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Peter Noll: February means Black History Month across the nation and right here in West Tennessee.

Hello, I'm Peter Noll.

Today we're talking about the importance, influence and legacy of African Americans in Madison County.

Let the conversation begin.

FEMALE_1: That's so cool.

MALE_1: And then that's when I said that, FEMALE_2: The problem with that idea is, MALE_1: Wow, that was amazing.

FEMALE_3: Then I came up with a solution.

MALE_2: What was that about?

Here's what I think about it.

MALE_1: Now we're talking.

West Tennessee PBS presents, Tennessee is Talking.

Let the conversation begin.

Peter Noll: Welcome to today's show.

We're joined by Harrell C. Carter.

He's the Jackson-Madison County Branch President of the NAACP.

Thank you for joining us.

Harell Carter: Thank you for having me, Peter.

Peter Noll: Very much appreciated.

You have such a vast experience of life from, you're a Vietnam vet, correct?

Harell Carter: But era.

Peter Noll: Era, okay.

You're a veteran.

Harell Carter: Right.

Peter Noll: You're police department.

Harell Carter: Police Department.

Peter Noll: What else have you done?

Harell Carter: I've done a little bit of work with the Public Defender's Office.

I have worked with the University of Washington and attended the University of Washington in Seattle when I lived there.

I have traveled at several places to the Boston area, worked with MIT in the Air Force during my days that I worked for private companies and also did some work in Global France.

So I was there for about a year, that allowed me to see much of what I missed when I was there in Germany for two years when I was in the military.

Peter Noll: It is Black History Month.

What is being done to celebrate the legacy and deep roots?

Of all the places I've lived, I have never lived in a city, in a community that there's such a rich history of African Americans.

Harell Carter: We're all about history because history is one of the things that we cherish and I think unfortunately, we don't teach much of it in our schools.

And most people, as you see today, have no concept about history.

And particularly here in the South, we want to hide it the best way that we can or ignore it, oftentimes to our own peril.

We have opportunities, unlike many other places in the world, to have the type of people that are skill set and we leave so much more on the table.

But we have an opportunity to be the greatest nation in the world, to shine a light on the rest of the world, what we should be like.

Unfortunately, as humans, we've made the same mistake over and over again, and we think that we're progressing, but we're really not.

We have an opportunity during the time of Dr. King's demise when he was assassinated back in April 3rd, 1968.

I remember that day well because I was in the military at the point, and I was at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and attached to 101st Airborne division because we were the next group that had to go in case things had happened.

And thank God that there was some calmness, etc.

But we're still struggling as a nation in order to put all the pieces together.

And one of the things that when I started my career after leaving the service, I eventually joined the Jackson Police Department.

I worked there because I felt like I could do the most good there.

I can help get the bad guys off the streets, and I can help put people back together.

It's a good concept, but it didn't happen to the extent that I thought it could have.

One of the things that happens here in Jackson-Madison County, as well as in the State of Tennessee and the rest of the nation, is that we really don't pick up the pieces, particularly of those human beings that are broken, people that need second and third chances.

We tend to maximize the effort of putting people in difficult position.

I'm one that I like to read and I know that this country has the capacity to feed everyone that's in this country.

We have the capacity to let everyone vote their choices.

We have a tremendous capacity but something gets in the way, and usually, we call that in our work greed.

Usually winds up as fear, ignorance and greed.

And we got too much of that, Peter.

Peter Noll: What would you change to make Black History Month more impactful than it already is?

Harell Carter: Well, it starts out with making sure that every every home we got 57% of families with children here in Jackson-Madison County that's at a below poverty.

During that brief COVID situation where there was some additional income coming in, we lift nearly 50% of children out of poverty.

But since that wasn't reauthorized, then they're going back into that same state.

The thing that I would do is to put all of our emphasis and efforts on our children.

They are our future.

We cannot make a mistake by not investing in them.

There's no such thing as that we don't have the money or the capacity to invest.

No, we choose not to invest.

And that, in this stage of our development and we've never had a full democracy.

I think we've been trying, but we never had a full democracy.

But it's attainable, and the only way it's going to be attainable is for us to come together as a people.

Recognizing that we all are from someplace else.

That we all need to be cared for in certain ways.

Those that have more should give more.

Those who have less, look for opportunities.

But everyone here in this country, when the framers started out, it was a brave idea, revolutionary idea.

It didn't include everybody, didn't include women and include people of color.

But over the period of time, at least some of them were aware that things change and as we go along the way of changing our country for the better, we hope that we recognize that everybody should have a full opportunity of life.

Nobody should go hungry in this country, this world.

Nobody should be lacking the education.

But it seems as though we demonize those things that are often good and we address those things that in terms of fear.

