In the world of public service, where meetings, movements, and moments often collide in a blur of urgency, some mothers manage to raise children with both purpose and poise. Betty Blakes is one of them.
A mother of two—Everette and Tisa Blakes—Betty raised her children in a household shaped not just by love, but by legacy. The Blakes name is a familiar one in Monroe’s civic and political circles, linked to decades of public service, civil rights lawsuits, and grassroots mobilization. The name of Alfred Blakes, Ada Blakes are etched in Monroe History and the fight for civil rights.
That legacy forged a different atomoshere for the Women and children who were mothers and civil rights activities at the same time.
For Tisa in was a life living up to the Blakes family name. It meant community service. Ada Blakes’ name is on nearly every civil rights suits in the parish. Her Mother Betty, was a former chairman of the Monroe City Council..
Growing up in that atmosphere wasn’t just about just learning and enjoying family, and having dinner at the table—it was about learning political landscape; how to shake hands, look people in the eye, and ask for their vote.
“My mother was my grandfather’s right hand,” Tisa recalls, referring to Alfred Blakes.
“Everything he knew, he poured into her—and she poured it into us.”
From a young age, Tisa and her brother were exposed to politics and service. They weren’t just spectators—they were participants. Tisa still remembers leaving her college dorm as a freshman at Southern University to attend the governor’s inauguration ball, an invitation made possible by the family’s deep political connections. That event, the re-election of Governor Edwin Edwards in the early 1990s, marked one of many early moments where public life met personal memory pushed and supported by her mom.
At home, Betty raised her children with a distinct blend of discipline, work ethic, and exposure. “I started working at 13,” Tisa says. “We learned how to knock on doors, help people to the polls, study the candidates—the good and the bad. We were taught that we had to be a part of the process.”
Betty’s influence extended beyond politics. She was a woman of deep faith, raised her children in the Antioch Baptist Church, and made prayer a central part of her family’s culture.
“What I’m most proud of,” Tisa says, “is that I know my children know God. Just like I know my mother can say the same.”
But the life of a child in a public service family isn’t without sacrifice. Tisa recalls how, as a child, she longed for quiet holidays with just her family. Instead, she found her home filled with neighbors in need, politicians passing through, and a mother who believed that “we are our brother’s keeper.”
“It used to frustrate me,” she admits. “But now I understand. That giving heart—that’s what shaped me.”
Tisa would go on to run for Congress at the age of 27, one of the youngest to do so in Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District. Now a mother herself, she sees in her own children the same fire, compassion, and service spirit that Betty passed down.
Reflecting on her mother’s legacy, Tisa says it best: “She was a go-getter. A giver. And through it all, even today, she keeps a meek spirit. When everything around her was chaos, my mother was calm. That’s the part of her I treasure most.”
Betty Blakes—not just as a mother of two, but as a quiet force behind a family that helped shape public life, one heart and one handshake at a time.
She balanced mothering time with time to serve others, and now her children and grandchildren are doing the same.
