who shot in this house it could have been now I I it could have been you know I don’t I don’t necessarily know if it was that this Dane was to that level but it was definitely some talks about him maybe being an Uncle Tom
Oh really yeah yeah he was okay okay I see where you’re going yeah yeah it was so it was definitely something he he did great for the community overall but uh it was some people that definitely didn’t uh like the way he uh went about civil rights you know Massive Resistance
Uh protests and so on and so forth but he had a reasonable why he did it yeah but I’m sorry I don’t mind since you started up I want to finish that thought so we don’t we don’t we don’t lose it yet so now uh this guy here is he on
In politics he just running around talking and and making some movements well he was the he was the so it was so long um uh NAACP was founded in uh late 1947 by a guy by the name of uh Robert Daddy’s Thomas you know he was a guy
From Mobile Alabama uh like I said a lot of people were migrate to Laura because the the front um the their black business district was really flourishing at that time even oh man even within the uh the Great Depression era they were really flourishing you know
But yeah it was founded so he became the vice president though of the NAACP and um you know Rob uh Reverend Thomas ended up leaving in 1951 so the Murph took over you know okay she was really really I don’t know if you’re familiar with mega
Evans yeah yeah for me yeah yeah so him and Megan it was a really really really tight you know um because Benjamin Murphy was when Medgar Evers began making the youth councils for the NAACP he really really really became like essential to recruiting children like Laurel had the
Biggest youth Council in the state of Mississippi when it first started he was recruiting him like that but he was so popular around the city you know he he was one of the most yeah he was only the only one of the few dentists in Laurel and on top of that
You know he just he he just um exemplified what uh men who would look like I guess you could say I got you I got you you know so yeah he but uh the the discrepancy came in that Benjamin Murphy was born in 1907 right okay uh especially during oh like when
Core and Snick uh came around um Benjamin Murphy so okay so the white Knights were real heavy anymore it was a man by the name what are they oh they’re the uh it’s a clean group a KKK group oh so hold on let me stop you there I
Didn’t know that KKK groups have separate names there are groups with several names they’re still the same thing yep yep absolutely absolutely they had the white Knights of the KKK in Laurel and the thing the white Knights and KKK in the white Knights of the KKK and Laura they were different they
Weren’t wearing hoods you know they wouldn’t walking around with guns Towing guns and having you know playing rallies they were a bit different a bit different they fed on silence the secrecy you know uh they did a whole lot of stuff in the because and they got away with it
A lot because obviously you know they had police there’s some people in the police were obviously a partner sure sure and then on top of that um they looked like regular like Sunday school teachers and some of them actually were Sunday school teachers you know okay did they have cross burnings
In law oh yeah they had them yeah for sure um like especially during the uh when they they kind of lost like systematic support in law because they were kind of like after they killed it was always a man in Hattiesburg a very prominent man in Hattiesburg name uh of uh Vernon damer
And how far is Hattiesburg from Lowell about 30 minutes 25 30 minutes okay okay so the white knights in the uh born bombing his house and shooting into his house and killing him and uh they began to lose systematic support um from that and then when they started
Shooting in Dr murph’s house because he was also a prominent person within this city despite him being black they started losing systematic support So once they started losing systematics uh support they really began a a Time Break cross burning than the bombings and so on and so forth I just really so for
Instance up to a bunch of stories coming to my head all of a sudden um it was this man by the name of Reverend Alan Johnson he was the uh the Reverend over um um what’s that church um Saint Paul Methodist Church okay uh yeah he was the president of the Saint Paul
Methodist Church and uh when Martin Luther King came uh in 1967 for his Poor People’s campaign to promote his Poor People’s campaign uh the white Knights of the clan bombed his house a week before he came week before Dr King came wow yeah so when they when they started losing systematic support
They really upped the Annie you know they really did no hold on you say they lost systematic support for the national league Deeds they did among more white people because black people didn’t wouldn’t support them anyway so those are the white people that’s really saying what y’all doing ain’t right is
That absolutely absolutely oh I got you absolutely I got you absolutely a lot of the white people in law like it was it was kind of a bit excuse me um it was kind of a bit of remorse because you heard about the things but at that
Time you started seeing it more on TV and the more you started they started looking at it like because at that time too you got to think the Selma March happened you know that Massacre happened the weighed in in Biloxi happened right and all this is happening within 1964 1965 right the
