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LIMA — Lima 5th Ward Councilman Jamie Dixon sat down with The Lima News recently in recognition of Black History Month.
As one of the youngest members to be on city council how does it feel to follow in the footsteps of the Furl Williams, Frances Napier and all those who fought for civil rights here in Lima that you learned about in school?
Growing up it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that you started hearing those names. First and second grade is when you start to feel or start seeing images of those strong leaders in our community.
Having the honor to stand on the shoulders of individuals like Mr. Furl Williams, Miss Napier, Derry Glenn, Tommy Pitts and Miss Heron, who all were part of the footprints that were laid for African American legislators in the city, is an honor.
It’s not an easy task. You do understand that, being the minority or the youngest council member in the history of Lima, the eyes are always on you, and people wonder what type of new ideas you are going to bring to the table and what change you want to see. Most of all, from my generation, they want to know if you’ll do a great job of representing the voices of the young professionals. For so long the legislative body has been made of the old dogs, who had an established career and was maybe somewhat removed from the community.
Do you feel any added pressure to succeed and keep the door open for others to follow as you represent almost two different traditionally underrepresented in public office, African Americans and the younger generation?
I remember speaking with a reporter, and we were doing a segment on African-American history, and so it might have been about six or seven years ago. And one thing that I mentioned in that article is that we already have two strikes against us African-American men. One being we are male, and two that we are African-American.
When I look back on that article today, some of that still holds true, especially in the culture in the day and age in which we’re living. Looking back, not knowing that we would deal with all of the things that we have to deal with today when it comes to Black Lives Matter, the movement of police reform and all of the racial tension we see in our nation right now. But, when you ask if it is possible to hurt a future hopeful’s chances, I don’t worry about failing. I believe that we can only fail if we’re not really and truly taking the time to listen to the people of which we serve.
Lots of improvements have been made nationally and locally, much work is still needed. What is something you would like to see the council work on in the future?
Moving forward with this council, and to each and every one of my co-councilors, I respect them in the professional realm as well as the private realm of their life. What I would say is one thing that we have to hone in on as a council is if we want to bring more jobs, more economic stability and better health care into our area, we have to continue to hit this housing crisis head-on.
We must make sure we have adequate and stable housing. We also must make sure we follow what’s on the books to get our housing where it should to compete for other companies looking to come into our area.
We have to also work with our school districts to make sure we’re hiring or starting to see some of the diversity that we’re seeing in our city representations. We need to see that in our educational realm of representation. Because I do believe some children do better when they’re being taught by individuals that look like them and can relate to them.
When I was in school, there were a lot of African-American teachers. You had people like Andrea King, Katie Butler, Mrs. Davis, Beverly McCoy and you had Malcolm McCoy. You had all of these African-American teachers or educators in our school systems, so you dare not go to school and think that you’re going to show up and act a fool because you knew that they were someone that looked like you and nine times out of 10 they worshiped where you worshiped, so they had a permanent relationship with other leaders, your aunts, uncles, family members, that was present in your household on a daily so you respected those individuals.
Velma Green is one who I remember from Whittier Elementary who played no games, but she loved you like a mother would love you. She demanded respect for her position and authority. It was because of her I learned my math skills at grade school. It’s things like that, that gets me fired up.
Finally, when we continue to build up this city, we have to remember to build up more than just the downtown. I’m not saying I’m against businesses or I’m against new companies coming into our area, but we cannot continue to invest millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars privately and publicly while our neighborhoods suffer. If our neighborhoods continue to suffer in the capacity in which they are now, then those individuals will not be able to participate in the activities the businesses are bringing into the downtown area.
So, we have to make sure that we are taking care of our neighborhoods, making sure we have adequate lighting, curbs and sidewalks and beautification in our neighborhoods, because ultimately if the neighborhoods do not thrive, our city will not thrive.
Dixon
Reach Joe Gilroy at 567-242-0398 or on Twitter @TLNJoeGilroy.
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