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.
Announcer
0:00:00
This is a KUNV Studios original program.
Wesley Knight
0:00:04
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 & More, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Dave Washington
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the Good day Las Vegas, this is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and More. I'm Dave Washington, your host. I am pleased to be here today and let me as I always make these announcements. I want to just say to you all how much I appreciate Wes Knight. He keeps me on track. I appreciate and love him so much because without him man, I'd be all over the place.
Dave Washington
0:00:48
I'm a
Dave Washington
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sure enough scatterbrain. So thank you, Wes. I appreciate you, young man. Oh, in terms of announcements, the 10th annual Armed Forces and Military and First Responders event will occur on October 19th.
Dave Washington
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I forget the exact time, but you can check your local newspaper, et cetera, et cetera. But it's the 10th annual, and this is something they've been doing for military and first responders for some time now. So we want to acknowledge that particular group.
Dave Washington
0:01:45
It's the Vets. Gosh, I'm trying to remember the name. I apologize, you all, but it's a worthwhile event to attend. In terms of birthdays, we got my deceased sister, Kathy. We acknowledged her. She passed away a couple weeks ago now, but her birthday is this month, October. And then of course, we got a whole slew of them
Dave Washington
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in our other immediate family. That is Angel, Nathan, Chris, Cassara, and we certainly thank God for them all being around and helping us with a lot of different things that we are doing as a family. So thank you so much. Our condolences, we just learned that Frankie Beverly passed away, one of those icons, and we also mentioned James Earl Jones at our last show in September.
Dave Washington
0:02:50
Charlie Barber, local master electrician, he recently passed away. We don't have any idea in terms of services, so I trust that something will be coming out soon. And one of my colleagues, fire service colleagues, they call him GL, Gary Lindsay, passed away recently, and his services will be coming up in the next couple of weeks, so we certainly want to extend condolences to his children, his new wife, and all those in the family of the Lindsey's for the work that this man did in the fire service.
Dave Washington
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So I just want to acknowledge the passing of, again, a colleague, Gary G. L. Lindsey. Appreciate that very much. We have a guest that will be calling in shortly. And she is a relative of my wife. She is a former service military service person, Elva Smith. So we'll be talking to her shortly.
Dave Washington
0:03:52
Also, in the second part of the Mound Bayou Museum down in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. So we'll be talking with him today, give us some further insight. And we did talk with his father, Mr. Herman Johnson, Sr., a couple of weeks ago, along with Reverend Darryl Johnson, who was the son and the brother of Mr. Herman Johnson. So we'll be talking with those folks shortly, and I appreciate them taking time
Dave Washington
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to come on the show to talk to us. So at this time, I'd like to introduce and welcome to the show, Ms. Elva Smith. Elva, how you doing?
Elva Smith
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Hi, Dave, I'm fine, how are you?
Dave Washington
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I'm doing okay, doing okay. Elva, will you tell our listening audience what branch of military did you serve in and how long?
Elva Smith
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Well, you know, I'm Army, so there's no other branch other than the Army. I'm an Army guy too, so I understand.
Dave Washington
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So I was in the Army.
Elva Smith
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I joined the Army when they had Women's Army Corps, which was in 1975. So I am considered a WAC. I was two years active, and I have 13 years reserve time.
Dave Washington
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Oh, wow, cool.
Dave Washington
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So what was your MOS?
Elva Smith
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My military occupational skill when I joined the military was 64 Charlie, which is a mobile vehicle operator. It is now called 88 Mike. I also, with correspondence, I had a 71 Lima, which was admin specialist, and a 25 uniform, which was signal tactical operator.
Dave Washington
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So go back to the first one you mentioned and give us some detail on it for those who may not know what that particular specialty is. Okay.