Fannie Lou Hamer speech uh that she did at the um uh um in Atlantic City uh when she got beat in Winona in jail so all this stuff was being put on TV and a lot of people were like this kind of getting out of hand even for people who lived
Under that system white supremacy you know I got you so I got you now let me ask you this in law um you mentioned you know the black district and the lawyers and the doctors and that kind of thing um can you go to the to the theater I know
You know I know it you might not be old enough for this to be the problem because they you know was it black only and white only and all that a lot of that going on down there um yeah so if it’s a funny story when I was talking to
Uh Benjamin Murphy’s daughters of me uh her name is Sandra Davis me and her got a pretty pretty good relationship because I’ve done a lot of writings on her father um but she’s white passing right oh really yeah yeah she’s white passing so she used to and she would admit that
Or you just you put their own blast right now what you told this story plenty of time yeah so she she’s a white passing woman and um she told me a story about how uh she would go to the whites only theater to just to see if they would
Lettering and now you have to let her in hurrying her sister yeah yeah they they her and her sister used to let him in but they obviously didn’t go because you know they’re blacked out like y’all really don’t feel the need to want to you know mingle with
White people because that was the thing in law too a lot of people in law didn’t care to integrate with white people that just wasn’t their thing you know because they need their own stuff you know all right um for instance um uh that was kind of some of the reasons
Why uh people had an issue with Dr Murph like when they when they when they made Oak Park into a elementary school because that’s what they did they didn’t close the school down they made it to elementary school a lot of black kids didn’t want to go
You know they want to stay at the park you know they were fine living in their communities amongst their people right but uh Dr Murph was really uh not he was more of a Centrist I guess you could say Okay um he didn’t really uh want he didn’t really want to shake the
Table uh but when snake and core when they all came to law they really were trying to integrate everything you know Dr Murph didn’t really want that not at the expense of the children because of the white Knights of the KKK he he lived in law so he knew what could possibly
Happen to these kids and obviously oh I got a cousin my cousin Larry McGill who was 13 at the time he was beat with bats and and and uh with with chains and so on and so forth it was um doing the Kennedy uh the Kennedy administration even President Kennedy
You heard about this particular uh situation so okay tell us the story about the situation okay so and it’s just in law yeah yeah this is in law okay so in 1963 uh it’s a guy by the name of Lester McKinney uh he was um during oh after the uh the freedom rides
He was placed in jail you know he was he was taken to jail in Jackson so um Bob Moses who was in Macomb Mississippi at the time he was like um you know we finna kind of move everybody around and we’re gonna really try to integrate all these different places you know
So he lifts the McKinney and Diane Nash are you familiar with Diane Nash no no okay so Diane there she was a she was a civil rights uh leader um she was um uh she was married to James the bevel one of one of the king’s uh closest
Confidants okay no she was married to him and uh she was civil rightfully she was a fierce fierce fierce woman she’s out of Laura too oh no she’s not from Laura she’s from uh Tennessee she’s from Texas this is in Tennessee okay okay but uh yeah but her endless in bikini they
All they all went to school in Tennessee um but they ended up uh coming to law and um organizing a long non-violent movement so in 1963 they went to this burger shed you know in in his Burger share uh it was White Zombie now the thing is though
What was that burger is that just the restaurant yeah it’s just a restaurant yeah but that’s what y’all call it yeah yeah I believe that’s what it’s called then yeah uh yeah okay so uh black people could order food in there but they just couldn’t sit in there right so um
So uh Larry Larry McGill my cousin Larry McGill Jerry uh Jerry Harrington uh and a few more people if Mom dropped them off and uh they were going in and they sat down at the lunch table at the lunch counter Okay so uh they saw them they let him sit there
For a while uh believing that they were gonna move and they never did so they pulled down shotguns and they told them if you don’t get out of here I’m gonna blow your stomach up so them as kids they’re 12 12 13 year olds they tried they tried to leave
But before they could leave a white mob surrounded them started beating them with bats whipping them with chains just just beat them pretty fiercely that they let him out he didn’t kill him they let him out so that uh in that particular situation blew up so much
You know uh that even President Kenny uh President Kennedy was like yeah this is kind of you know uh this is kind of getting out of hand you know so they they they they did all this beating on them in the restaurant of the restaurant is that restaurant still open today oh
