‘That wasn’t my question:’ Voters seeking answers contend with candidate ‘ego’ at forums
by Molly Minta, Mississippi Today
A baby cried as Gwendolyn Chapman wrote down a question in precise pencil script.
A former mayoral hopeful, Chapman was just another voter Monday night. She’d gone to the candidate forum at the Afrikan Art Gallery, a space for Jackson’s activist community and one of the few surviving businesses on historic Farish Street, historically the center of Black business in the city.
Chapman, 70, wanted to know how the nine candidates who’d shown up would work together after the election to better the city she’s called home for most of her life, even if they didn’t win, she told Mississippi Today. The primary — a faceoff between 12 democratic candidates — will be on April 1.
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But nearly two hours in, Chapman hadn’t gotten much of an answer. Some candidates sounded more invested in the loss of one of their opponents than in their own victory. Even though one of the forum’s organizers, Asinia Lukata Chikuyu, said he’d tried to get the candidates to focus on policies, some kept lobbing insinuations and outright attacks at the others in front of the 50 or so attendees.
Chapman hoped to help bring some clarity. But she couldn’t get the moderator’s attention. Every time she stood up, Eldridge Henderson, a local radio host, would call on someone else. A pole in front of Chapman’s chair blocked her from view.
Finally, she spoke up — loudly. “I have a question,” she announced.
Henderson pointed at a woman to his left. “She’s next and then you,” he said.
The woman mainly directed her question to Chokwe Antar Lumumba, the current mayor whose federal indictment for bribery has left many Jacksonians wondering if he will be able to win a third term. She asked if Lumumba could speak to the city’s broken relationship with the state, which she said has “closed its pockets.”
“Absolutely,” he began. “First of all, if you think that the issue with the state of Mississippi has anything to do with the mayor, not only have you not been following history, you’re falling right into the trap, right?”
No one in the state had an issue with him, Lumumba continued, until he refused to give up the airport and until the city’s gun violence increased, something he said he predicted would happen after the pandemic, which is why he tried to ban open carry via executive order.
“You have to understand there’s a difference between being friendly and being a friend,” he added. “A friend funds things not in campaign season, but for 30 years. Friends support you in that way, right? So that’s a misnomer. And we have to understand that there’s a difference between being a diplomat and a doorman.”
Next to respond was state Sen. John Horhn, a four-time candidate for mayor who some view as Lumumba’s most formidable challenger.
“Our city is broken,” Horhn began. “Just about every department doesn’t function. The police? Maybe. The fire department? Maybe. I don’t like how they did the contract, but the garbage is being picked up. Everything else is dysfunctional. We don’t even have a bond rating, right, because audits haven’t been submitted the way they’re supposed to be submitted—”
Lumumba muttered something about “the council.”
“Can I get 5 seconds back from that interruption?” Horhn asked. He went on to say that he believes that no one trusts the city — not the residents, the county, the state or the federal government, which he claimed took $800 million in funds from the city and gave it to JXN Water, the third-party administrator overseeing the city’s water system, precisely due to a lack of trust.
“That, that’s something I have to directly respond to,” Lumumba said, rising from his chair. “Because that’s not true.”
Henderson and Lukata rushed toward the moderator’s podium, their hands outstretched. “Not right now,” Lukata said. Lumumba sat back down.
It seemed like Chapman’s time. But more candidates kept standing up to answer. The baby babbled.
Socrates Garrett, a local businessman and city contractor, called on divided Jacksonians to come together and march on the state Capitol to expose the state government’s racism. In a response to Horhn, James Hopkins, a community activist who works in retail management, said the city’s current administration is not the reason that Jackson can’t get the state and federal funds it needs.
“When Jackson went Black, the state held back,” Hopkins said. “That’s what we’re dealing with. It has nothing to do with this administration, absolutely nothing.”
Then candidate David Archie, a former Hinds County supervisor, stood up.
“I have to answer this,” he said.
“No, no, gentleman, no,” Henderson pleaded. He pointed at Chapman. It was finally her turn. She stood.