We have too many guns.

The weaponry not only affects law enforcement, but it also obviously affect our families, our neighborhoods, our churches, our schools.

And so when we have representation in our state, local or national level, that put things in harm's way of our children, that's a problem.

And we as adults, we as God-loving people, we as community folks, we need to stand up, have the courage to stand up and say so, that these things are not good for our future growth.

And that's what we should be looking at.

Concentrate on our children, they will be our leaders for tomorrow.

Peter Noll: On scale of 1-10, how is race relations in Madison County,10 being great, one being horrible?

Harell Carter: I would say about three or four.

Peter Noll: How do we make it better?

Harell Carter: How do we make it better?

By start talking with one another.

We all have differences and we all have different points of view.

We all have a different historical significance of what we remember or what we were told and I think, one of the things that Eric Holder, the former US.

Attorney General, said one time, we are a nation of cowards and we are.

Jackson-Madison County Tennessee, we are a local state, nation of cowards because we do not address the issues that's always there, but we choose to ignore it.

We have things that happen, decisions that are made.

We just built a 50 or 60, I don't know how much it costs.

It started out at 43 or $4 million.

I don't think it is over 50 million.

Why?

Because fear.

Harrell Carter: Unfortunately, our criminal justice system is broken.

It needs repairing.

I would look at our education system, our teachers that are leaving, because they can't teach the children the way that they know they need to reach them.

Every child is salvageable.

But if we don't have the time and don't have the right method, and allow teachers to do what teachers do, and professional educators, our superintendents, to do what they need to do, then we'll always have this problem.

I'm scared to be in this neighborhood, I don't like that person, they're wearing a hoodie or they're doing this or doing that.

So we're ignorant to the fact that we have a chance to change a lot of that, but we choose not to.

When I say we choose because if we're not voting and we're not picking the leaders that we have in these positions that makes decisions, then what do we expect?

Peter Noll: What is the NAACP doing for February, Black History Month?

Harrell Carter: Well, we do it all throughout the year, we just put emphasis on it.

We try to bring forth to the general public new people that maybe could address some issues, bring in more knowledgeable people about the different aspects of our city, our county, our nation.

We talk about community effectiveness.

How do we draw people together?

We try to organize our ministers and people of the cloth.

We take a look at our professional organizations and try to encourage them to do what they maximally can do.

We have great people in Jackson-Madison County, and in Tennessee, but we never get outside of the bubble that we find ourselves in because we're afraid of backlash.

What's going to happen to us if we don't?

If we do this what's going to happen to us?

As Dr. King said, it's not so much as what's going to happen to the man if I don't have it, it's about how we're going to react to that.

What's going to happen to him if we don't?

Our children need our support.

Every bit of it.

Right now, it's an attack on public education, just taking books out of our libraries.

We're not putting forth universal preschool.

These are things that we can do.

We highlight our economic prowess about getting companies to come, but at the same time our issues are, we're really concentrating on the wrong thing.

I think it's much better spent activities, one child could make the difference in the world.

How many Dr. Charles Drew, who was able to do blood transfusion?

He was an African American.

He was in a car work and he was hurt and he couldn't get a blood transfusion even though he had invented it.

These are things that the common sense types of approach, the humane type of things that we don't do too well.

Oftentimes those that are in position, they're not saying what I'm saying.

I know I'm not the sharpest tack in the box.

I understand that.

I'm not a no college degree for [inaudible], but I do know this.

If we don't put our emphasis on our young, we're going to keep getting what we're getting and that makes no sense.

To me we're better than this, but we have to be bold enough to address those issues that needs to be addressing right now today, not later on down the road, because we never have enough money to do that but we spend money on things that we shouldn't have.

But those are our decisions.

Then when we make those mistakes, then, well, that's just money.

It's there.

We're better people in that but we need to act like it.

We need to stand up boldly and say what we need to say outright to anyone, and it's okay, we need to talk to one another.

We all have our differences.

I don't agree with me sometimes, but I think things like this have to be said by grown ups who want to make sure that Jackson-Madison County, and State of Tennessee, and this country, become the best that it possibly can be and right now, we're a long way from it.

Peter Noll: Let's play the what if game.

What if you were given a check tomorrow for $10 million to spend any way you want to improve Madison County, where does that $10 million go?

Harrell Carter: Go to an investment of our children.

Peter Noll: How so?

Harrell Carter: Well, we have universal preschool.

We are paying our teachers 65, 70,000 maybe $75,000 a year to start; our law enforcement officers.

I mean, 42, 43,000, you leave home, you never know if you're coming back.

We're already low on those two particular groups right now.

One of the things, the influence is that we have to be able to support those are going to put all of their goodness and all of that knowledge into our children.