No no no no I mean it’s you know different names or something like is there a monument in front of that restaurant to what happened there or in front of that business that business building yeah so it was in downtown Laurel and you know in the 80s in the 90s during the crack
Era uh a lot of that stuff just it ended up closing down okay yeah getting torn down and so on and so forth so yeah it got yeah long kind of within the bad spot doing the crack era yeah is there is it man let me ask you is
There a festival that you all celebrate uh just being in Louisville you know I mean uh like yeah I don’t know is it like a crab fest or is there a black history moment that you all celebrate not to be honest but Mary and you you interviewed Marion as well Mary and Alan
She and some more people they getting stuff together and doing like celebrating Juneteenth you know on those okay today most of the stuff the festivals in Laurel are not they’re not catered to you know the black experience at all but uh yeah Marion she’s trying
To do it and you know we annually we try to do uh the the law of black history exhibit every y’all every year you know she’s actually got a building for the museum now yeah she said that yeah yeah so she she’s definitely doing it big in
That regard you know I I’ve been on I’ve been you know helping her out I did a lecture last year of what this past year or this past February rather yeah for her so yeah you know um have you ever thought to to to leave
And go to the big city you know I mean you know you you’re pretty astute you know I’m not saying you everybody else is a new state but everything is two person who who you know you see what’s out in the world and big city stuff did
That interest you or make you think uh anything in that regard oh yeah uh you mean like as far as uh uh just me moving to a uh yeah right right yeah yeah yeah I’m I’m really interested in moving to like the DMV area that’s kind of something I always
Wanted to do I haven’t made the move yet um yeah but I always want to move in that area and ironically I got family I gotta my roots in Detroit a long long I got uh people from the west side of Detroit oh yeah there you go yeah that’s that’s the
Right here that’s where I live West Side exactly let me ask you this when you when you uh um what’s the emancipation day in Lowell is that Juneteenth or is there another day that the slaves gain their freedom yeah yeah it’s just Juneteenth um well yeah it’s just June team you know
Years years ago in the 60s and 70s based on January 15th they used to have a freedom day you know and that was the day of uh Mass voter registration you know and obviously you know they didn’t always get it but um that was always a time where black people really came
Together as one and became you know pretty uh uh mobile I guess yeah oh I got you you know in a town like that growing up you know everybody almost yeah yeah pretty much I mean these different these different uh neighborhoods I was telling you about they’re all pretty
Clients to walk you know growing I like to walk to my grandma’s house on the South Side I used to walk over there you know queensburg is right across the track so I used to I easily can walk over there um you know uh the first is probably was
Like the East Side area the Kingston area I didn’t really walk over there because that was a little further but yeah and then the Brickyard was right literally right behind my where I grew up at so um all it was close by everybody okay yeah let me ask you this is there’s no
As you remember and now that you’re an adult is there a juke joint where everybody goes a bar or something like that yeah what’s what’s that yeah so uh with the older people they go to the hood they call it the hood you know it’s
Like a little hole in the wall place I don’t know if it’s I don’t even know if it’s still up yeah okay yeah they call it the hood uh that’s where all the old all the people if you want to listen to some blues you know Johnny Taylor uh OB
Cannon you know Jackie Neal if you want to listen to that that’s where you go you know yeah but us growing up uh as kids we didn’t necessarily have a place we used to uh go to this uh Hotel Ballroom uh and have parties and sometimes we
Would go to the Cameron Center uh it’s like a recreational center you can go there and have parties but we ain’t necessarily have a actual Club designated to us like the older okay I got you there all right and these questions are you know just because they
Come to mind it does Laura have red clay um you know the dirt that the Red Dirt clay that like they do in Georgia um no no no no you don’t know that okay yeah yeah that’s what David Ruffin said he said oh man David Ruffin David Ruffin had a story he
Used to always say that uh he grew up in the Meridian area uh that grew up and dead um but no I didn’t I never I’ve never experienced that I’ve never experienced that man did you uh is Laura uh big because it’s water near there where you
Eat a lot of seafood oh yeah yeah definitely that’s uh in that area um because we’re real close to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi maybe an hour two hours what about two hours we’re real close to the Gulf of Mississippi so yeah seafood’s real real
Big uh in our area do you fish oh yeah definitely fish hunting everything yeah man what dear is deer hunting year round or just a certain time of the year right certain time uh October November yeah that’s what it is in Michigan and you shot a