“I’ve really enjoyed this forum,” Chapman said. “This is what I would like to know: The person who do become mayor, of all the candidates that’s sitting there, about how many percent would come together to express their ideas, express their problems, express what’s going on, to support the mayor?
“We need some unity in this community, especially among our nation of people,” she added.
The first to answer, Lumumba rephrased her question.
“The question — hopefully this doesn’t count against my time — the question is, would you be willing to work with everyone else, essentially, right, if you are elected mayor or if you are not elected mayor,” he said.
He went on to name former Jackson Mayor Tony Yarber, who defeated Lumumba in the 2014 special election held to replace Lumumba’s father after he died eight months into his first term. When he lost, Lumumba said he didn’t sulk, instead he stood with Yarber to defend the city’s ownership of the airport. But when Lumumba finally won election in 2017, beating Horhn, Lumumba said the state senator called Jackson voters “fickle” and “uneducated.”
“Clarion Ledger, May 3, 2017,” Lumumba said, urging voters to look up the article that contained those quotes from Horhn.
“Hmm, okay,” Chapman said. “May 3. Alright, May 3.”
Next, candidate and local personal injury attorney Delano Funches said that if he didn’t win, he would continue doing what he’s been doing for the last 10 years — working with Jackson’s youth and trying to reduce crime.
This answer did not satisfy Chapman.
“That wasn’t my question but go ahead,” she said.
Archie said he got his start as a community activist.
“That didn’t answer my question either,” Chapman said. “Just one person answered so far.”
A woman in a floral dress leaned over her chair and whispered to Chapman, “you ain’t gonna get no answer.”
Candidate Albert Wilson, a nonprofit founder and former geometry teacher, went next. In a seeming answer to the question before Chapman’s, he said Thalia Mara Hall wouldn’t be closed for as long as it has been if Jackson were able to adequately maintain its facilities.
“Well, just one person answered my question,” Chapman stated, seeming to no longer care to listen to Wilson, who was still talking. “Nobody answered it yet but one person. So it is egotistical narcissism. No unity in the community. This is a grand example.”
The baby started crying again. More candidates got up.
Garrett said he would be willing to work with everybody, win, lose or draw, because he was an elder with gray hair who could help guide young leaders. Horhn said that over the past 32 years, he has delivered construction projects for every administration, from the Civil Rights Museum to the convention center and the parkway by Jackson State University, but that some of the other candidates have not been as proactive.
“These folks have left the nose of the camel under the tent and now the whole body of the camel is under the tent,” Horhn said.
In response to Lumumba’s shot at him, Horhn said that Jackson voters are “sweet and innocent” but “fickle sometimes in terms of how we pick our folks. And when we hear somebody say ‘free the land, power to the people. When I’m the mayor, you’re the mayor’” — Horhn said, repeating common Lumumba phrases — “do you feel like you’re the mayor? After eight years, is life better for you in Jackson?"
Candidate and construction company owner Marcus Wallace said he thought Chapman’s question was a good one, but he did not directly answer it, instead speaking about times he had worked with past administrations.
The baby wailed even louder. Lumumba and Archie looked at their phones.
Then candidate and retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Tim Henderson, who had introduced himself as “Tim Henderson, the military guy,” stood up.
He spoke somewhat quietly. The easy answer, he said, was yes, but he had learned a lot since announcing his candidacy.
“The elephant in the room on that question is there are cliques in the city,” he said. “There are groups of people in different parts of this city that are making decisions for everybody else in the city and don’t even consult the folks that it affects the most.”
“True,” Wallace said.
“You’ve got to have a leader that recognizes this is the challenge,” Henderson continued. “It’s not going to be easy because there are folks that are dug in in this city.”
That was it. As another voter asked a question, Chapman and her cousin who she’d attended the forum with got up and left.
Outside in the parking lot, Chapman said she thought Lumumba was the only candidate who answered her question. The only reason any of the others were on topic, she said, was because they saw she was applauding Lumumba’s answer.
But the city’s future is more important than any one person, she said.
“They have to see that if the winner, which is the mayor, wins, and the other candidates come together in terms of support, that would bring a lot together,” she said. “It really will.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.