Because if we don't, you talk about AI.

Listen, AI will figure out real quickly that we're ineffective.

We're no longer needed.

But we have an opportunity to really to address poverty in this country, in this city, this county, and to fix the hungry.

We got homelessness, we got all of those issues.

Now everybody is aware of it and we have a few centers to take care of that and we can feed people on Thanksgiving and Christmas, primarily, we got those that provide places for those who are homeless and mentally ill, for example.

These are things that are fixable, but we need money.

So I would take that $10 million and spread it out as much as I could to try to make sure that at least this group of people in that particular day and time will have an opportunity and a chance to prosper.

I think investing, and I think there was a study that was done for every dollar we put into education a child, we're going to get three or $4 back.

But we don't think like that.

We think that we need to have all of these folks locked up and we got the most brilliant people I've ever known some of the ones that are locked up.

They were brilliant.

They just went in the wrong path because that was the only path that was given to them.

But we throw away talent every day, and most of our children, unfortunately, don't get out of grade school.

Peter Noll: Black History.

Who stands out in your mind?

Local people that really had an impact.

Harrell Carter: Samuel McElwee.

Peter Noll: Tell us about him.

Harrell Carter: Samuel McElwee was the first black state representative from the state of Tennessee after the Civil War.

He was elected in 1882 from Madison County.

He was able to go to the state legislature, but he was not able to sit in the state legislature.

Shortly after that, in the 1880s, Grant, I think he was either president or had just left office and then of course, we had Andrew Johnson that took Lincoln's place and that was a disaster.

He was the first one that was ever impeached, but he escaped that by one vote and that's because I think he had brother-in-law here in Tennessee that was one of the senators.

But I think that when we look at that period of time, it was awesome to have black men to step up.

Remember it wasn't black women, black men stepped up because women wasn't allowed.

Black or white.

So he got put into that space and he was very vocal.

People were respectful of him.

In fact, they even suggested small group that he be speaker of the house, but he never was given that chance.

I had a chance to visit the State Capitol years ago and I was looking for their photographs and their pictures and I found him in the basement.

But he left in 1888 because he was getting harassed, I think people had stolen some of the family's land and he became sickly and stuff.

I think he moved to Chicago and finished out the rest of his life.

But those are people that I respect because they were brave enough to say, I'll go.

It's just like in the military, we fought in the military in 1863 as far as the 61st US Colored Infantry.

There was a group of former slaves, that was able to band together to create an armed group.

They fought the Nathan Bedford Forrest troop.

The Nathan Bedford Forrest troop tried to retake Memphis.

They fought in Alabama and I think went on to [inaudible] , Florida to fight in there before they were disbanded in 1865.

You've had other folks, these are the earlier folks that was here, Bishop Isaac Lane, Delphis Lane bought his mother off a slave ship in Memphis in 1818, and he was born in 1832.

He became a bishop in the CME church and he was able to, along with other bishops, to create colleges.

They created about four colleges in this country; Lane College, here being one of them.

There's so many other people I can go back and to name my teachers that I had for first grade.

I went to Catholic school here in Jackson with what they call St. Joseph at the time that was built in 1916.

Now, that's not when I went to school but I was right behind it.

But I think that Jackson-Madison County, Tennessee, history is rich, it's also sad.

There was a lot of hangings going on.

Ida B.

Wells visited Jackson one time.

She lost a court case here at one time.

I think that was in 1892 or something like that.

But a lot of history here that we don't know because we don't teach it.

Most people don't know their history.

Jackson-Madison County is no different, black or white, we don't know history.

Peter Noll: If somebody said, I want to learn about Black History that I wasn't taught in school, where would you suggest they go?

Who would you suggest they talk to?

Harrell Carter: Well, there's a few books that are written.

One of those books, I think I talked to his grandson a few months back.

A gentleman by the name of, think of his name.

Name escapes me right now, but there's a few books if you can find them.

There's also the state archives that has a lot of information in it, I know that our organization, the NAACP, was chartered back in 1920.

There was doing the Red Summers, they call them.

There was riots going everywhere all over the country and that was during the time of yellow fever or something as well, World War I was ending.

There was a lot going on.

Then there was a great migration to the North during that period of time.

But when you take a look at the history during, our state archives, the county governments have records as well.

We're still finding records of where people in Jackson-Madison County sold black folks to other folks.

Having a will to give to other folks for a price, $500 here, $400 here.

We have the pieces together.

Most of the history that Jackson knows has somewhat been canned and that's why I say nobody really knows.

We have several groups now that are working on that behalf.

Peter Noll: What groups are those?

Harrell Carter: Well, our group for one.

We have a history committee that we're looking at those things, I think there's a few other people in the town here that's also looking at that.