Deer and you cleaned him well I would do to clean my uncle jack use the cleaning yeah I’m not I I ain’t that I ain’t that really I’m not that into it you know you know it’s just a uh something to get out I guess you could say and I love deer
Meat so as a kid there how did you play because I mean you know in a big city I got a lot of something activities or whatever and I I guess I just wonder what’s so small a community how do y’all play to pass the time on a Saturday afternoon or
Any of that kind of thing yeah yeah so we had a bunch a whole lot of recreational centers we had Jade Spriggs we had office at the camera Center we had the LTL Center so most people or just we just played Sports mostly that’s the kind of all we hit that’s all we
Could do you know um like we played football at the MCL center with shoe ball at the camera Center um will um uh uh play football at Jade Spriggs yeah that’s kind of what we did we didn’t necessarily have like a boys and girls club or nothing like that somebody
Said it on fire though and burnt it down oh really yeah yeah we did though but that’s that’s really about it we just had to play sports that’s kind of all we had to do yeah uh a couple more questions what kind of music do you all
Listen to do you is blues more yet or uh more of a r b kind of music or uh yeah what what’s the style that mostly is played there yeah so you know um Blues was founded in Mississippi is that right yeah yeah so yeah so we
Every it’s mostly all Blues you know uh our uh I guess you could say oh geez of that um like BB King you know Robert Johnson um and so on and so forth and uh so lose like it’s a in Bay Springs this is real real small uh Community probably 25
Minutes from law okay they have a blue fish there every year you know every year all the blues artists Kingfish um uh Calvin Richardson uh I don’t know any of those names yeah no but Cal Richmond is from um uh uh he’s somewhere in North Carolina Kingfish is from uh Greenville
Mississippi I’ve heard his name yeah yeah do you like bloops I mean I’m uh yeah I mean I like it because I I know the songs because my father was a you know he used to DJ growing up uh okay and he just he just always played Blues
Blues but me personally I’m a big fan of like you know 70s funk you know Stevie Wonder oh really oh yes flying the Family Stone the Ohio Players and so on okay now you talking now you’re talking let me ask you this question and I mean
No disrespect this are you a country boy yeah yeah I’m definitely country I I mean it’s I don’t uh it’s kind of it’s phased out a little bit you know because I’ve done a lot of traveling I’ve seen a lot of stuff okay I’ve talked to a lot
Of people so I’ve a lot of it is kind of not it’s not there like it was once before yeah yeah you’ve expanded Your Horizon oh yeah yeah yeah but I’m like I know a lady and she tells this story she says that where she lives there is no lights outside
There’s no street lights you know I mean she’s in a rural area so when it gets dark she can’t see nothing in front of her other than what the moon gives her you know that experience yeah I never lived it but I got family that lives in like
Equipment or my mom’s from Heidelberg um in those particular areas like for instance like my Aunt uh she used to live in Quitman she lives in vostburg now which is another uh country rural area but uh like her neighbors like it was her house and the neighbors you had
To go way down the street you know to even see the next neighbor and they never had never never never never had street lights yeah yeah yeah I can imagine um outside was growing up I didn’t walk the sidewalk we didn’t have sidewalk you know they have them now but when I was
Growing up no we didn’t have solo and we had to walk in the road then when the car came just came and got in the grass oh fireflies yeah fireflies mosquitoes you know we call them fireflies I used to catch them in the jar yeah we still well well we really
They wouldn’t they wouldn’t that prom in it though we had them but they wouldn’t really prompted like we got we have like love bugs and like dragonflies and Um uh mosquitoes like we have those type we didn’t really have a Cricket crickets we had a lot of crickets as well oh really yeah yeah we didn’t we had we had it depends on what part of Mississippi yeah and they have Snakes in the Grass in
Certain spots oh yeah oh yeah I’ve killed plenty of snakes growing up yeah man killed plenty of them uh well sometimes um you just uh you get a knife machete some some of that magnitude um I’m just gonna cut it in half and kill the snake yeah
Okay hold on let’s stay on this just a little bit as we almost come to a close and everybody you see where I’m going with this yeah you you was in the out in the yard playing or something like that and a snake is Slithering along yeah
Yeah you would you would now we didn’t have like huge snakes but if you that’s safe for instantly outside and playing football or something you know you get tackled you’ll hear them you just hear him moving it with this go ahead and kill him you know um in the area that
Um where like there’s an abundance of water you know you’ll see him a lot and use a whole lot of snakes there there are some poisonous snakes in America yeah yeah something in your town you thought that some that they said watch out if you run
Across a red back or something like that be careful man like you had some areas you’re driving down the highway they have like Signs they’ve got like bears with a bear on it or a sign with like deer on it because it’s just a high concentration of those particular
