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Veteran's Affairs Plus discusses the issues that veterans in Las Vegas deal with on a daily basis. Your host, David L. Washington connects listeners with relevant community resources and information that they need to help veterans or themselves.
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This is a Kun V studios original program. You're listening to special programming sponsored by making moves, life coaching services. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. You
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what's going on good day Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. I have a couple of guests that I'll introduce here shortly, Reverend Darryl Johnson and his father, Mr. Herman Johnson, they'll be on air with us for the entire shore shortly. I want to once again, say to folks out there again, I'm not trying to tell you who to vote for, but you need to register, educate yourself and vote, parents, Veterans, please study project 2025
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you can check our previous
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podcast that we did where we talked about those issues and I talked extensively about the wishes of the project. 2025 group to shut down the board of the Department of Education, excuse me, and also reduce the Veterans Administration by
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an insane amount. So not telling you who to vote for, but of course, we need to be actively involved in the voting process. With that, I'd like to introduce Reverend Darryl Johnson of Mount Bayou, Mississippi, and his father, Mr. Herman Johnson, amount by you, and I'm going to start with questions to you, Mr. Herman,
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you are a veteran. Am I correct?
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Correct? So what branch did you serve and how long, sir,
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I went into
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my Avon tank. Battalion, a person that went into airborne.
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But I was, I was, I'm a tank battalion in 1951
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and until 5319 53 Wow. I was born in 51
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so you spent your time in there, and then now tell us a little bit about the town, even though I know we're going to ask your son to go in more depth about Mount Bayou. But when you were you born and raised there,
Unknown Speaker 2:54
no, I was born and raised in Gilbert, Louisiana, and I spent my time in Westboro. I was drafted from into the army from wism, Louisiana, wow, and
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I, but I came and found out about mountbaria, because my mother and my aunt
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was living in Mount by my aunt was living in my body. Okay? After so many years, they found out each other, and that's how I found out about my value. Okay, yeah, I happen to see it on some documentary somewhere, and it sparked by inches. So when I was down south last month, I was at a family reunion, and I say, I gotta drive over here. I'm so close. I was only like two hour drive or so from from my hometown of Delhi, Louisiana. It may have been two and a half hour, but the bottom line is, I had to go. And I had a brother, friend of mine, from my golfing buddies, Johnny Griffin, out of Greenville, Mississippi, to drive up with me, and we met your son. So perfect segue for you. Reverend Darryl Johnson, tell us a little bit about the town, and then we're going to talk about the museum.
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Well, mount by is one of the oldest African American communities in the country. It was started by
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former slaves who were on the plantation down in the Vicksburg, Mississippi area, and they were on this plantation. And it's interesting that the plantation they were on was owned by Jefferson Davis, brother Joe Davis. Jefferson Davis, being the president of Confederacy, they had a relationship with the Confederate President and his brother, so much so that one of the richest plantations down there was this one, and the people that made this plantation So Rich was the people that were on it, and it was because of their ingenuity, their their ingenious ways of doing agriculture, made that the most premium cotton in the world. And they end up coming to mount by.
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Bayou and coming to Mount Bayou and founding it, they will own that end up owning that plantation, but yet it was taken away by racism. Again, they come to Mount Bayou and started over again, taking an old
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swamp area and turn it into a bustling city. And that's where we are today. 2024
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in Mount value, Mississippi. Now, one of the things
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Reverend Johnson that I heard about Mount value from a friend of mine that, you know, we stopped at the American Legion Post 10 little local gathering of veterans, etc. But he told me, he said, This place, and I've also seen it on other documentaries where
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the town had, like a regional hospital
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that people from the from the around the region came to, to that,
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to that hospital,
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Mr. Mr. Johnson, any comments in regards to
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that around the hospital? Yes, sir. Well, I can, I can talk a long time about the hospital and mount by because I was involved with the Health Center in Mount by coming into the health center, but in Mount Bible, but I should just with you sure the First HMO and in the country started in at the hospital here in Mount Valley. Wow. And it was only, it was only hospital in the state that black people could go in the front door and be said rather than going into the back and waiting,
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yeah. So, yeah. So that's, that's information. I mean, that's, that's part of it. But let me just say this
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at the HMO. I was talking about,
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my wife was a member of the HMO, and I was too. And what it does is that you pay into it, and it takes everything right, and they see at least three times a year to make sure that you, you know, will right. I had to go to the hospital, and I went in for three days, and when I got out, they gave me on they gave me $100 part of
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what I paid into it right now, you mentioned where you were from. You were drafted from winnsburg, Louisiana. I can tell you I'm from Delhi, which is just not very far from there. So it's interesting that you and I have a little thing in common.
