Reputation hurting Harrison, mayor says

— Harrison Mayor Jeff Crockett said Tuesday that the city’s economy and school district have suffered because the community is perceived as bigoted. Crockett spoke at Philander Smith College at the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission’s Day of Service Celebratory and Service Component in honor of King’s birthday.

“We are making changes,” Crockett said in regard to how the community is viewed. “If we sit back and do nothing, we are enabling their actions and empowering them.”

Since the late 1980s, the nation’s largest group of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan has had headquarters outside Harrison, according to a Nov. 2 Carroll County News article.

Crockett was quick to clarify in his speech that the “hate group” — never referring to it as the KKK — was 16 miles outside Harrison in Zinc, a small community in Boone County.

“How can anyone profess to be a Christian while harboring hate for their fellow man?” Crockett said in reference to the KKK. However, Crockett said he cannot work to “abolish” the group because everyone is entitled to equal rights under the Constitution.

Until Crockett took the helm as mayor in 2010, he said he did not realize that businesses were shying away from the city and students were being viewed as racially prejudiced just because they lived in Harrison.

“I knew we didn’t have many people of color living or visiting our community,” Crockett said.

In 2012, the King commission allowed Harrison to host its annual Nonviolent Youth Summit to aid in the mayor’s mission to break the city’s negative reputation.

“This is a man who became outraged,” by the city’s reputation, said DuShun Scarbrough, the commission’s executive director. “He’s had threats and even lost friends,” for his stance.

In 2003, the Harrison Task Force on Race Relations was created to make sure everyone could “live, work and worship” in the city without fear, said task force President Patty Methvin. Members from the task force and students from the Harrison High School Diversity Council attended the program.

“I know many of you heard the rumors about Harrison ... I know there’s nothing I can say to some of you to make you feel comfortable coming to Harrison,” Methvin said. “Never again will we be silent where racism is.”

Crockett said the city’s “silent majority” has made strides in recent years by not electing members of hate groups to public office and supporting the endeavors of the task force.

“We are far from the finish line,” Crockett said. “We cannot sit back and ignore our problems.”

Arkansas, Pages 12 on 01/16/2013

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