By Garry Blanson
Every week, “It’s astonishing how history has a way of repeating itself in Ouachita Parish!” Yes, it seems like every other week there’s another example of how a similar event that happened “over 60 years ago” in Ouachita Parish is “currently going on today!” What might I be referring to this time? Glad you asked!
Although many of you have heard about this latest event in Ouachita Parish, involving the removal of thousands of inactive voters, some people may not have ever heard about the “1956 voter purge that occurred in Ouachita Parish.” Although the 1956 purge of registered voters in Ouachita Parish was mainly intended to keep Negroes from voting, it also kept many of the poor white people from voting as well!
Interestingly, it was reported that just like in the “hostile takeover of the Ouachita Parish Multi-Purpose Community Action Program,” which occurred in 1969, the voter purge was initiated by a white Louisiana state senator named Willie Rainach and a group of white separationists, rumored to be connected to the Ku Klux Klan.
By the way, it is said that between 1956 and 1958, the names of approximately 16,000 Negro voters were purged from the voting rolls in Ouachita Parish, not to mention over 6,000 white voters as well! Now, instead of it being called a voter purge, it’s being called an inactive voter list. My, my, my, it’s strange how history seems to keep on repeating itself in Ouachita Parish.
Well, on to this week’s topic! About 50 years ago, Bernie Dayton Robinson saw to it that the Bi-Centennial Committee Report of 1976, “A Historical Record of Blacks in Ouachita Parish,” was completed and published. As a matter of fact, there are currently two copies of the Bi-Centennial Committee Report available for reading, “at the main branch of the Ouachita Parish Library,” located on Stubb’s Ave., in the genealogy department on the first floor.
As I sat down and began to read the report, I was thrilled to find out that within the pages of the Bi-Centennial Committee Report, “the Bi-Centennial Committee documented their findings on many of the outstanding accomplishments and achievements of many of our Black pioneers of Ouachita Parish such as”:
Land owner Burg Jones, for whom Burg Jones Lane and a Monroe Elementary School are named; Mrs. Liller Maddox Marbles and her husband, Herman H. Marbles, who owned Marbles Barbeque; Richard Barrington, the colored founder of the first recorded school for colored children in Monroe; Morris Henry Carroll and his wife Henri-Anna, who owned the Better Homes Realty Company and the Henri-Anna Carroll Beauty School in Monroe; Dr. Raymond O. Pierce, who owned the Pierce Pharmacy, and his daughter Arnetta Pierce Amin, who was the first Negro female pharmacist on record in Ouachita Parish; casket-maker Macieo Dunn; service station owner Joseph Pendleton; business owner Abraham Bowie; contractor and funeral home owners William Medlock and his wife Martha; music teacher Rosalind Saunders; church musician Mattie McClanahan; William Dunn and the Dunn family; Charlie Ballard and the Ballard family, and other interesting facts and information about things that went on in Ouachita Parish between 1869–1969.
Also, thanks to B.D. Robinson and the efforts of the Bi-Centennial Committee, I have been able to write many of my past “Our Rich Black Heritage” articles. In closing, it is my hope that the Black citizens of Monroe and Ouachita Parish will be sure to continue taking advantage of the books, film, and other free resources that the Ouachita Parish Libraries have to offer!