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But could I, could I share a little bit about my school? Sure?
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Okay,
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I went to Franklin parish training school,
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and I know what Delhi is. But anyway, a lot of people who finished the training school didn't know why they called the training school. And I tried to tell people that the training school meant that all school for black people training called Black people couldn't be taught like white people. They had to be trained like animals, right? A lot of people didn't know that. And then after I left, I went to Southern University.
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Southern University.
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What is it? A and M
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in college right now, a lot of people didn't know that A and M went this. You went to if you finished high school. I mean, you finished high school, you went to college. You went to plow the ground and figure out how to grow a better cotton and fix the plows and the tractor and the end am and N was to be a nursing nutrition school, and they had that for a long time, but a lot of people didn't know that, and I was just sharing that with no might not Know, you know what? And that's a very interesting concept that they had, because I never thought about it that way. But we could be trained and not educated. That's interesting. And our youngest daughter, she graduated from Southern University with a business administration degree several years back. But yeah, that's interesting, training versus education. Hmm. Okay, so
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now, Reverend, I want to talk to you a little bit about the museum, and how did that come to be?
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Well, it started, I guess when I was 8/8, ninth grade. I was I sat down in a class and
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they handed me the Mississippi history book. I was so excited because my dad came up through the political side, dealing with he he came in, he took Meghan Everest job. When Megan Evers leaving Mount Bayou, going to work for the NAACP in Jackson area. Megan Evers and his wife left my.
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Dad took that office, took that job, and Doctor TRM Howard
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had him working there in that insurance office during the time when Emmett
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Till was killed. All of this is going on and and so that that was, that was some of the things that my dad was involved with later on, the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King comes to mount bayo have secret meetings. My dad is in, in secret meetings with them. He's named in a sovereign commission. He is with John Lewis, and you name it, he's involved with it. And I'm a kid, and so I know that there's history with Mount Bay and we always knew that mount bayo was the oldest, we would say mount bayo the oldest African American community in the country. They handed me a book, and I was looking for the chapter on Mount bayo, because in my head there should have been a chapter at least. And when they handed me that Mississippi history book in Mount bayo at my school, it had two sentences, and I was so disappointed, and I wondered, who's supposed to tell the story? And my life set a measuring thing right there at that point to say, there is nobody else, and you're going to have to be the one to tell it. So with that aspiration, I told the story. Everywhere I went, I told the story. When I went to college, I told the story. When I had had to do papers, I would tell the story. I listened to the story. I heard the story so that I could tell it again. I talked to people. I listened to the history. And now I had a chance doing covid to get a building to put what we needed to put, to say we got to have this museum. I'm 60 something years old, and hey, where's the museum? And so that's what my brother had, the same aspirations, that same push. And so my brother and I, and my dad, we all got together. We started the museum when they closed down our school, and there was a band room, fine arts building that came available. We put the museum in there. And man, has it absolutely just been just the bright light of our city? Oh, no doubt. In fact, I'm pleased that I did get an opportunity to come up and and as well as to meet you. And you told me about your dad, and I said, Man, if I can get the rib on the radio on this program the Veterans Affairs and his dad's a vet, man, that's going to work out just perfectly. So tell me, tell our listening audience this, because I know, most recently, in fact, I was trying to get you on the show a couple weeks ago, and you were unable to do so because you were in Washington, DC, doing what?
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Well, I was in Washington, DC, number one, the Emmett Till story is being told in this area. And our museum just so happened to have a relationship with the women of the movement series and the teal movie. And so both of them have given us, donated us all of the props of the movies, so that in our museum, the prop of both movies that that told the story of not only Emmett Till, but Mamie Till, in the background of what went on, we have those props. And so we were there at the in Washington, DC, then recognized, along with the Emmett Till interpret your center and all of those other entities, which was like a few others that are really doing what Mamie Till said I want the world to know. And they were recognizing us because we are not letting that story die until we do something about this racism and the lies that have been told and so forth and so on, because we saw it. Then the civil rights movement came out of the shadows of all of that death, and so we are telling the story, and they recognized us for telling that story at the opening of the gray ball landing
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signage in the Smithsonian there. So we were able to be there along with all of the people that tell the story. Absolutely, that's great. And telling the story, man, is so important. And Mr. Johnson, you were quite an activist back in the day. I'm
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agree.
