Monroe Mayor Friday Ellis wants to do what no other mayor in the city’s history has done. He wants to remove the historical stigmas that divide Monroe’s Northside and Southside communities.
That is a noble but daunting task because the Northside/Southside divide in Monroe is both a race and class issue.
It’s a class issue because historically, Monroe’s elite has viewed South Monroe scornfully as the domain of immigrants, poverty, and ignorance.
In South Monroe, African-Americans and whites, mostly Italians, often lived in the same neighborhoods, even the same streets. The Southside was peppered with Italian owned bars, bakeries, grocery stores, and fruit stands. They were immigrants from Sicily, who, like blacks, were rejected socially.
The Italians supported each other’s businesses and formed “Little Italy” and peppered South Monroe with businesses and residences clustered mainly in the downtown area, including the site of Monroe’s present Civic complex.
Blacks did the same. There was a thriving Black business district along DeSiard Street and a growing professional class that began in the 1930s and blossomed right alongside the Italians.
Italians and Blacks had one thing in common; those in North Monroe did not view them as equals.
Italians, although despised as immigrants, had one advantage over Blacks; they were white. They were viewed as a lower class of white, but they were still white. It was a tremendous difference.
The “Southside” was synonymous with “low class,” regardless of ethnicity. Many whites suffered the “stigma” of living on the Southside. Having amassed sufficient resources, many whites moved, and today, African-Americans mostly populate the Southside.
The stigma remains because South Monroe is associated with failing schools, high crime, and a lower quality of life.
Friday Ellis wants to eliminate the “stigma” attached to Monroe’s Southside; that’s a mouthful.
Monroe Mayor W.L. Howard worked to improve the conditions in South Monroe and took the first steps toward abolishing segregation, but the stigma remained.
Both Mayor Ralph Troy and Bob Powell addressed social inequities and involved blacks in government, but the stigma remained.
Mayor Abe Pierce tried to advance the idea of brotherhood, and his administration pushed a “Together we can work it out,” theme. He was followed by Melvin Rambin, who died a year into his term, both Pierce and Rambin left the “stigma” untouched.
Removing the stigma was not a priority of the Jamie Mayo years, blacks had many faces in government, but the stigma remained.
Mayor Ellis’ task is formidable. It means shifting housing patterns, reducing crime, and generally changing the quality of life in South Monroe so much that it is viewed as a warm, friendly, safe place to live and do business.
It means building safe quality neighborhoods with access to shopping, recreation, and commerce in South Monroe. It means thousands of First Friday “conversations” in churches, shops, and coffee houses, to communicate with and appreciate our differences and to dream together.
If Mayor Ellis can begin conversations, actions, and programs that effectively remove the “stigma” that divides us, he will accomplish what no other mayor has ever done.
We shall see.