Elva Smith
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When I went in, again, I say it was called 64 Charlie Cliff Old Soldiers. It's now called 88 Mike. It's called motor transportation operator. And what we did was loading and unloading operations and procedures, vehicle maneuvers, navigation, and eventually they started global positioning satellite, which is the GPS thing. But however, when we were doing it in the 70s, we didn't have GPS. We actually used a compass and grids, and you had to learn how to really read a map
Elva Smith
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and do navigation by land, and you get your coordinates, you know, longitude. You had to go to all these points and then plot them on a map and know where you were
Dave Washington
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going. Wow, that's interesting. I remember those days when he had to pull out that compass and do all those things. That's an interesting specialty that you had. Absolutely interesting. So what are you doing? Where do you actually live today? Where are you living? I live in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Elva Smith
0:07:05
and active member of our American Legion here post-213, which we, of course, reach out to our veterans. I was just listening to you mentioning some veterans that deceased or anyone that are disabled. We still work as a unit in contacting these veterans. We go to the nursing homes to see vets, even those that are not members of the American Legion, just because they serve regardless of the branch, we go and visit them periodically.
Elva Smith
0:07:50
We just recently had the Legion riders who came from, started out of Missouri, they came through Vicksburg, this was one of their stops, they ended up in New Orleans, five National Conference of American Legion. And these riders came from all over the US. We even had riders from China. And their purpose was they were collecting money for children.
Elva Smith
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And I believe by the time they got here, they had over $300,000. Wow. And they collected. Yes.
Dave Washington
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Now, you say riders, motorcycle?
Elva Smith
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Yes, legion riders. Okay. They're all over, to include channel. Interesting.
Dave Washington
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So, you know, one of my questions was going to be, what were you doing now to advance the needs of veterans? And you pretty much covered it. You actually go out, you guys as a group go out and visit folks. Yes, we do.
Elva Smith
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We visit our nursing home our veterans home we do have a veteran veterans center here in Jackson Mississippi which is like 52 miles east of here we have the Sunday Montgomery VA so we go there we even go to our local nursing homes throughout the region and visit that is any vet that is great work.
Dave Washington
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Because, you know, one thing I've noticed is I've visited friends in various types of assisted living, some in rehab centers. You notice that some folks don't get a visit, not from anyone, and it's a sad state of affairs that no one will come and visit a parent, you know, a relative. Because I can see their eyes light up. And when you speak to them, it's like, wow, I really appreciate you speaking to me.
Dave Washington
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Exactly.
Elva Smith
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And they're so glad to have that contact and that camaraderie. They go to talk about their days and what they did. They're so anxious to talk to somebody. And people act like our vets, especially those of Vietnam veterans, you know how we would have forgotten veterans, you know, you couldn't say you was a Vietnam veteran. It was almost like a thing of shame to say you was a Vietnam veteran.
Elva Smith
0:10:10
Not just World War II, World War I, Korean, but when we got out of the military, which was the
Dave Washington
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Vietnam era, it was almost like a bad word to say Vietnam. Very true. In fact, you know, in my next show for the following week, I have Coach Tate. He's a veteran, and he does a lot of stuff with baseball, you know, encouraging and coaching young folks. And he, as a veteran, he's a Vietnam-era veteran, in fact, went to Vietnam. I think he told me he had a Purple Heart, but he said it was just really sad how the Vietnam-era veterans were treated. And I used to tell the guys on the fire department, y'all better be glad I didn't go to Vietnam, because y'all think I'm crazy. And, you know, some of the things that he talked about, Eva, is how, you know, there was so many.
Dave Washington
0:11:03
And in fact, my my brother in law, Marcia's sister's husband, he was affected by Agent Orange. And it was just such a battle for people to get to know each other. sister's husband, he was affected by Agent Orange. And it was just such a battle for people to get this coverage. It took them a, it was like pulling teeth. And I mean, come on, these folks served and got harmed in a very Pacific way in
Dave Washington
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our, you know, in defending our country. So Elva, go ahead.
Elva Smith
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Joe has mentioned those hardships he had, you know, talking to Deborah and talking to Joe about that. He had to go a long way, but that was just not with him. That was all of them. Right. And to think, you know, we served out there, our country, too.