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Uh, you were quite an activist. She had a little bit more light on it for us, if you would. Well,
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uh, when I talk about the houses, I was involved the first rural, uh, community health center in the country, and there's about 2500 now all over the country now, but this is the first rule community health center in the country, and it's a non value. And I happen to be the one that found the location for.
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US and establish where it is now. But the interesting thing that I like to talk about is the fact that Dr Geiger, who will help bring it in
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health center, was in Boston, Massachusetts, and rule when it was in bound by but the interesting thing is that we wrote prescriptions for not medicine, but things that people need, as well as medicine. And Dr Geiger was able to go to United States and tell them that people needed food, as when they did medicine, and you could write the prescription to get meat and potatoes and greens Excellent. Well,
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you were quite active. And I think that's certainly important, man when you talk about the need for food, because you know, medication has its place, but certainly the nourishment of some good groceries.
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And so Dave, can I add in there with my dad? Yes, sir, a lot of the things that my dad was doing, when you make the statement about how act active he was, for him, that's his regular life. You know, we sat in the house, and mega Evers desk, typewriter chair was in his room. And we didn't think about that. He didn't think about any. Only thing he thought about is he moved. When they closed the insurance company down in the in the 50s, he moved. He moved the furniture to the house. And so that is in the museum now. So you know, to him now is, is becoming an awakening of him. You know, when he had that meeting with Doctor Martin Luther King in Mount by that was just another meeting that he had, right when he started, when he started getting people to sign up to vote, when he first, as a young guy, coming into Mount Bay and making sure that people would register to vote and make sure that the votes were going in, Uh, you know, that was just regular for him. But for us, this is powerful. He's in the middle of the movement, right? You know? He's, he's working for Doctor TRM Howard, who was a mentor to all of these people. He's, he's taking me to Fannie lou Hamer's house. And for him, when you ask him these questions, he's modest because he don't know the points.
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No, you know. You know that I know of history and how to pull it. Daddy is 95 years old, wow. And we just excited to know that Daddy was just in the midst of all of this. He's what made Mississippi history in this area, what it is. Well, let me say this, Mister
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Herman. Full. Herman Johnson, it is my honor to have you on Veterans Affairs, plus at 90 plus years old and the work that you've done, and I could hear it in your son's voice, very proud of you, and should be. But it was like, nickel Damn. Do you just this is what I do. It what you were looking to wave no flag to say, Look at me, and what I'm doing, it was that work that had to be done, and you got busy making it happen. So we're very proud of you, and you, you continue to be an example, because I can tell you, at 73 you're an example for me that I can't get tired. I got to continue to work and ensure that we get our people out to vote in this upcoming voting cycle. So tell us this.
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Reverend Johnson, how are you funded the museum, in and of itself, and how and how can others
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assist?
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I appreciate you asking that, because we're funded actually by people like you and other people that come in and they say, you know, I see this, this, they really need, you know, a better donation than the entry donation. And so we've had people that that call and say, Hey, I'm gonna give y'all some money we started out of our pockets, right? And then the Heritage Area gave us a $25,000 grant.
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But we have a $3 million
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and you saw it, we have a $3 million collection by Doctor avin Simpson. But it was Dr avin Simpson who made sure to bring he was going to bring it there instead of taking that money that they've offered. And since then, they've offered them more than that for that same collection, right? And, you know, we have other things, like the till movie, the women of the movement, they donated that that they took our whole back room, and they say we going to redo it for you all. And so we've had those types of things. And that's the spirit of people trying, because in their heart, you know, people are so satisfied that we are telling the truth, even when a governor is saying we need to stop telling black history, people absolutely are opposite of that, and they are pushing for us to tell the real story, and they are so satisfied to see us doing that and to bring out the the.
