- Collection:
- Southern Journey Oral History Collection
- Title:
- Mississippi - Greenville: Owen H. Brooks Interviewee
- Contributor to Resource:
- Dent, Thomas C.
- Date of Original:
- 1991-10-25
- Subject:
- African Americans
Businesspeople
Civil rights
Economics
Race relations - Location:
- United States, Mississippi, Washington County, Greenville, 33.40898, -91.05978
- Medium:
- sound recordings
- Type:
- Sound
- Format:
- audio/mpeg
- Description:
- Tom Dent interviews Owen H. Brooks in Greenville, Mississippi. Brooks talks about an initiative to re-name Broadway in Greenville after MLK for his birthday in 1991. It was ultimately unsuccessful because it was opposed by a man in the historical society named Josiah Hafter. The Black community had been very much in support of the initiative. It was a close vote and there were marches and demonstrations around the vote. They discuss the difficulty in serving both Black and White constituencies as an elected official. They discuss [Dick] Molpus; Brooks believes he has a good chance of winning the election because he has integrity and a good name in the community. Brooks states his only mistake was running for US senate at the wrong time. They also discuss Mike [Espy]'s chances of getting elected and his popularity in the Black community. Dent asks about Brook's opinion on Bannerman and Brooks says he was flawed but effective. Brooks states he "prostituted his position for self-aggrandizement" He loved money and hated poor people." Brooks states Bannerman stayed in Mississippi so he could be a "big fish" and build a domain." He would not have been as well known in NYC or Washington D.C. Brooks states that perhaps the Delta Foundation was a bit too idealistic to be effective. They discuss who wrote the charter documents for the Delta Foundation and Delta Ministry. They discuss the role of the Ministry and the Foundation as separate entities. They discuss MASE's place in relation to other programs.
- Metadata URL:
- https://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/islandora/object/tulane:54103
- Contributing Institution:
- Amistad Research Center
- Rights:
-
