Voting For Blacks Can Be Dangerous

Our staff has reported on the local elected officials in an effort to assess how they are voting in terms of their constituencies. We have asked in several surveys for the Black and White elected officials to share with our readers what have they done to advance the Black community. Many White elected officials responded while the Blacks didn't respond at all or gave very general answers. City Councilperson Eloise Paschal said, I represent all of the people in the city of Americus, not just Blacks.

The presidential race has both a Black person and a woman running. Many blacks are supporting Senator Barack Obama of Illinois because he is Black. Our past president of the Sumter County NAACP and local physician, Dr John Marshall, has been challenging Blacks who claim to be supporting Obama because he is allegedly for change. Marshall has asked many of our people if they know the local Blacks who serve in several elected and appointed positions who have not addressed our needs as Blacks. The point that Marshall is making is, "you have to know as much as possible about a candidate for office regardless of color." He explains further, "that we in Sumter County have been abandoned by our local Black officials."
The veteran civil rights advocate, Hosea Williams, who was a disciple of Dr Martin Luther King said, "We bled and some of us died to get Blacks elected to office [city council, county commissioners, mayors, etc] and they have become our worst enemies.

We have reported in this paper on City Councilperson Eloise Paschal, one of the worst Black elected officials, according to Dr Marshall. She voted to fly the Confederate Flag in a local cemetery along with the White councilpersons even though her two Black counterparts voted against it. She voted and supported former police chief, Michael Yates, who was run out of Americus by Craig Walker, former NAACP vice president. Paschal voted to renew Yates' contract every time it came up even though the Black community called Yates a bad cop.

Marshall reminds us that our newspaper praised the only city councilperson who tried to help Black citizens and he was the late Raymond Green. He came to many NAACP meetings and he voted against the Confederate Flag and he even voted to oust former Chief Yates.

Currently, the three Blacks on the city council, Lorenzo Johnson, Eloise Paschal, and Eddie Rhea Walker, have sat on the council with a White policeman, Michael Middleton, who is still on the police force after attacking a black citizen who subsequently died. The victim is Eddie Bridges, who was so severely beaten by Middleton that his eye was knocked out and he died a few weeks later. The District Attorney, Cecilia Cooper, did not even get an indictment against Officer Middleton. Marshall goes on to say, "None of the Black elected councilpersons pushed to have the White officer removed. They could have called a press conference and demanded that he be removed.

We have another sad case, according to Marshall, on the Sumter County Board of Commissioners, Andrea Pearlette Brooks. Marshall says, "she was given a choice to vote for a slate of names of individuals to serve on the Hospital Authority by the NAACP and she chose instead to go with a slate submitted the hospital's CEO, David Seagraves, in a telephone interview with Dr Marshall. She even voted for the Confederates to have a "Confederate Month." Blacks in several cities of GA voted not to have a Confederate month in their areas but Brooks voted for one in Sumter County.

The lesson that has to be learned is that it is not about color, says Marshall. We have seen locally what some Blacks will do when in office and that is why Blacks need to examine the presidential candidate Barack Obama closely and not vote for him just because he is Black.

We have two Black men who serve on the Hospital Authority, Reverend Michael Coley and Fred McLaughlin, who sat on the hospital authority and watched discrimination of Blacks, unfair hiring, decline in the quality of care, and abuse by the hospital leadership under the former hospital administrator, Jerry Adams and the current CEO, David Seagraves, says Marshall.

We did a story in March 2008, exposing those two Black men on the Hospital Authority and showed how irresponsible they are. We cannot emphasize enough how crucial it is to know as much as possible about the candidate and never vote just because the person is Black or White