Elva Smith
0:11:49
I didn't go to Vietnam, but we were all levied as truck drivers and supply people in 1976 to 77. We were levied to go to Germany. I went to 3rd Infantry Division. We stayed on alert 24-7. At that time, the Berlin Wall was still up. So we were constantly on alert. You walked around with a loaded M-16. There was no dummies in it. It was a loaded M-16. This was at the close of the
Elva Smith
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Vietnam War. But they levied all of us over there just in case we had to be sent out to go to NOM to do something or bring things back.
Herman Johnson
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Right.
Dave Washington
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As we get ready to wrap up, I want to say that Elva was one of the few, well, there was quite a few, but women who attended the Million Man March, when we saw her, she said, what you doing here? She said, I come to be a part of this. What are you talking about? Why am I here?
Dave Washington
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And we really appreciate your support for sure, ever. No doubt about it. Again, we love you. Any closing remarks?
Elva Smith
0:12:58
Yes, well, I'd like to tell you what I'm doing now. I'm actually in politics. I'm an election commissioner. So, please, everybody on the ground of this, please vote. Voting is very important. This is what I do here in Warren County for the state of Mississippi.
Elva Smith
0:13:13
I'm elected. I've been in this position since 09, and we always, always say, please, go out and vote. Your vote makes a difference.
Dave Washington
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Absolutely. To your point, let's make sure that our registration is current because you can get vetted if you don't vote in a previous election cycle. So please do that. I think it's important, and I'm glad you brought that up, Elva, because it's important to get yourself knowledge about the various issues. And I continue on this show to prop up and talk about Project 2025, get your information
Dave Washington
0:13:50
and your knowledge base together. Elva, thank you so much. And we'll have you back on the show sometime in the future because I think the work that you're doing with the American Legion is so appropriate and so well needed for those, again, this is Veterans Affairs Plus. I just had a former soldier, Ms. Elva Smith, on the show,
Dave Washington
0:14:06
and she's doing some outstanding things down in Pittsburgh and in Mississippi in general. So, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. All right. This is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and More.
Dave Washington
0:14:18
On the other side, we'll have Mr. Herman Johnson. Thank you very much. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs on 91.5 Jazz and More. I'm Dave Washington, your host, and I am so pleased to have a gentleman who runs, he's the lead for the Mount Bayou Museum, which I had an
Dave Washington
0:14:45
opportunity to check it out when I was down in my family reunion in July. So, Mr. Herman Johnson, how are you doing?
Herman Johnson
0:14:55
I'm doing fine. How are you? I'm doing very well.
Dave Washington
0:14:58
Doing good, doing good. And so, please, I had your brother, Reverend Daryl Johnson, and your father, Mr. Herman Johnson, Sr., on the show a couple weeks ago. And they did an outstanding job. No pressure to you, of course, because I know that you know the museum well and you can give us some insight. Tell us a little bit about the museum and what inspired you to get involved with it.
Herman Johnson
0:15:24
The inspiration is actually discovering the deepness of the history of Mound Bayou and the fact that really nobody was there to give it the sufficient help that getting the word out. Some people knew the history, but there was a lot more to it. I looked around and I said, I was living in California.
Herman Johnson
0:15:52
But still, even going back and forth and knowing that who was there, I just understood that there was really nobody there that was going to give it the sufficient push that it needed for people to understand the deepness of this history. And so once we took that step of faith, then God met it. And I should not have said he met it because he pushed it. He just put things together that is almost overwhelming,
Herman Johnson
0:16:32
the things that he did and bringing
Dave Washington
0:16:35
the things together and making it a magnificent museum. Absolutely. Again, I did get an opportunity to attend, and your brother did a great job in your absence to kind of take me and my friend, Johnny Griffin, who lives down in Greenville. We got an outstanding tour of the museum. And then to know that one gentleman donated
Dave Washington
0:17:02
a multimillion dollar exhibit when he could have sold it. So that speaks highly of what you guys are doing.
