E-mail a friendMayor James Young
airdate July 8, 2009
This month, James Young becomes the first African American mayor of Philadelphia, MS, which has the distinction of being the city where three young civil rights workers were murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan in '64. Young was one of the first Black students to integrate the city's schools. After high school, he worked his way up from hospital housekeeper to EMT unit director, which ultimately led to his first election win as county supervisor in '91. He's also a Pentecostal minister.
Philadelphia, MS mayor comments on the issues his city faces and reflects on his personal journey into politics. (2:18)
Full interview. (11:54)
Mayor James Young
Tavis: Last week James Young was sworn in as the mayor of Philadelphia, Mississippi. He is the first African American to lead the city infamously known for the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers, Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney.
He joins us tonight from Meridian. Mayor Young, congratulations. Nice to have you on, sir.
Mayor James Young: Thank you, sir. Thank you for having me.
Tavis: Tell me about your race for mayor. Tell me about the campaign.
Young: A typical campaign, from my standpoint. I've already been involved in politics previous. We hit the streets, door-to-door, probably about 90 percent of Philadelphia. We covered red, yellow, Black community. We went door-to-door, face-to-face, telling them our program.
We did it for weeks. We started early, in August of '08. I felt like I needed to start early because I was surely the underdog. (Laughter)
Tavis: Tell me about the city of Philadelphia. You just now intimated that it is a diverse community. Give me the breakdown - what's the city of Philadelphia like these days in terms of ethnic mix?
Young: We're probably 55 percent White, 41, 42 percent Black, 3 to 4 percent Asian, and the other percentage of American Indian.
Tavis: So how does, then, one become the first Black mayor of this city with a still majority White population?
Young: A lot of hard work. I've worked in the community now for about over 30 years. They knew me, they knew my reputation, and I believe I had a good platform. And they wanted change, and there was a lot of first-time voters. All of those pieces made this puzzle come together.
Tavis: There are so many key moments in your city's history, but there are two I want to talk about tonight and get your sense of where you were when these events took place and what your thoughts were about it then.
The first and the obvious is the murders of these three civil rights workers, Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney. One cannot read American history, or African American history, certainly, one cannot talk about how this country survived the era of segregation and Jim Crow without knowing about these three civil rights workers - again, Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney - who were brutally murdered in Mississippi. How old were you then, when these murders took place?
Young: I was about nine years old at that time.
Tavis: So you were born and raised in Philadelphia, yes?
Young: Born and raised in Philadelphia.
Tavis: So what do you recall about - or do you recall being nine years old when these murders took place, and what do you recall about the years shortly thereafter?
Young: My parents pretty much kept us aware of what was going on. The voter movement was taking place, they was talking about people coming to help register people to the vote, people to vote. Klan activity was fairly open at that time, and I can remember one particular time during that season of laying on the floor with my father, with him having a gun, just because we were told that maybe the Klan would be riding through the community.
That's such a contrast to where we are today in Philadelphia, Mississippi. I owe who I am and what I am and the accomplishments that we have accomplished from those guys who lost their lives to come to Philadelphia. I will never forget, I cannot forget their sacrifice and I am humbly serving in this position because of them and people like them.
Tavis: How much of that horrific incident, though, is still a stain on the city of Philadelphia? And I say stain - I mean how much of it is a burden that people still feel?
When you go to Memphis - I was just there not long ago, and every time I go there I am still amazed at the number of people in that city and the mood of the city in certain communities, people still embarrassed, still humiliated, still disappointed, still hurt and angry about the fact that this happened to be the city where Dr. King was assassinated.
You go to Dallas and there's certain parts of Dallas, if you talk to folk who've been around for a while the city of Dallas can never move beyond the fact that JFK was shot in Dallas.
So what kind of burden does the city still feel or bear, if any, given that these murders took place there during the civil rights era.
Young: That history will be forever etched in our memory. Deep wounds you never - you heal, but you never forget the scars, and I think Philadelphia's in that mode right now.
We never forget the scars. History won't let us forget it, we won't let us forget it, but also we've healed, we are healing. My election is a signal that healing is taking place in the South, in Philadelphia, and in the state of Mississippi. The significance of it is that I received votes from all the communities - White, Black, everybody.
So the change of heart, the change of mind, the movement to move forward - can we forget the scars? No. Every time we read about it, every time we think about civil rights movement these three names come up. That's a scar. That may be what you call the stain.
But are we going to stumble on the stain? We're not. We're going to move forward. We're going to try to make sure that things of that nature doesn't happen again. Our whole nation is basically under a stain of racism, but we're moving forward. The election of our president sent messages throughout the world that the United States is changing.
Philadelphia sent a message to the state of Mississippi and to the nation that Philadelphia is changing. So I am pleased to be a part of this new revolution of change that we are experiencing today. Shall we forget the past? No. Don't want to forget it, because if you forget it sometimes you make the same mistakes again.
Tavis: I want to come back to that notion of change and what your platform was and what life is like in Philadelphia and what you intend to do as mayor. I want to get to all that in just a second here.
Before I do that, that other historical moment that I said I wanted to ask you about, so the first were the murders of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney, the second, though, for those of us - and I wasn't around when Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney were murdered, but I was certainly around when Ronald Reagan decided to come to Mississippi, to Philadelphia, Mississippi, to announce that he was running for president.
I'm in California right now, where Ronald Reagan was once a governor. Why he chose to leave California and go all the way to Mississippi, to Philadelphia, Mississippi, where Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney were murdered, to announce that he was running for the White House, startled, upset a whole lot of people, and we know what it was now in retrospect; we knew what it was then.
It was a tip of the hat to this notion of state's rights. Some believe that Ronald Reagan was all kind of wrong to have gone to Philadelphia to make that announcement, again, tipping his hat to those Southerners on this issue of state's rights.
He went on to win, he won two terms, and in the minds of many people he's an iconic president now. But tell me about where you were then when Reagan came to announce he was running and whether or not you were already involved in politics at that time.
Young: I was working as a paramedic. Matter of fact, I was there on the fairgrounds when Mr. Reagan and family came to Philadelphia. I witnessed the crowds; I was checked by the CIA and the Secret Service, so I was a paramedic, EMT at that time, serving as safety and emergency coordinator of Neshoba County.
I remember the crowds, I remember the atmosphere then, and that particular move paid off for him. Again, the message was sent that we kind of have a sympathizer, maybe, in the Southern theatrics of things, in politics, but evolving from that to where we are today is again another testament of change that Philadelphia and Mississippi is evolving into.
Tavis: So tell me finally then about that change, what you intend to do as mayor, and what the challenges are in Philadelphia these days.
Young: The challenges in Philadelphia are just like many other cities' - economic development is a part that we're striving to accomplish. One of my campaign promises was to step outside the box and look to the solar, the energy conservation manufacturing areas.
And also, that arena is what the president and the Congress are funding now, funding these projects. We want to be in the forefront of that. Even in small-town Philadelphia our mind-set is to the future. Also, community policing where police and community work together and not against each other. Our healthcare system, we need to fix it.
We have an aging hospital that I have got my start in. Basically I started off as a floor-sweeper there at the hospital and was given an opportunity to move forward and to become what I am today, so I got a lot of heart, I got a lot of roots in the things that I pushed during my campaign, and I tried to be as sincere as possible.
My heart is in Philadelphia. I love Philadelphia. That may be kind of strange coming from me, but I love it. I was born and raised there, my parents were born and raised there, and I just wanted to be a part of the change. And to me, to even imagine me being mayor today was - it's just fantastic. I am - I'm just totally humbled by this opportunity.
I told one of my classmates, who would have thought that a little country boy like me would now become the leader of our community and our city and just be where I am? I had an opportunity to go to L.A. this past weekend, and it was just special.
So I am enjoying this honeymoon, but as we say, all honeymoons must end and we get down to the business of leading our community.
Tavis: Well, it's a great story and I am honored to have you on. As one who was born in the state of Mississippi it is for me a special pride to have you on this program to celebrate your being the first African American mayor of this historic city in the canon of this country, Philadelphia, Mississippi.
His name is James Young; we call him now the mayor. Mayor Young, nice to have you on, sir. Congratulations and all the best to you.
Young: Thank you, sir, and you all have a blessed day.
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