Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

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,

Dave Washington
0:00:14
the University of Nevada Las Vegas this is Veterans Affairs Plus on 91.5. 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. He'll be on air with us for the entire show shortly. I want to once again say to folks out there, again, I'm not trying to tell you who to vote for,

Dave Washington
0:01:17
but you need to register, educate yourself, and vote. Parents, veterans, please study Project 2025. You can check out previous podcasts 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 Department of Education, excuse me, and also reduce the Veterans Administration by

Dave Washington
0:01:44
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 of Mount Bayou. And I'm going to start with questions to you, Mr. Herman.

Dave Washington
0:02:07
You are a veteran, am I correct?

Herman Johnson
0:02:10
Correct.

Dave Washington
0:02:11
So, what branches you serve and how long, sir?

Herman Johnson
0:02:15
I went into the Army and I was in the Army Airborne Tank Battalion, the first thing that I went into Airborne, but I was a tank battalion in 1951 until 1953. 1953.

Dave Washington
0:02:35
Wow. I was born in 51. 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?

Herman Johnson
0:02:52
No, I was born and raised in Gilbert, Louisiana, and I spent my time in Williamsburg, I was drafted from, from into the army from Williamsburg, Louisiana. Wow. And, uh, and, uh, I, I, uh, but I came and found out about Mount Valley because because my mother and my aunt was living in Malabaria.

Herman Johnson
0:03:15
My aunt was living in Malabaria. Okay.

Herman Johnson
0:03:17
And she, after so many years, they found out about each other and that's how I found out about Malabaria. Okay. Yeah, I happen to see it on some documentary somewhere

Dave Washington
0:03:28
and it sparked my interest. So when I was down South last month, I was at a family reunion and I said I got to drive over here I'm so close I was only like two hour drive or so from from my hometown of Dale high 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

Dave Washington
0:03:55
Johnny Griffin out of Greenville Mississippi to drive over 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 gonna talk about the museum.

Herman Johnson
0:04:08
Well, Mount Bayou is one of the oldest African-American communities in the country. It was started by 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,

Herman Johnson
0:04:29
Joe Davis, Jefferson Davis being the president of the 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 were the people that were on it. because of their ingenuity, their ingenious ways of doing agriculture, made that the most premium cotton in the world. And they end up coming to Mound Bayou and coming to Mound

Herman Johnson
0:05:01
Bayou and founding it. They were owned that end up owning that plantation. But yet it was taken away by racism. Again, they come to Mound Bayou and start it over again, taking an old swamp area and turn it into a bustling city. And that's where we are today, 2024,

Dave Washington
0:05:20
in Mount Value, Mississippi. Now, one of the things, Reverend Johnson, that I heard about Mount Value from a friend of mine that, you know, we stopped at the American Legion Post 10, a little local gathering of veterans, etc. But he told me, he said, this place, and I've also seen it on other documentaries where the town had like a regional hospital that people from around the region came to that hospital. Mr. Johnson, any comments in regards to that?

Herman Johnson
0:05:57
About the hospital in Mount Valley because I was involved with the health center in Mount Valley, coming into the health center in Mount Valley. But I could share this with you. The first HMO in the country started in the front door and be served rather than going into the back and waiting. So yeah, so that's the information. I mean, that's part of it. But let me just say this. At the HMO, I was talking about, my wife was a member of the HMO and I was too.

Herman Johnson
0:06:57
And what it does is that you pay into it and it takes care of everything. And they see you at least three times a year to make sure that you are, you know, well. I had to go to the hospital and I went in for three days and when I got out they gave me $100. Part of the way I paid into it.

Dave Washington
0:07:20
Right. Now you mentioned where you were drafted from, Winsburg, Louisiana. I can tell you I'm from Dale High, which is just not very far from here, so it's interesting that you and I have a little thing in common.

Herman Johnson
0:07:36
Could I share a little bit about my school? Sure. Okay. I went to Franklin Parish Training School. And I don't know what the other high is, but in a way, a lot of people who finished the training school didn't know why they called it a training school.

Herman Johnson
0:07:56
And I tried to tell people that the training school meant that all schools for black people were trained because black people couldn't be taught like white people. They had to be trained like animals. A lot of people didn't know that. And then after I left, I went to Southern University. Southern University, what is it?