Herman Johnson
0:17:13
Absolutely. The word is, he can still sell it. Because there are actors and people in Hollywood that I have heard. I really don't know too many names or identify, but I just heard that there are people clamoring for it in Hollywood. But I think it's better for use where it is. I know you saw the collection.
Herman Johnson
0:17:43
I imagine my brother took you around and showed you, but put it in context of what it actually all means to us. We didn't know what it meant in the beginning. The fact that you just had African-American artifacts. But as you will see or as you saw going through, you look at all these pictures and all these different things that he had collected over these years, and a lot of them
Herman Johnson
0:18:14
would be images or disparaging negative images of black people, a significant portion of it. You're looking at it and now you're starting to understand that when the people who originally owned these, when they had them in their homes, this was what they were displaying. All these new images and disparaging words.
Herman Johnson
0:18:41
As we have gone along, when we give a tour and we bring people around, we point out that this is America's thought pattern. This is America's consciousness. This is what America thinks about black people.
Dave Washington
0:19:05
Right.
Herman Johnson
0:19:06
You know, this negativity, and that's the reason that we get the pushback that we get in this country. But it represents a lie that America tells about black people. On the contrast, if you go through the story of Mount Bayou, from where it began on the plantation down out of Vicksburg, and the black people buying the plantation they used to be enslaved on. And being those people, that family
Herman Johnson
0:19:42
becomes one of the wealthiest families in the country, right out of slavery. This country doesn't know that story. And then they developed the highest grade of cotton. And when they were forced to leave that plantation because of racial, you know, the way that things were set up in the United States, Davis was able to take it back over. But when those same people, that same family, the son at this point,
Herman Johnson
0:20:13
comes up and discovers this area in the Barbala County, Mississippi in the Delta that's uninhabited, and a swamp, and he buys it, and they develop this city, and again, they developed the highest grade of cotton in the world. The life of this city from the beginning through the end,
Herman Johnson
0:20:34
they start educating everyone around there, educating people in the Mount Bayou, educating people from other parts of the state, and no crime for 20 years, even though they built a jail for 20 years, nobody went in it.
Herman Johnson
0:20:50
And so they took it down. And they innovated, they started things, they created things. And then even up through the 50s, this is where a lot of the civil rights movement was started in Mount Bayou. People could come there because it was a sanctuary city. So that's a tremendous history that people need to know.
Herman Johnson
0:21:11
And it was a place that we as a people stood up from the beginning to the end. And we're not at the end. And so we're turning another page, another chapter, to do bigger things in the city. And so that's where we're at.
Dave Washington
0:21:28
Well, that's a perfect segue into my next thought, and that is what are some of the immediate plans you guys have for the museum?
Herman Johnson
0:21:36
Well, for the museum now, we're hoping for expansion. We worked on this several years before we even got to the point where we even had a building. We had a dream to put a museum together because we knew we needed to tell the story. We didn't know all what was going to be in front of us in order to do it. We just started taking steps after steps.
Herman Johnson
0:22:03
And so we went around, we went in several different places in the country. We found exhibits in different places, huge exhibits, nice ones. But we don't have room right now for everything. So we have a Chicago that we can't bring down. We have another exhibit, a huge trailer full of artifacts that we can't bring down. We've already collaborated with the world's largest children's museum in Indianapolis.
Herman Johnson
0:22:33
And last year, we got with them, and we have an MOU with them for them to help us build a children's museum in Mount Bayou. So we have plans, and we are working right now. Right now, my family owns a cotton gin. We're having grants written right now in order to turn that cotton gin into something productive as far as historical, because it's a historical cotton gin. We have the highest grade of cotton in the world in Mount Bayou.
Herman Johnson
0:23:07
Someplace in Mount Bayou needs to point out that story. We're also working with some people who were just at the museum a couple of months ago, but they offered us money to expand where we are. So, we're waiting for the word back on the expansion plans and for the money that we gave them in a proposal. We put a proposal together for what we would need in order to upgrade the museum.
