Jackson Free Press

This open letter came late on runoff night. We are reposting it verbatim. Send other "open letter" submissions (up to 1,000 words with verifiable facts and respectful tone) to [email protected].

Dear Mr. Lumumba,

We are a white couple in our early 30s that live in Ward Seven who did not vote for you. That said, congratulations on winning the Democratic primary for the Jackson mayoral election tonight. While many people in town are celebrating with you, there are many people who have many fears about the next four years.

• What is going to happen with the infrastructure issues of Jackson in all wards? (Will the large sinkhole on Old Canton Road ever get fixed?)

• Will you be fair towards advancing all wards of Jackson and uniting the city?

• Will the public schools in our area be the best (or even a good) educational option for our children?

• Will economic growth be encouraged in all wards?

• Will there be a continued (or even an increase) in wealth and opportunities leaving the city out of fear and uncertainty?

• Will crime increase in the city?

Should you be elected mayor, we—and many other Ward 1 and Ward 7 residents—would like to work with you to help achieve solution to these long-standing issues facing Jacksonians.

We have chosen to raise our family in Jackson and consciously make every effort to support local businesses and restaurants. We have been extremely saddened to hear of businesses moving out of Jackson city limits and into surrounding cities. Our hope is that others will make a similar commitment to support Jackson. However, on paper, we realize that it does not make sense for us to live in Jackson.

• Our property taxes and car tags are significantly higher than other cities in the metro area.

• With businesses moving out of Jackson, it is often difficult to not give sales tax money to other cities in the metro area. (Once Sam's Club leaves its current location, should we go to the new Madison store or the one in Pearl? We want to keep our sales tax money here, but these are the real decisions we face.)

• The crime rate and perception of Jackson intimidates many of our friends/family who don’t feel comfortable coming to our house at night.

• We don’t feel like we can send our kids to their assigned elementary school as it is a “failing” school with a level 2 rating without a multi-racial environment.

• Our roads and pipes are crumbling.

But we love it here. We love our neighbors. We love the local restaurants. We love the festivals/events. We love our church. We love the future that we believe Jackson can have.

We chose to live here to be part of a movement … moving Jackson forward. We don’t want to leave the city. So, how can we partner together, with you to help Jackson—all of Jackson?

Together, I hope we can make …

The campaign to elect City Councilman Chokwe Lumumba as mayor announced several endorsements from key city leaders Friday morning in front of City Hall.

Among the endorsements Lumumba received were State Representatives Earl Banks and Jim Evans and District 5 Hinds County Supervisor Kenneth Stokes and his wife, Ward 3 City Councilwoman LaRita Cooper Stokes. Former mayoral candidate Regina Quinn, who endorsed Lumumba through a press release earlier this week, was there to back up her reasons for endorsing the one-term Ward 2 Councilman for mayor.

"I'm here to strongly endorse Chokwe Lumumba to be our next mayor," Quinn said, adding that she came to her decision after "serious thought." Quinn cited a past Clarion-Ledger story that revealed that women in Jackson were being paid, on average, 73 percent of their male counterparts were for the same job.

As she said in her press release, Quinn stated she thinks Lumumba is the only candidate who will take swift action to correct what she called a "sad situation" in terms of women's pay.

After Banks and Evans pledged their support for Lumumba, Kenneth Stokes, speaking on his behalf and for his wife, who was in Chicago on Friday, took an opportunity to defend his candidate against some of the attack ads launched by his opponent in the May 21 runoff, Jonathan Lee.

The ad shows Chokwe Lumumba making a speech on Feb. 13, 2009, at what looks like a book store, where the candidate talked openly about the police, religion and the Democratic Party. The ad uses Lumumba's own words to lead viewers to believe that Lumumba doesn't like police, isn't a "Barack Obama Democrat" and doesn't believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

"(The accusations against Lumumba are) just nonsense coming out of evil people's mouths," Stokes said. "Chokwe has done more work with young people in this community, coaching basketball and mentoring them, showing them there's a better way to live. As Charles Tisdale would have said, Chokwe is a man among men. He's the type of leader who won't back down. This is Jack-town, and we need a man. I'll repeat it in case somebody didn't hear me - We need a man."

Lumumba has already said publicly that the clips from the video featured in the ad were taken out of context, that he has always supported the Jackson Police Department and that if voters watched the full video, they would see he wasn't implying what the ad infers.

Stokes finished his statement by saying he didn't intend to cuss, but that the Jackson Free Press "can kiss my ass!" He made this point with emphasis to a round of laughter from the assembled city leaders behind him. When asked after the press conference why he made the statement, Stokes said he said it because the JFP should have endorsed Lumumba, but did not elaborate more on the record. The Jackson Free Press has not endorsed a mayoral candidate for the runoff.

Lumumba concluded the …