Birmingham will become a greater city
by Jesse J. Lewis, Sr.
Please note that I did not say that Birmingham would eventually become a great city. I said, in plain and simple terms it is a great and will become a greater city. We all know to maintain greatness you must continuously improve on what you have; for example, if you had success one day you cannot sit on your laurels and assume you’re going to have success the following day, in other words, you have to work at it.
Last week I received an e-mail from someone in the advertising business that listed four or five different reasons why Birmingham would never be a great city. I have no problem with people making a statement on how bad things are, if they make another statement saying here’s what we can do. It is easy to state a problem, it is hard to give a solution.
A couple of things that the writer of the negative article said was that the City of Birmingham lost 30,000 residents in the past three or four years, and that they had the worst school system in the state of Alabama. Everyone should know that you cannot have a great city with losing residents and a terrible education system.
Both of these two concerns can be fixed, and I am thoroughly convinced that they will be fixed. Credit is due in part to the Mayor of Birmingham and the City Council all on board and moving in the right direction. They both understand the problem and are working together to fix it.
We all know that politicians frequently have their own personal agenda. This is true on a national level, state level, and also true on a city level. We know that we must fix the educational system; we know that all criminal activity must be reduced to zero. We know that we have to rebuild communities like Titusville, Smithfield, Collegeville and West End so that people will be willing to invest into their home and feel safe in their environment.
We also realize another important thing is that we must make available to all of our citizens job opportunities.
I have always contended that Black people cannot afford to be equal, in other words we cannot say that the Mayor of the City of Birmingham is as good as the mayors of Hoover, Vestavia, or some other surrounding cities. And we cannot afford to say that the city council is equal to all of the surrounding cities. We have to say that they are better and then we must prove it.
The only people who forget they’re Black are Black folks, this statement was true in the 1700s; it was true in the 1800s; it was true in the 1900s; and it is true today January 23, 2014. My guess would be that it will be true in 2064. We are always under scrutiny, and we are held to a different standard. The Mayor of the City of Birmingham and the city council cannot make any decisions that will appear to be on the wrong side of the law.
The Mayor or the city council must scrutinize all contracts and all employment to make sure they bring the best qualified people to do the task based on the requirements.
We are aware of the fact that everyone who is fired or given the opportunity to resign or retire, they immediately become consultants. They have no expertise, no qualifications and have no state, city, or county license. I don’t care if it’s your brother, sister, cousin, worked in your campaign or a personal friend, they should not be hired.
Running the city is a business and you cannot run anything with unqualified folks. Keep in mind that very rarely you will get any positive press because the media does not believe in reporting positive events. They take the same approach as Fox News, it has to be negative or it doesn’t sell. Incidentally Fox News is the most negative communication company in the world and they have more audience and make more money than anyone else.
Most of the media understands this process. For example John Archibald from one of the newspapers wrote an article last week wherein he discusses the fee that the Lewis Group makes from the The Birmingham Water Works Board. I received more e-mails from that article than I ever had before, and most of them stated that John Archibald was a racist and believed that Black people should not make minimum wage.
I personally do not believe he is a racist or thinks that anyone of color should make below minimum wage. What I believe and what I know are two different things. This is what I know: John covered his story like he covers most things, half true. The truth about the fee is exactly right, but what he did not say is in the scope of services we render to the Water Works Board. Our fee for doing this is 2/3 less than the previous marketing persons and our scope of services twice as much, we have four people assigned to this account. All he had to do was get out of his office and go to the board meeting where they voted on this contract. I happen to believe that writers are notoriously lazy and they would like to write an article but not move from the desk. They would like to send you a letter requesting information which they already have hoping you say something so that they can contradict your statement.
I have no knowledge of Mr. Archibald’s salary, I am assuming it is more than minimum wage. Everything I’ve said proved my own point, Black people cannot afford to do anything that is illegal, nor can they afford to be equal. I will put my marketing skills up against anybody in America who is in the same kind of business we are in, and I’m confident I will not come in second, third, fourth or fifth place, I would come in higher.
email: jjlewis@birminghamtimes.com
