Meet former Mayor Johnnie Mosley
IN HIS OWN WORDS (Part 3)
By Lee Raynor, Editor
Posted: 2:15 AM EST Sunday December 11, 2005
Former Mayor Johnnie Mosley continues his discussion of race relations in Kinston and names some of the people and reasons he believes are behind why blacks and whites won't come together any time soon.
Q: This city has a monumental racial divide. What can be done?
A: Well, it's like he said and basically, that's true. Every time we bring up race relations in this city, what do the whites say? “There's not a problem.” As long as the whites say there's not a problem, there's not a problem.
Q: Has this divide always been here or has it opened up in the last couple of decades?
A: Always. And we were talking about how do I feel about Buddy sending me that message? A man and I were going to Raleigh and he asked me if I thought Buddy was going to get the black vote. I said, yeah, he was probably going to get 10 percent. I didn't think he was going to get 20. To be honest about it, I didn't think he'd do that. The whites can't touch certain blacks in the community on race issues. And everybody else that are concerned are troublemakers. How is Johnny Lyles seen in the white community?
Q: I'll tell you what my personal feeling on Johnny Lyles was. I thought Johnny Lyles was a racist.
A: Because he always talked about issues that affect black people.
Q: Because he didn't talk about issues that affected people – just people – not black people or white people, but people.
A: The issue that Johnny fought for was the children of the inner-city schools. The only way to address that is to talk about it. Those problems in the county schools were not there. You can't address people. You've got to address the problems. We sit and talk in a calm kind of voice, like George Graham communicates with everybody. Whites just sit there and listen. The only way you're going to get any feedback, you got to raise hell.
Q: Did you raise hell in the city?
A: As a councilman, total hell. I wouldn't have gotten anything. When I first became a councilman, I didn't run on a platform. I never have on reelection. I don't throw anything out there. I always consider that if everybody else's ship is tied up in the harbor, you stay there too. If somebody else leaves the harbor, you leave with them. You put issues out there. I always ran on my name. I don't put those issues out, but people know.
I fought for over a year trying to get the city, we had seven miles of unpaved streets, dirt streets, in East Kinston. None of them had been paved in over 40 years. Dirt streets. Seven miles. And I talked to the Council and talked to the Council, asked the manager, until one night I said, we used to meet in a work session in a little conference room right there in the corner where my office was, and the press didn't come.
And I just simply raised hell one night. I said, “You-all are going to give us the money to pave those streets.” And Steve Raper said, “We just don't have no money to pave these streets.” And Eddie Kornegay – he was the other black city councilman – said, “Well, you see, Johnny, all our obligations.” I didn't say anything to him. I told the Council, “I'm not asking Steve to provide the money. I'm asking you to tell Steve to find the money.”
Ole Eddie came back and said, “Well, Johnnie, our obligations ...” I said, “Goddamn it, Eddie, when did you become a financial genius?” When I said that, Mansfield Creech said, “Give the man the money.” Aaron Brooks said, “Give the man the money.” Eddie didn't vote for it. Buddy didn't vote for it. Herb Spear didn't vote for it. That's the time the program started paving the streets. It started with $150,000 and that paved a block. But I got it started and we paved right on until '99. And people said I was arrogant.
Q: On this racial divide, how can this be fixed?
A: I don't think it really can and I'll tell you why I think that. The slave mentality that is embedded in blacks, I don't know how that can ever be de-programmed. I don't know whether you can de-program that. Slavery was 'way back there, but everything that has transpired since slavery is embedded in us.
Some of us fight it. Some of us don't. You say, “Well, how do you come to the civil rights movement in the '60s?” Because there was a group of youth – a lot of people say, well it was blacks. It was the church. But if you go back, the church got in it after youth jumped in there and started protesting, marching. I was part of that youth. And you've got the black church leaders started stepping out. But that is embedded in us, in the black race, in African-Americans, that slave mentality. If a white comes up to somebody in the black community – and you can check this – a black would just humbly go along with whatever was said. They won't speak out and say, “Naw, I'm not going to go along with that.” We use the excuse, “I'm scared of my job. If I speak out, I'm going to get fired.” And white people understand that. Whites understand that more so than most of us.
That's just one excuse. As long as leadership can touch different blacks in the community, different ministers, to keep racism in the pot and the lid on it, that's what they're going to do.
Q: When you say the leadership, what leadership are you talking about?
A: Church leadership, the ministers, the elected leadership. I want you to think back just since you've been here, what elected official has been out front on issues. What leadership do you see out there? Johnnie Lyles. Keith Seaforth. I was always there. Joe Tyson. Now, do you see any others? You didn't see any support from the other elected officials. Those others aren't hands-on and they make things difficult.
I'll give you a good example: Martin Luther King's name, re-name Tiffany Street. When it first got started, [County] Commissioner [Jackie] Brown was on TACC 9, whatever that show is in the morning. She was co-hosting it. We went to the Council and had out little fight and we lost 4 to 1. What she said the next day on that Rick Vernon show was, “I don't see why they wanted Martin Luther King's name anyway. They got one in La Grange.” What I'm saying is, when you have black speak out against what blacks are fighting for, we can't do anything together. There are certain people in our community that the whites can reach out and touch and say, “Hey – we want you to speak out.” It looks like we are fighting among ourselves versus trying to fight the white people.
And that is true. Whites won't admit it, but if you go back and analyze things that have happened, just look at what I've said.
Q: Why does it always have to be a fight? Why can't we just come together and accomplish something?
A: Ever since I've been elected, I've been working toward that. I have gone into meetings when I was with the Tourism Authority. There was a group of females there about Grainger Hill. Mary Ellison (Turner) was there back when she was trying to get money – it was a long time ago. We met at the Chamber [of Commerce]. Two white ladies and Mary Ellison and somebody else, they didn't say anything to me, but we had the meeting and everything because they were trying to get me to give them the money. And Jan Barwick came back after the meeting and said, “So-and-so” I forgot who it was, “said she didn't expect to see a human being from me because of all the things she'd heard.” She didn't see me as a person prior to that. I thought that was kind of strange.
I'll give you another example. Remember when we had that Martin Luther King Day at St. Augustus Church? They considered that a big success because they had about 15 to 20 whites come. They had a white minister to bring the message. And I told someone that most of the blacks didn't see it as a success. They said, why not? I said because nearly every white that was there was in some form of authority, in some organization or had a business that was selling products. You don't see the lay whites. You only see the business, those who had companies with something to offer the blacks. The average white that goes to church don't come. The preacher and his wife were there, but the congregation wasn't there. Gordon Vermillion was really pissed at me because I got up and made some reference to it.
I've always been open and candid with my remarks. I never try to use flowery speeches to tell a person something. A lot of people didn't like that. I talk like it think it is. That's the reason I was “arrogant.” That's how I developed that, because I've always been upfront. And you know George Graham: “Yes, sir. I'll do it.” He don't have no confidence of doing anything, but when you leave, you feel good.
So, race relations I don't think will ever improve because of those factors. It's sad.
More to come as Johnnie Mosley continues to be “upfront,” naming names and giving his impressions of life, his successor and the way things are in Kinston.
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