John Holliman is banging the gavel, his face red.
But the sound of the wooden mallet repeatedly landing on the boardroom table, where most supervisors now sit, is barely calming anyone down.
Holliman, acting president of Lowndes County Board of Supervisors and representing District 3, is trying to call for order as the Monday board meeting quickly degenerates into a shouting match, with supervisors Leroy Brooks of District 5, Black, and Harry Sanders of District 1, white, accusing each other of being a “racist.”
The heated argument came after Brooks brought up the issue of board presidency for discussion during the Monday meeting.
The position was vacated June 30 by Sanders, who stepped down as president following his earlier racist remarks that the Black community had remained “dependent” since slavery ended and were the only race that failed to “assimilate” into American society. The comments drew national attention and sparked months of local protests calling for Sanders to resign from the board entirely. Sanders has refused to do so.
After Sanders stepped down as president, Holliman, vice president of the board, became acting president.
Supervisors select their president at their discretion by a simple majority vote. While the position carries no special voting authority, the person holding the position presides over meetings and is widely considered the “face” of the board.
In complaining about the lack of diversity at the head of the table on Monday, Brooks nominated District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith, Black, to the seat. The board has not had a Black president since 2004, when former supervisor Joe Brooks was elected to the position.
“Don’t be on the wrong side of history. Be about fairness,” Brooks said.
However, District 2 Supervisor Trip Hairston said the board needs time to consider the abrupt motion of Brooks’ and should not elect someone solely based on his race.
“I think there’s a lot more to it than just making the decision based on somebody’s skin color,” Hairston said.
Brooks, who also called for a diverse presidency in January, told Hairston the issue is a racial one. He further pushed Hairston and other supervisors on the criteria for electing a president, citing his own education background — a master’s degree in social studies — and 30-plus years serving on the board.
“Well, hell, that’s what’s been going on for 50 years almost,” he said. “Tell me what is it that a man of color has to have to sit at the end of that table. … No one at this board table has the qualifications I have academically or practically.”
Brooks then called out Sanders, who served as the board president for 15 years, as a “damn racist.”
“Harry sat at the board for all these years. Look where he is,” he said. “Being a damn racist.”
Things quickly escalated.
“You are a damn racist,” Brooks shouted at Sanders.
“You are worse than me,” Sanders responded, their voices overlapping.
Brooks later told The Dispatch that Sanders established himself as a racist when he uttered the June remarks in an interview with a Dispatch reporter. Sanders said after Monday’s meeting that Brooks is a racist because he dislikes Sanders for his skin color.
“I think he doesn’t like me because I’m white,” he said. “That makes him a racist.”
Criteria for presidency
When asked about the criteria one needs to meet to become a good president, Holliman said it should be someone with a good relationship with the area industries, adding he has 44 years of experience as a businessman. However, he said during the meeting he was going to yield the position as acting president in January 2021.
“You need to understand how the LINK works, the industry,” he said, referring to The Golden Triangle Development LINK, which leads the region’s industrial recruitment efforts.
Sanders told The Dispatch he thinks it should be someone good at business management and who understands financial statements and budget documents.
“Running the county is like running a business,” he said. “Leroy, or Jeff Smith, has no experience whatsoever on running a business and signing the front of a check instead of the back of a check.”
Hairston told The Dispatch he thinks a president should also know how to manage the relationship between supervisors.
“Somebody that is able to manage the boardroom is important,” he said. “We can have a civil discussion and not have issues.”
Smith told The Dispatch he hopes to adopt a rotation policy, where every one of the supervisors gets to gain experience sitting in the president’s chair. There has been no set criteria, he said, but for the 13 years he has been on the board the votes on the presidency were sometimes split along racial lines.
“Race is a factor in that it’s been voted along racial lines. That makes it a racial issue in itself,” he said.
Divide grows
The heated argument surrounding the issue — which quickly turned into finger pointing and personal attacks — is the latest sign of a divide between supervisors, which worsened in the months following Sanders’ June remarks.
In an on-the-record conversation with The Dispatch on Sept. 15, Sanders doubled down on his comments.
“I’m not so sure that what I said was untrue,” Sanders said. “I’ve been here 21 years on this board, never done anything racial-related at all.”
Over the past four months, protesters who gathered at the courthouse chanting “Harry must go” have now dissipated. But among the supervisors, the protest continues.
Between June 30 — the first board meeting after Sanders made the comments — and Sept. 15, Brooks and Smith abstained from most of the county businesses on the meeting agenda. Of all 141 items on the regular agenda that required action from the supervisors, Brooks abstained 82 times and was absent from the room six times. Smith abstained 83 times.
The pair of supervisors abstained from issues such as county employee’s surety bonds, new hires at county departments and sometimes utility permits and board appointments. However, they voted along with the others on the county’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget, the relocation of the Confederate monument displayed at the courthouse, passing the county’s mask requirements and drafting a COVID-19 policy county employees now follow. They also voted on items concerning communities like Artesia and Crawford, such as the need for storm shelters and the emergency siren project.
Both Brooks and Smith told The Dispatch the abstention is their only way of showing their frustration toward Sanders’ comments. They have a right to cast a vote or refrain from it, they said, and no constituent has complained about their abstention.
“That’s our way of protesting the fact that he’s still sitting there,” Brooks said. “Three votes is more than two, so we have to use whatever we can to let the community know that we are not satisfied.”
Over the past four months, Sanders publicly expressed his disgruntlement of the abstentions during the meetings, arguing Brooks and Smith were only voting on issues concerning their own districts.
“What’s causing more trouble than anything is those two guys sitting back there abstaining from every single vote,” he told The Dispatch on Sept. 15.
Brooks said he does not see another way. Going forward, he said he is not interested in amending his relationship with Sanders.
The future of the morale among supervisors, however, seems murky. None of the supervisors had the answer when asked how they can fix the relationship, or when all supervisors will participate in the votes.
Holliman last week told The Dispatch the abstentions from Brooks and Smith do not affect the morale on the board or the county’s functionality. However, he said the Monday argument between Sanders and Brooks hurts the county.
“Anytime you have this tension (between Sanders and Brooks), it affects the county,” he said. “Our constituents, they don’t like all this arguing and bickering back and forth. And that’s one of the things that, when I got on the board … calmed down until this last ordeal between Harry and Leroy.”
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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