“Why I Do What I Do”
UAPB Men’s Luncheon
02/06/07
Going into my third year as Mayor of Pine Bluff, people are still interested in why I accepted the challenge – the responsibility – of this office. I have no reservations in telling you I did it out of pride.
Yes, I’m proud of my personal, professional and public accomplishments and believe that pride, ego, self-respect – whatever else you might want to call it – is one key that fits the lock to the door to success. That holds true not only for politicians, but for people in any occupation and any walk of life.
But the pride I’m talking about is not entirely the same kind of pride that some of you are probably thinking about. I’m talking about a larger sense of pride, not of selfishness. This larger sense of pride means that I’m thinking not only of myself, my loved ones and my possession, but also of my neighbors and my community. We all impact each other and we should all strive to a person that our community can be proud of.
You here today are such people. You’ve completed high school and are part of a select few in this nation who enjoy the opportunity to continue your education at a higher level. Your family and community have rested their faith and hope on you to take that education and the pride that education engenders in you and do something in this community for this community.
You’ll find out that when you do that – when you take your responsibilities to God, yourself, your family and your community head on – not only will the community benefit, but so will you.
As Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, once stated, “If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.”
I ran for mayor because I have memories of Pine Bluff from my youth that do not match the realities of Pine Bluff in 2007.
Now, some of those memories are not good one, but the very fact that I stand before you as mayor of this city shows that in some respects Pine Bluff has changed for the better.
Other memories, however, are of people, places and events that define a cherished community in stark contrast to the crime, drugs, loss of population, deterioration and selfishness that threaten to pull us apart today. In many respects Pine Bluff, like other cities, still has its challenges and room for improvement.
Those memories stirred in me a sense of my own responsibility to the community that nurtured and defined me. So, I want the new Pine Bluff in which someone that looks like me can be mayor, and I want the old Pine Bluff in which there was a shared pride and a sense of community that made us a leader among Arkansas’ prominent cities.
It is this desire that Pine Bluffians have their cake and eat it too – that we take the best from the old and the new Pine Bluff – that informs my every decision and action as mayor. That, gentlemen, is why I do what I do.
While public safety, education, and economic development in our city are obviously essential to a positive future, that future ultimately depends on the immediate cultivation of individual and community pride,
The positive development of Pine Bluff into a safe and successful city, then, depends upon the positive development of pride among Pine Bluffians.
I also want to point out that it is only fitting that I speak to you on this subject today at this distinguished university, the home of the Golden Lions, because – help me out, here – what’s the word for a community of lions?
That’s right…PRIDE.
So, I hope you will join me in making the installation of pride in ourselves and in other Pine Bluffians our personal mission, one that will open that door of success that leads to Pine Bluff’s future. Thank you.