Herman Johnson
0:08:16
A&M. And college. Now, a lot of people didn't know that A&M, if you went to, if you finished high school, I mean you finished high school, you went to college, you went to apply to Brown and figure out how to grow a better cotton and fix the plows and the tractor and in the end, A-M-N-N was to be a nurse in a nutrition school.

Herman Johnson
0:08:53
And they had that for a long time, but a lot of people didn't know that, and I was just sharing that with people who might not know.

Dave Washington
0:09:00
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.

Herman Johnson
0:09:20
Okay.

Dave Washington
0:09:21
So, now, Reverend, I want to talk to you a little bit about the museum and how did that come to be?

Herman Johnson
0:09:29
Reverend Michael B. Brown II Well, it started, I guess, when I was in eighth, ninth grade. I sat down in a class and they handed me the Mississippi History book. I was so excited because my dad came up through the political side, dealing with, he came in, he took Megan Evers' job. When Megan Evers was leaving Mound Bayou, going to work for the NAACP in Jackson area,

Herman Johnson
0:09:58
Megan Evers and his wife left. that took that office, took that job. And Dr. T.R.M. Howard had him working there in that insurance office during the time when Emmett Till was killed. All of this is going on.

Herman Johnson
0:10:15
And so that was some of the things that my dad was involved with later on, the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King comes to Mount Bayou, have secret meetings. My dad is in secret meetings with them. He's named in the 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

Herman Johnson
0:10:42
Mount Bayou, and we always knew that Mount Bayou was the oldest. We would say Mount Bayou, the oldest African-American community in the country. They handed me a book and I was looking for the chapter on Mound Bayou, because in my head there should have been a chapter. And when they handed me that Mississippi history book in Mound Bayou 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

Herman Johnson
0:11:25
story when I went to college. I told the story when I 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. history. And now I had a chance during 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 art building that came available.

Herman Johnson
0:12:04
We put the museum in there, and man, has it absolutely just been just the bright light of our city.

Dave Washington
0:12:12
Oh, no doubt. In fact, I'm pleased that I did get an opportunity to come up and as well as to meet you. And you told me about your dad, and I said, man, if I can get the Rev 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 of weeks ago and you were unable to do so because you were in Washington, DC doing what?

Dave Washington
0:12:40
Well, I was in Washington, DC.

Herman Johnson
0:12:42
Number one, uh, 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 told the story of not only Emmett Teal, but Mamie Teal, and the background of what went on, we have those props. And so we were there in Washington, D.C.,

Herman Johnson
0:13:18
being recognized along with the Emmett Till Interpreter 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

Herman Johnson
0:13:35
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 Graybar Landing signage in the Smithsonian there. So we were able to be there along with all of the people that tell the story.

Dave Washington
0:14:09
Absolutely. That's great. And telling the story, man, is so important. And Mr. Johnson, you were quite an activist back in the day.

Herman Johnson
0:14:19
You know what I mean? Yes.

Dave Washington
0:14:24
You were quite an activist. Share a little bit more light on it for us if you would.

Herman Johnson
0:14:31
Well, when I talk about the hospital, I was involved in the first rural community health center in the country, and it's a non-value, and I happen to be the one that found the location for us and established where it is now. But the interesting thing that I like to talk about is the fact that Dr. Geigel, who helped a unit, an urban health center, was in Boston, Massachusetts, in the rural one that was in Boundary.

Herman Johnson
0:15:21
Okay. But the interesting thing is that we wrote prescriptions for not medicine, but things that people needed food as when they did medicine, and he could write the prescription to get meat and potatoes and greens.

Dave Washington
0:15:50
Excellent. Well, you were quite accurate. 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 is a must.

Herman Johnson
0:16:05
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 this statement about how active he was, for him that's his regular life. You know, we sat in the house and Mega Everest's desk, typewriter, and chair was in his room. And we didn't think about that.

Herman Johnson
0:16:23
He didn't think about it. The only thing he thought about is he moved, when they closed the insurance company down in the 50s, he moved the furniture to the house. And so that is in the museum now. So to him now, it's become an awakening of him. When he had that meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King in Mound Bayou, that was just another

Herman Johnson
0:16:44
meeting that he had. When he started getting people to sign up to vote, when he first, as a young guy, coming into Mound Valley and making sure that people were registered to vote and make sure that the votes were going in. That was just regular for him, but for us, this is powerful. He's in the middle of the movement.

