THE CHILDREN’S ADVOCATE Norman Seawright III

Kenny Gines thinks Greenville can improve, but the community must unite to make it happen.

It is that job, in fact, that drew him into public life. Over time, as he worked with state employees and state government, he became more and more interested in how government works. Finally, when Councilman Bill Burnley died, Gines sat down with his wife to discuss whether to scratch his growing political itch.

“She said, ‘What are you going to do?’” Gines recalled. “And I decided to try to be part of the solution. I just jumped in. Been loving it ever since.”

But it’s not always easy. Controversial votes are inevitable. Not everyone likes every council decision. Gines said the hardest part of his job is knowing that his votes affect someone’s livelihood.

He has served for eight years on the council, working hard, he said, to build bridges to both black and white communities. Now he is running for mayor. He believes he understands the “collective personality” of Greenville and can unite the community to help move it forward. Greenville’s racial problems, he said, are no worse than, say, Tupelo’s.

Gines believes he has proved he can build friendships and respect across racial lines. He was a pallbearer for white businessman Barthell Joseph and white Realtor Robert Cunningham.

Mayor Heather McTeer, who is leaving the mayor’s office to run for Congress, has done a good job, he said. “Knowing the process, she has done very well with the situation she had to tackle in the first place.”

Gines said Greenville needs jobs, but it’s a difficult task in a slumping economy. He blames the city’s loss of jobs in part on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Another problem, he said, is that schools stress college preparation, but the majority of jobs here require only vocational or technical degrees, not four-year degrees. The city needs to look at how it educates and trains people, he said.

Greenville has access to highways, railways and waterways and has proved that companies will come here, Gines said. He cited Leading Edge, which employs workers to spray-paint Boeing aircraft.

“I wish we could get a Nissan or Toyota plant,” Gines said. “That would be just a big shot in the arm for us. But by the same token, we do have companies here that are hiring right now. Leading Edge has openings right now.”

He said better media cooperation also could help the city lure employers.

“News is news. Media can be good or bad,” he said.

Gines wants to highlight the positive aspects of Greenville — not an easy task considering that Greenville’s population has plummeted since 2000. But “there are truly positive things going on in Greenville,” he said, and they need to be publicized.

Gines sees good and bad effects from the lakefront casinos. They create some jobs and provide tax revenue for the city. But in a town where almost a third of the population is poor, many people who go to the casinos are the very ones who cannot afford to go, he said.

Gines’ mother picked and chopped cotton when he was young. She encouraged Gines and his siblings to attend college. His brother went to Alabama, while he and his sister went to Alcorn State. Gines quit Alcorn but later finished at Mississippi Valley State University with a political science degree. His daughter attended public school, and his grandmother, 95, voted for the first time when Gines was running for city council.

Gines said he has not been touched by racism personally. But he said some local leaders lived in the era of segregation and immediately thereafter and remember it well. He suggested that the mind-set of both races needs to change, and dialogue is the best way to deal with remaining prejudice in the community.

“Greenville is a great community,” Gines said. “I was born here, and I plan on dying here and being buried here.”

“I decided to try to be part of the solution. I just jumped in. Been loving it ever since.”

— Kenny Gines

The Children’s Advocate Before arriving here, Whitley was the director of Head Start in Jackson.. As he dashed back and forth across the city, assessing how best to help pre-schoolers, he reached an inescapable conclusion — In recent years, he said, the divisions have become deeper and the lines more clearly defined. It doesn’t help that the gap between the middle class and the poor keeps widening. And it doesn’t help that Cliff Whitley wants to save the children. He’s got his work cut out for him. liff Whitley hustles through the old building on Theobald Street with the lively air of a man with a lot to do and little time to do it. There are kids to be saved, grants to apply for, programs to push. The CEO of the nonprofit Mississippi Action for Community Education (MACE) is determined to help the children of Greenville, but it is no easy task. c BY N OR M AN SE AW R IGHT III parental support is critical to the success of the schools are segregated all over again, young children whether their parents are with white children predominantly going rich or poor. to private schools and black children Head Start – a place where the staff predominantly going to public schools. reads to children, plays with them and He believes public schools in Greenville tries to impart the basics of how to care for were better in his younger days, when themselves and behave – is a good model white and black children went to school for parents to follow, he said. If they will together. There are far fewer whites now. merely copy what Head Start does for their Whitley would like to see public schools children, they will likely become more improved, especially with diversity. He involved in their kids’ lives as a result. believes that increased interaction among More community involvement and better the adults is a good way to bring change. teaching will also help, he said. And that is more likely to happen if they Whitley brought the lessons of his years get to know each other in grade school. at Head Start with him to MACE, whose “It’s painful to see what happens to kids,” programs try to develop leadership in he said. His own daughter attended Mattie some young people and simply save others Aiken Elementary School. from the streets. MACE started a Youthbuild program for He also worries about his community. kids 16 to 24 who are not in school. It aims Greenville, he said, is divided by race. to get them at least a GED diploma and

Cliff Whitley has applied the lessons of Head Start to his work at MACE.

teaches construction skills and leadership. The participants work on homes for those in need and are taught the perils of bad habits and paths to success. Whitley would like to see parents involved more in the education of their children, assisting their children outside of Head Start.

“What I hope to be my legacy here is our leadership development initiative. That’s something that was a foundation of MACE,” he said, referring to MACE’s attempts to develop new community leaders.

Whitley was born in Okolona and grew up in West Point, Mississippi. He comes by his interests in children and race naturally. His mother was a civil rights worker and his father, a United Methodist

NORMAN SEAWRIGHT

minister. They gave him a strong interest in young people and a sense of social justice. He attended Northwestern and Cornell, worked as a clerk for a Chicago judge, could have stayed up north and probably made more money. But he says he always intended to return home and fulfill his life goal of helping someone else in Mississippi.