Herman Johnson
0:23:38
We have plans, but we really want the city. Now, I'm not the mayor, I'm not in political office, but I can only urge the citizens and least show the citizens in Mount Bayou that there's a value to the city. Hopefully, a lot of people will understand that and start taking some of the property that they own and upgrade it or utilize it to bring in the historical tourism to the city area and just revitalize the Delta.
Dave Washington
0:24:17
Absolutely. I think that that's honorable. And I can tell you, my family reunion was in Delhi, where I was born, Delhi, Louisiana, about a two, two and a half hour drive. And I'm like, man, I'm going, cause I had heard about you guys from a guy who lives, who was born in Mississippi in a small town. I forget the name of the town.
Dave Washington
0:24:38
But Big Jim told me about it. I said, man, if I ever get close to there, I'm going to check it out. Particularly when I found out you guys had established a museum. So how can people assist or make contributions to your effort?
Herman Johnson
0:24:51
Well, I would love people who are really, really interested. I mean, to call me. I can, you know, I can give you my number or go on to mountainbiomuseum.org. And there are donation We'll take any amount, all of it helps. Yeah, we would love for people who wanted to come aside and assist us, even not only with just financial assistance, but we need boots on the ground.
Herman Johnson
0:25:25
We need that type of thing. Matter of fact, I had someone call me today and wanted to work remotely. They couldn't be here, but they wanted to do some work. I gave them a job to do, and we can even do that also.
Herman Johnson
0:25:48
We looked for any assistance because, like I said, we took a step of faith, and we got the museum started. Everything was started out of our pockets. We were able to get a small grant in the beginning. There was categories for that.
Herman Johnson
0:26:07
We could only spend a certain amount of days, and that got exhausted within the first year. But we had to keep it going, and so we, because we understand this museum, the story is very important. Absolutely. And so we put everything we had behind it.
Dave Washington
0:26:23
Absolutely. Well, I can tell you that this show will air because we're taping. It will air on 10.5 and from there, it goes to podcast. And I will be sending this to you as well as you can go on your go to your app stores, a free app to get KUV 91.5 jazz and more. And you can listen to this anywhere in the world. And my point is, once we send it to you, I hope that you will send it to others, because not only will it help me to increase the numbers that I like to see in terms of the Veterans Affairs Plus, and again, a lot of times we talk about the plus side, which is what this is about.
Dave Washington
0:27:04
And it was an honor to speak with your dad, knowing that he was a military veteran, and his 90-plus years, man, his mind is still tight as a steel drum. And I was just proud to have the opportunity to speak with him. So any closing remarks and anything that you'd like to share in the next 60 to 90 seconds?
Herman Johnson
0:27:26
Well, I would like to say also we would love your permission to take this recording and put it on our Web site. We have a fabulous lady who also volunteered to be our social media person. She does a wonderful job. I imagine if she had this recording, it always amazes me what she does with the things that we give her. We make that available, we utilize that also.
Herman Johnson
0:27:58
I urge everybody that black history needs to be told. Mine is one of the most important stories in the country. If anybody can assist us to help us get this story told, we're open. MountBodyMuseum.org. Our phone number is 662-441-2233. My personal number is 909-395-7736.
Dave Washington
0:28:28
So we're open for any kind of suggestions or help that's out there. All right, Mr. Herman Johnson, Jr., man, we appreciate you so much because you've added something that is very needed. In fact, I tell people all the time, black history is a part of American history, so stories must be told. We don't need to be getting rid of books and this, that and the other. So thank you so much for coming on Veterans Affairs Plus. We appreciate what you've shared with our audience. Thank you so much. Thank you for bringing me on. I appreciate it. All right. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5 Jazz and More. We'll talk to you next
Dave Washington
0:29:09
week where we will have Coach Tate on to talk about some of the things that he's doing in our about some of the things that he's doing in our community, particularly as it relates to youth.
Dave Washington
0:29:17
All the smoke in the air, till the hate when they stare, all the pain that we bear, on All the smoke in the air, till the hate when they stare, all the pain that we bear, on you baby.
Transcribed with Cockatoo