Jackson is a unique place, if we found the right history.

We had a bicentennial about a year ago.

It was 1822 when we started and of course Madison County at that time, which is named after James Madison, the president, Jackson's named after Andrew Jackson.

He had I think a sister or something that lived here at the time and he was a great hero of the War of 1812, so they thought about it.

But Haywood County was a part of Madison County.

Madison County was one of the largest counties, if not the largest, in the state of Tennessee when it was put together in 1796, I believe.

Peter Noll: Haywood broke off then or they were separated?

Harrell Carter: Willingly.

They gave Haywood County, I can't think of the general name, named Haywood, but they gave them part of Madison County.

But this during the time have slavery, King Cotton was king.

Traded on the New York Stock Exchange to the extent that New York wanted to secede with the Union and the state said no, you're not going to do that, because they was making so much money.

I think it was three out of four whites had a slave or access to a slave during that period of time.

There was a lot of hangings on the courthouse square.

That was only ones that we could prove was the two, I believe, and Mr. Brown, and of course, another Elijah Woods was the other one.

But there was a lot of stuff that was going on in that history, but there's pieces everywhere; we just need to put them all together.

So far no one has been able to do that, and we're trying to do that.

Peter Noll: If you had to give the county a grade on how we are celebrating black history and how we've been doing it recently, what grade do you give Madison County?

Harrell Carter: I would say a three or four.

Because even though we're conscious of black history, most people, we look at the statue of the Confederate soldier at the courthouse.

To those that know history, that statue represents a lot of pain, a lot of rape, a lot of misery.

It's what it represents.

We know how it started, it was erected.

I think it started in 1882, I think they erected in 1884.

Thee lost cause.

It was about states rights.

No, it's about slavery.

For anyone to say otherwise is fooling themselves or they just telling a lie.

Those remnants of that still is here today.

We don't want to recognize, we don't even want to tell our children their own history.

Some of them are wise enough to research and know a little bit more, but for the most part, we don't know history.

Until we recognize one and the other as full blooded human beings.

Then we can change a lot of stuff that the County Commission does, change a lot of stuff that a lot of people here in this county, this city, that has the power to do stuff but won't do it because they're afraid to.

They don't want to go against the norm.

We don't want to be in the wrong circles.

We got our family heritage to-- present day people were not there during the slaves, they never owned the slave, but they're living off the residuals but they can't understand that.

Peter Noll: Do you think today's especially youth culture is not as involved in the movement towards better relations and equality as they were back in MLK's day.

Harrell Carter: Well, misnomer is that back in MLK day it was new, it was fresh.

They built their movement off of the Pullman Car Porters movement out of the 1840s to threes and fours.

Young people got involved because they were tired of it.

But we have to remember those, just a small amount of people, even though they had large crowds, it was still small.

Most black churches didn't want Dr. King in their pulpit because he was too radical.

There was a few white evangelical folks that went to his aid.

But like the letters from the Birmingham jails that was trying to say, Martin, you're moving too fast.

As he says, it's always the right time to do the right thing.

But unfortunately, most people, again, they step back and they're afraid to say what needs to be said.

I applaud those that put themselves out there, of the whites that do that.

But still, whiteness is a construct; it's not anything that's made automatically, we made that up, but it served a purpose.

But for those that step out there, which is very, very few, I applaud them, but this is where all of us need to go.

We don't have to agree on everything, but they're just certain things in accordance with we say that we're religious needs to do, but white preachers are not talking about it in their places for the most part.

Some of them get thrown out if they do.

Even though it's talked about in our churches as they say we pray about it, but then we'd have to be about it.

That's a problem, most people don't.

Peter Noll: Well, it's certainly, as you said, black history is not just once a month.

Harrell Carter: Not just once a month it's all day, every day 24/7.

Peter Noll: Work to do and a lot more to learn.

Our time is up, but we look forward to having you back.

Tennessee is Talking.

Harrell thank you so much for joining us Carter.

Harrell Carter: Thank you.

Appreciate having you.

Peter Noll: Appreciate it.

Harrell Carter: Welcome to your new home.

Peter Noll: Thank you.

Thank you.

We love being in Jackson.

We do indeed.

Remember, you can stream today's show and all of our local shows for free on the PBS app, the West Tennessee PBS YouTube channel, and of course on westtnpbs.org.

I'm Peter Noll.

Until our next conversation take care and thank you for watching West Tennessee PBS's Tennessee Is Talking.

MALE_3: This program you've been watching was made possible through the generous financial support of West Tennessee PBS viewers like you please visit westtnpbs.org and make a donation today so that we can continue to make local programs like this possible.

Thank you.

FEMALE_4: It's all about home.