County celebrates MLK Day

In 1986, the first nationwide observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday took place. The day is more than a day off work for federal, state and local workers and banks.

In Holly Springs, the Civil Rights icon's birthday is celebrated with a “Birthday Breakfast, followed by a motorcade to Martin Luther King Memorial Drive.

In recent years, Care Now Pantry in Holly Springs has established a Day of Service which includes a parade, followed by entertainment and speeches on the courthouse square. Food an other vendors set up to sell their products.

This year, weather did not cooperate Jan. 16 and turnout at the breakfast and in downtown was muted compared to some years when large crowds consisting of families and their children make it truly a holiday.

The breakfast program traditionally begins with a litany, followed by song, scripture, prayer and greetings, breakfast and the keynote speaker.

Holly Springs Ward 2 alderman Andre Jones read a dramatic composition detailing the history of black people going all the way back to the cradle of civilization in Africa and moving on up to present day United States.

He led off with a question, asked by King himself: “Is this house worth saving?”

“I fear I may have integrated my people into a burning house,” said King.

King’s question asks if integration served African Americans well. King came to realize that he had helped his people “walk into a eternally burning building” - never to be fully acknowledged by or accepted in mainstream society as equals.

Jones said integration handicapped black people instead of investing in their own lives

Why is the black family broken? he asked.

“The struggle for integration would ultimately become a struggle for economic right,” Jones said. “I came to understand we are integrated into a burning house.”

African Americans had to hide in brush harbors, or hush harbors, out of sight of the slave masters to secretly practice their religious traditions. Religion offered the enslaved hope and reassurance, where practiced in brush harbors, they combined their African religious traditions with Christianity. There they let go of their hardships and emotions.

In mother Africa, Blacks lived as kings and queens, goddesses and gods, Jones said.

“Sadly, we’ve been brainwashed,” Jones said. “Their (African) ancestors had the greatest history on the planet.”

Addressing the accountability law of public schools in Mississippi, Jones said all low performing schools are mostly black, children of single mothers.

“Children raising children,” Jones said. “Since our children are poor, it is not so surprising there are drugs.”

“With purpose in the midst of it all, there is power,” Jones said.

There was an unfair advantage. White children came from two income parents.

“We are fighting hard for our children to obtain an education,” he said.

But the educational system is designed to fail Black children, he said.

Jones compared median incomes of the White families to the income in Black families.

Recent data indicate median income of white, non-hispanic families in 2021 was $77,999 per annum while black family median income for the same year was $48,297.

The top one percent of the population is reported to hold nearly as much of the nation’s wealth as the bottom 90 percent. The top one percent in the U.S. now have more wealth that the entire middle class.

“Integration did not serve us well,” Jones said. “Our focus should be on making it out of this burning house….(We must) build us a new home with a solid foundation, make sure it is built on love.”

“Bit by bit, we mobilize and police our own people. Brick by brick we go back and educate our children, revive the old spirited system of our ancestors. Brick by brick we must build and sustain our own community where we are safe and living together.

“With purpose in the midst of it all, this is power.”