Animals in those areas oh really yeah yeah man it’s like you’ve seen Bears yeah the other day um well I didn’t see this particular band but it was just on the news it’s like uh on my way to work um this might it might have been two thousand
13. it was wild a long time ago but yeah I saw on the news they were like it’s a bear on the highway you know just walking down the highway yeah really yeah yeah oh my God uh just a couple more so now that the city is
And and people like you in the city so now y’all got all the normal organizations is there a big dance that people go to like do the NAACP or the Urban League or the different fraternities and sororities have dances and that kind of thing I to be honest in
Law I’m not sure like I was never active in the law in in double acpi uh it wasn’t really a it wasn’t really a focus because I mean like I said I wasn’t as socially aware of you know stuff I was I I just wasn’t I wasn’t that socially aware okay until
I got older I mean when I got older and I thought they get back on the things started making sense but I just don’t I don’t recall the NAACP being that active when I was growing up okay but but now because are you in Laurel
Now is that where you live now oh no no no no no uh because that’s right you in Louisiana yeah right right right um I I how about this what what is in church is Big down there isn’t it oh yeah oh yeah real big what does that mean so uh everybody goes
On Sundays and then after church they they go to some restaurant for a Sunday dinner they go to the mom’s house how did how did that normally work yeah so most churches uh after after uh you know after church lets out they usually already have food cooked in the
Back at the church yeah yeah at the church yeah yeah that’s mostly how it went like it’s it’s a church on every corner in Laurel it don’t matter where you go so you know everybody you know it made sure everyone was fed you know because
I’ll pay for it no no it’s free because I’ll tell you this law uh their uh poverty rate is well over the national um uh the national population of the National Comedy race you know uh law has a uh a TV show that really brought in a lot of uh economics
Uh within the city um it’s called Hometown it’s it’s um this white couple named Aaron and Ben you know they’ve uh they really established a real strong base in in um in Laurel you know and and you know like I was telling you earlier downtown was a ghost town and they really really
Ramped it up and now it’s a lot of stuff their bookstore you know there’s so much you can eat you know bars you can go to and so on and so forth yeah yeah but uh but after after church on Sunday everybody kind of went outside because
It’s hot there year round for the most part yeah most yeah man man it’s on Christmas I don’t had 86 90 degree weather on Christmas yeah yeah yeah so yeah we don’t get it snows every now and again oh really yeah but um but yeah but
To your point though we uh you know when we go out when we get out of church we just go outside and play you know um pick it up running you know it’s just a football game favorite threw the ball up with him caught the ball yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah I know that game uh one uh a couple more do y’all eat a lot of catfish catfish is out of Mississippi yeah yeah yeah man my uncle James man every like I could give a little quick story yeah um in uh January January 25th 1969 uh my uncle
Um my Uncle Willie was working for uh this Railroad Company in Laurel and uh one of the trains derailed and exploded you know ended up killing some people some people just got severely harmed and you know my uncle was one of the ones who got severely harmed and you know the
Lawyers are coming going back and forth uh to his hospital bed was basically trying to get them not to Sue that was kind of the basis of it okay and uh he ended up you know settling you know we got a whole bunch of money so he ended
Up buying ended up going back to Heidelberg my mom is from and uh he bought some land and you know um on my grandfather was alive we used to go over there every couple weekends two or three times a weekend before a catfish fry oh really because catfish is that they’re catfish
Farms and all that in Mississippi right yeah yeah definitely yeah um yeah for sure man I I had I worked a job and we had catfish on every Friday every Friday we had catfish I like catfish because catfish is kind of meaty but catfish is not the best fish for you
Because they eat off the bottom yeah they’re definitely bottle feeders but most of the stuff we eat here are not really that good boy I’m gonna be honest with you like it’s their Bottom Feeders shrimps and butter feeders uh crawfish their Bottom Feeders um you know obviously you know people in
Mississippi well in most of the South to be honest each like chitlins uh repellent yeah yeah or chitterlings what they how you probably we call them chitlins yeah yeah um most of the stuff do we eat not is not good yeah no I sure I understand it
And and sweet tea a lot of sweet tea oh yeah man uh McAlister’s is one of the uh galaxies in Detroit yeah yeah well it’s uh McAllister’s is a deli you know they they make sandwiches and big salads and whatnot but famous famous sweet tea is
That right let me ask you this uh you you proud of yourself man you come from that you got your undergrad degree and and you got your Masters yep yep yep and and so do you teach oh no man I actually ironically I’m a um I work for the corporate office of the
