Black mayor of Jackson, Mississippi refuses to apologize for racist comments (07/08/24)

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba stands behind comments he made in a private phone call that a water takeover could make the city “no longer Black.”

“I am proud that I live in a majority Black city. And I don’t apologize for that,” he said. “Now does that mean that I have any ill intent or ill will or any designs against anybody else? Absolutely not.”

“But we’re like anybody else. There is some comfort in being able to be in a space that looks like you, that relates to you culturally.”

Lumumba was responding to a question about comments he made during a private phone call with former Water Operations Manager Mary Carter.

The comments were played during Carter’s wrongful termination trial last month in U.S. District Court.

The mayor was recorded saying, “We absolutely believe that there is a coordinated effort to take this water treatment facility and that effort... it’s bigger than the little politics that we get into. If that happens, that is going to be the first step of trying to make the city no longer Black.”

Lumumba said that similar efforts had already impacted the city of Detroit, which he said, “[isn’t] as Black as... it used to be.”

He did not explain in the phone call how the takeover made Detroit less Black.

Jackson has one of the largest African American populations of any major city in the United States, with 82.2 percent of residents being Black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By comparison, Detroit’s population is 77.8 percent African American.

The comments were made in July 2022, weeks before the city’s main water treatment plant shut down, leaving tens of thousands of people without running water for weeks.

The comments also came months before the city’s water system was put under the control of a federal receiver.

Others heard on the phone call include Dr. Safiya Omari, the mayor’s chief of staff, and Carter herself.

He said the attorneys likely released the conversation to sway the majority-white jury to find in favor of Carter. However, he said that strategy did not work.

Carter was fired as Jackson’s Deputy Director of Water Operations in 2022 amid the water crisis. She claimed she was terminated for speaking out in an interview with WLBT.

Attorneys for the city claimed that she was fired for being incompetent.

“I’m not going to be ashamed of any comments because I assume I’m being recorded at all times in life,” Lumumba said. “In every moment, not just because there are cameras. I always assume and have always assumed that I’m being recorded.”

Lumumba said Carter likely recorded the conversation because she knew she would be fired.

According to court documents, former Public Works Director Marlin King drew up two draft termination letters for Carter the summer before the water crisis. King was demoted at the start of the crisis and later resigned from the city.