EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth in a four-part series about local African-Americans who have contributed to the community over the years. A story was published each week in February in observance of Black History Month.
In order for African-Americans to know where they are going, Rev. W.C. Tims of Magnolia says they must first know where they came from.
“We need to know what’s going on, how we got to this point, and where we are going from here,” said the 98-year-old Tims, who has pastored two local churches for a half century as well being an educator in Columbia County.
According to Tims, one of the biggest setbacks for African-Americans today is they don’t meet and discuss things like they use to.
“We don’t talk to one another and have meetings about what is going on in our community. There has to be some research and people asking questions,” he explained. “It’s time out for just holding programs, but plans are needed if we really want to push our Black history forward.”
Tims said Blacks must stop being jealous of one another, but work together and support each other.
Living in the Walker Community south of Magnolia, he reflected on a restaurant (Rib House) that was there for several years.
“There were more whites who came there to eat and supported that business than Blacks. I’m afraid the same thing is going on today, where Blacks are not supporting one another,” he added.
Though not born in Columbia County, he said he was partially raised here.
“I had an aunt in the West family and I was over here from Louisiana all the time, even as a child. I remember some great things in this (Walker) community. We had the West Black Sox baseball team and there was a park over there where the 23rd Psalm Cemetery (County Road 30) is right now,” explained Tims, adding the local Black Sox once played the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro League.
He reminisced during a period when people not only communicated with one another, but helped each other by sharing and opening their doors.
“There was no such thing as being hungry or homeless back then. Everyone had food and no one slept outdoors, unless they wanted to. Everyone did some kind of work,” according to Tims.
Regarding education, Tims recalled when he and others met with former SAU President Dr. Harold Brinson about changes needing to take place on that campus. He said Brinson stated he couldn’t share their ideas to the Board of Trustees because they were not organized.
“Y’all don’t meet or write down any of your discussions. Y’all don’t have anything planned. Y’all just talk,” Tims quoted Brinson as saying. “He (president) said we were not even agreeing among each another about what we were asking for.”
Brinson suggested they change their approach, provide some research and agree on the changes they were seeking. The university president said then he could represent the group and take its ideas of change to the board.
“That’s the way you make changes. We don’t have a plan for a lot of stuff today because we don’t meet. Everybody has their own agendas and no one is working together. When we start meeting and bringing in people with the know how, then we can see some things moving,” mentioned Tims.
Whether on the local or national level, the former school principal and longtime minister said Blacks need to start now discussing things that will affect the future.
“We need to start pooling our money and resources so we can hold onto things. With heir property, I don’t know how many acres we have lost. We are going to lose more if we don’t stop the arguing and bickering. The land is going to be picked up, go before the sheriff’s sale and we won’t have any organized group to buy it back,” explained Tims. “Mark my words, if we don’t come together, we are going to lose a great big block of land. More than what we lost earlier.”
Tims said Black history is good, but Blacks only talk about it one month out of a year and really don’t share information that’s important.
“Don’t you know that we (Blacks) were the ones who held the Africans in slavery for the white man,” said Tims, encouraging everyone take a trip to Goree Island in Sengal like he once did. “It was nothing but a prison camp, picking up and holding Blacks while waiting for the ships to come in.”
He has been to South Africa and visited Nelson Mandela’s home as well as toured White (Elimina) Castle in Ghana, place of the transatlantic slave trade. Tims also said Haiti and parts of Jamaica were also “divided” areas.
“The study of Black history is not about all that today. It’s about baseball, basketball and other things along those lines. Blacks themselves are not talking about the real history because they are not doing the research on it,” he mentioned.
He encouraged African-Americans to look farther back than the freedom of slaves in America to get the true meaning of Black history.