Herman Johnson
0:17:08
He's working for Dr. T.R.M. Howard, who was a mentor to all of these people. 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. You know that I know of history and how to pull it. Daddy is 95 years old and we're just excited to know that Daddy was just in the midst of all of this. He's what made Mississippi history in this area

Herman Johnson
0:17:36
what it is.

Dave Washington
0:17:37
Well, let me say this, uh, Mr. Herman fool, 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 dam to you.

Dave Washington
0:17:54
Just, this is what I do. It wasn't, you wouldn't look at the wave, no flag to say, look at me and what I'm doing. It was the work that had to be done. And you got busy making it happen. So we're very proud of you. And you continue to be an example,

Dave Washington
0:18:10
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, Reverend Johnson,

Dave Washington
0:18:25
how are you funded, the museum in and of itself, and how can others assist?

Herman Johnson
0:18:33
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, they really need, you know, a better donation than the entry donation. And so we've had people that call and say, hey, I'm going to give you all some money. We started out of our pockets. And then the heritage area gave us a $25,000 grant. But we have a $3 million, and you saw it, we have a $3 million collection by Dr. Alvin

Herman Johnson
0:19:11
Simpson. But it was Dr. Alvin Simpson who made sure 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. And we have other things like the Teal movie, the Women of the Movement. They donated that.

Herman Johnson
0:19:29
They took our whole back room and they said, we're 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, you know, we just need to stop telling black history. People absolutely are opposite of that, and they are pushing for us to tell the real story,

Herman Johnson
0:19:55
and they are so satisfied to see us doing that, and to bring out the 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, it's a, and this is what we're getting. And that's why they're, yes sir.

Dave Washington
0:20:19
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 to tell some stories because he was there. It ain't no speculation. He was there. That's right. Now how can others

Herman Johnson
0:20:39
assist and do you have a website? The website is MoundBayouMuseum.org. 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 1,000 subscribers. We went crazy over that because it takes us to another level. And that's how we're able to get this message out because it's an absolute powerful

Herman Johnson
0:21:16
message for African-Americans and others to know where your history is. Because if you don't know where you've been, you don't know where you're going. And we believe that we have an intricate part

Dave Washington
0:21:39
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 Well, I can tell you, man, to our listening audience out there, we are heard anywhere in the world. You know, this is a goes to podcast immediately and people can also listen to it

Dave Washington
0:21:50
on 91.5 Jazz and more KNUV. 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'm what 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

Dave Washington
0:22:19
It ain't about one race against another it's just about us as fellow human being in the humanity of man is somehow lost 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'd like to say in terms of closing and where we are and what we can do again to continue to help you do what you do? You and your brother. In fact, let me say this, Reverend. I talked to your brother briefly,

Dave Washington
0:22:50
because I guess he was at the museum today, because I had misplaced your number. I'm like, man, I got to find his number, because I got to make contact before the show. But your brother told me that, and you further explained that you guys did the work together, which is great.

0:23:06
OK.

Herman Johnson
0:23:07
Could I just mention people from all over the world, most of the people from foreign countries coming over here to see the Mount Vibe Museum.

Dave Washington
0:23:20
Excellent, excellent. Well, we're going to continue to do what we can 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,

Dave Washington
0:23:33
but certainly we want to give you, Reverend Johnson, an opportunity to just kind of 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 listening audience.

0:23:47
Well, again, I thank you.

Herman Johnson
0:23:48
I appreciate you having us and having my dad, 95 years old, who is an 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 our country in the political era, he served African Americans, and I appreciate

Herman Johnson
0:24:13
how God has used him and Mount Bayou. Our city is 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 Alliance, where we are bringing in most of all of these other African American towns across this country that's standing by themselves and having to deal with things all by themselves, but we all are trying to tell our story.

Herman Johnson
0:24:45
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.

Dave Washington
0:24:58
Well, I appreciate that. 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, we talk 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.

Dave Washington
0:25:27
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 have and we can't give up. So once again if you would 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.

Herman Johnson
0:25:48
So the website again is Mound Bayou Museum. That's Mound Bayou Museum dot org and then on YouTube and 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.

Dave Washington
0:26:11
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.

Dave Washington
0:26:33
We'll talk to you next week.

Transcribed with Cockatoo