Rise for Equality: A Community Awakening in Paragould

By: Rob Ellington

How did the election make you feel about your community?

My friend Kokayi visited back in November. He’s vegetarian. Well, basically. We needed food because I have meat primarily at my house. As we walked up, the two men hosting the table asked us to make a donation. Neither one of us had any cash. Who carries cash nowadays? All my money is on my card. The men assured us they would take canned goods. “Non-perishable items” is what they said, I think.

That’s all they needed to say. Apparently, Kokayi used to work for the Food Bank of Alaska. He has a soft spot in his heart for community organizers. So, without missing a beat, he forgot about his own groceries and started shopping for this food drive. He spent about $30. Normally, I would have just purchased a couple of extra cans of vegetables or something, but the knowledgeable focus with which his generosity picked over specific food items inspired me to purchase a few items I remembered that food drives often need and don't get. So, that made me feel kind of good about having him in town. Being able to help our community is always a blessing.

That good feeling I’m talking about changed while taking him to the Bar-Be-Que Shack to get some catfish. (Kokayi eats fish, like Bob Marley, he says.) I felt a pit in my stomach when we passed a Trump billboard sign hanging on the overpass. A stark reminder that a "funny name" or a different accent can have an extraordinarily unpleasant reception from the wrong person in the wrong mood.

I felt that same pit in my stomach when a big Black man brought out the food from the kitchen and Kokayi took the bag. Both of them smiled at each other—like they shared a bond. A bond of being Black in Paragould. I know he saw it on my face. They probably both did.

Here’s my question. With the election behind us and a new President who is regarded as openly racist by nearly half of the country, what’s next?

I live here. I grew up not far away in a neighboring little town. Paragould is “white.” Yes, there are some Black people who live here. Yes, there are some Hispanic and Latino people who live here. Yes, there are some Indian, Middle-Eastern, and East-Asian people who live here. Walking with Kokayi through Wal-Mart and seeing the diversity in the parking lot and store aisles made my heart swell. It looks like progress. Like, maybe he could feel safe here. But the Trump billboard really made me have to stop and consider just how white Paragould is—90%. Nine out of ten people who live here are white.

It makes me wonder what we will do now that the election is over. After all this division and the way Trump has branded himself… Most of the people I know in Paragould are just that—good people. Some are nice. Some are mean. And it really matters what kind of day they are having if they are mean or nice to you when they see you. It has never mattered to me that they were “white” until this damn election.

It didn’t matter to Kokayi that it was two older white men at a table outside of a grocery store he’d never been to. All he saw was two grandpas trying to feed the people in Paragould. If Kokayi finds out those grandpas voted for Trump, how is that supposed to make him feel?

Hell, how is that supposed to make me feel? I want Kokayi to feel safe when he comes back in February. He is a damn good historian who can talk to the students at A-State, GCT, or Paragould High School. And most of the people I know here are “safe” for my Black friend from halfway across the country to be around, despite what a Google search will tell Kokayi. We welcome educators. Heck! We're the only state in the delta that set a minimum salary for teachers that is high enough that they could buy a house here in Paragould, like my daughter just did in December (proud Dad moment)!

So, how do we do this? How do we communicate, here in Paragould, that we are “safe” and that we don’t harbor hatred and enmity for people who don’t look like us or don’t sound like us? How do we welcome them into the community?

I mean, I get that it's hard to show people from hundreds of miles away, like Kokayi, that it's safe for everyone to live here when there aren't many people who look like him to have testimony from. Trump won, and the next day most people we met at local businesses were in good spirits, even reveling in it sometimes. So I knew there wouldn’t be any real threat of racial violence directed at Kokayi, as long as he didn’t “start arguing” with someone who was celebrating Trump’s victory. But if Harris had won the election while my friend was visiting, could I have taken him grocery shopping Wednesday morning and felt like he would be safe? I believe I could have, but I don’t know.

How do we show that I could have? How do we show everyone that we do not want racism, fear, and hatred to be the Google face of our bright little community? How do we be a beacon through the shadow that has been cast over us?

This is just a question. I’m tired of this election. What’s next?