Southern Farm Bureau I’m I’m a uh I’m an underwriter but but you’re a historian because you like history a lot and so you’ve investigated and what you have put together is a book that will be out soon yes sir yes sir yes sir man we want
You to come back on so you can show us a copy of that book and we can promote that yeah and the various stories that you have in there and and and and and and so uh because it is a small town like that you grew up good y’all didn’t
Have yeah it was a big Community yeah like say everybody knew everybody and there was a lot of love within that Community is that the moral of it uh yeah uh there are buildings in Laurel or in the rural party I know there are though that look like they looked in the
1800s Still Standing yeah this place is in Laurel that looks still look like that you know a large downtown district though it is like it’s burgeoning it’s a pretty um um a busy area it still looks like it did in 1960 you know um it’s definitely still looks like that
And you can go to different places like Vicksburg Mississippi you can go to anywhere in the Mississippi Delta um any any poor City I guess you could say all most of this stuff is still gonna look like it did 50 years ago yeah or even more longer than that yeah because
I know people I got a guy that he’s and this is the brother’s been on a lot of times he finds slave cabins to sleep in this is you know kind of a business for him to report what he what what his findings are when he get there are there
Uh a long lower highways where you can see slave cabins do you know that to be the case oh yeah if if you if you go on your way to the Mississippi Delta because Mississippi Delta that’s where hold on hold on let me stop you there what is the Mississippi Delta uh
So the Mississippi it’s basically northern Mississippi Northeastern Mississippi uh it was just a region yeah yeah it’s uh one of the first um cities uh in that area well the first city in that area was called Mount value Mount value Mound Bayou Mississippi and um yeah the Mississippi Delta was kind of
It’s it’s the it’s the blackest area in in the entire state of Mississippi and it’s also the poorest so if you go if you ride down to Mississippi death you that man you’ll see cotton plant you can see cotton cotton fields everywhere apparently plantations everywhere yeah
Uh it’s this a place called uh uh belzona Mississippi um that’s kind of like where we coming from that’s kind of the first place in the Delta with you that you would uh come up on and um you’ll even pass like this area is this man by the name of uh
George uh George Washington Lee uh he was killed in 1955 right before Emmett Till was killed uh by the clan and uh you you still see the spot where he was killed in that area and he was killed by a plantation as well really up yeah
Is there a marker there how do you know that’s where it was well hey my brother everybody that told you you’re gonna like this because we got personal my man shared his own personal story yeah and I meant no disrespect big city man little still the
Time man you live better than I did in many respects yeah yeah and and because a lot of people say that when they went up north uh to visit their family and stuff like that they didn’t have the same Synergy among the family they didn’t eat together like they did in the
South yeah because you ate y’all did y’all eat together every Sunday for Sunday dinner and that kind of thing yeah man my my grandma like my grandma my grandmothers my great-grandmother’s children we always they used to all come you know especially like even during lunch on Sundays during lunch time they
Always just come together and eat you know so yeah it was yeah yeah yeah see we might not have done that up in the north well hey everybody this is what I do is strong it’s for racist don’t I get it to you I let the people I I try to
Come up with some questions and let the people do the talking we we gonna bring you black history from all perspectives sir that’s that’s the game plan here so hit the Subscribe button on strong Inspirations hit the like button on this video hit the notifications Bell when
The videos come up you get a ding and a shock tell somebody about strong Inspirations don’t keep it to yourself go to my website businessintheblack.net follow me on Twitter at a strong dream and our Instagram I think it’s a strong one one or just take my name in on
Instagram I post all you know the videos up on all those sites and to you my brother like I say you gotta you know as soon as something happens you want to report you want to come back on it’s open door policy yes sir you got that
Don’t worry about it whenever you know we stay on a little minute say I got something happening down here we want to talk about it I’m I’m good with that and then also I want to say this to you and I mean this With all sincerity I want
You to stay strong stay safe stay on your grind I love what you’re doing I love you become the gentleman you become I appreciate it some people said some things to you and influence you excited you yes sir and are you a professional in that Community out of Louisiana but a a
Native of Mississippi so it’s m-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i boom shaka Locka everybody here we go with that I say bye bye way out all right peace peace brother yeah
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