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Absolute truth. And it's not a race, race, racial type thing that's hanging on the one side. It's black, white and others that are so excited about us telling the real truth, people want to know truth. Reverend Johnson, know that, and this is what we're getting, and that's why, yes, sir, Reverend Johnson, this is a part of American fabric. This is who we are as a nation. You can't hide this stuff. People know. And God bless your dad, and thank and we thank God that he's still around until some stories because he was there. It ain't no speculation he was there right now. Exactly. How can others assist? And do you have a website that the website is mound by you, museum.org
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That's mound by you, mound with a D, as in David mound, Bayou, museum.org
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you go to that, and there's a place for you to donate. And also, we invite people to go to our YouTube channel. We just got our 1000 subscribers. We went crazy over there, because it takes us to another level, right? And that's how we're able to get those get this message out, because it's an absolute powerful message from African Americans and others to know where your history is. Because if you don't know where you where you're being. You don't know where you're going. And we believe that we have an intricate part in telling real history so that people can be satisfied as to who they are. You know that lady said, Hey, black child, do you know who you are? Right? Who you really are? And that's what we want to do. We want to tell that story. Well, I can tell you, man, to our listening audience out there, and we are heard anywhere in the world. You know, this is a goes to podcast immediately, and people can also listen to it on 91.5 jazz and more knuvy. They can go to the to the, what they call the App Store, and they can listen to this anywhere. So certainly going to encourage you, because I'll send it to you, and you can send it to others, and we're going to do all that we can to help, to promote and honor the work that your dad embarked upon many, many years ago. And we cannot let that go in vain. We all have an obligation and a responsibility to help to spread the word. And like you say, It ain't about one race against another. It's just about us as fellow human being, and the humanity of man is somehow lost in these in these years over late, in my humble opinion. So we really appreciate you, and certainly going to get you back on the air again sometime in the future. But anything you like to say in terms of closing and where we are and and what we can do again to continue to help you do what you do. You and your brother, in fact, in fact, let me say this, Reverend, I talked to your brother briefly because I guess he was at the museum today because I had misplaced your number. I'm like, Man, I gotta find his number because I I gotta make contact before the show. But your brother told me that, and you've further explained that you guys did the work together, which is great.
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Could I just Okay? Could I just mention people from all over the world? Bustle of people from foreign countries coming over here to see the mountain bike Museum? Excellent, excellent. Well, we're going to continue to do what we can to to spread the word, because we know how important it is. And once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. We're getting close to wrapping up, but certainly you want to give you Reverend Johnson an opportunity to just kind of
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close out, if you would, and just kind of give a recap of things that we talked about that are important for us to share with our with our listening audience.
Unknown Speaker 23:48
Well, again, I thank you. I appreciate you having us and having my dad, 95 years old, who is the absolute we're so excited about him. He served our country. He served our country with at Vietnam, I'm not Vietnam, I'm sorry, with Korea. And again, he's come back. He served out our country, and in the political era, he served African Americans. And I appreciate how God has used him. And mount BYU, our city is one of the one special place to African American history that we need to be able to preserve. And so not only that, I'm involved with historical black towns and settlements of lions, where we are bringing in most of all of these other African American towns across this country that standing by themselves and having to deal with things all by themselves, but we all are trying to tell our story. We need to tell the truth because it is the truth that makes us free. And so I'm just thanking you for allowing us to be on this part of this show, and I want you to keep on doing what you're doing. Well, I appreciate.
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And again, we want to spread the word of the different things, to include your dad, that veterans, even at his 90 plus years of age, he's still making things happen. And I think it's important again, for and me and Frank Hawkins, who is a local businessman. I talked we talked about, he has a radio show. It's an internet type show. But the bottom line, we must use our platforms to spread the good news, the good word about things that are going on in our community. And everybody has not lost their mind or their ability to be respectful of another human being. Many have, but I don't think they all and we can't give up. So once again, if you we got another couple minutes, two or three minutes, give us that website information again, because I think it's important for people who may want to to make a contribution.
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So the website again, is mound by you Museum. That's mound by you museum.org,
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and then on YouTube and and we will absolutely just be a blessing to you to continuously tell you all the different aspects of the history that we are exploring and finding out ourselves. All right. All right. Reverend Johnson and Mr. Herman Johnson, we appreciate you so so much for your service, not only to our country, but to those in your local community, you've done a phenomenal job, and I look to you as an example of things that I can continue to do as a young man in this community. God bless you guys. And once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more, and we'll talk to you next week. You
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love all the smoke in the air till they hate when they stare all the pain that we bear, all you bear.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai