Mayor Robert Walker addresses Vicksburg Civitans as club president Karen Jones looks on. (The Vicksburg Post/C. TODD SHERMAN)

[04/19/01] Mayor Robert Walker said Wednesday he will begin meeting next week with experts and community leaders to start planning a citizen committee on race relations in Vicksburg.

Calling it the Mayor’s Commission on Race and Human Relations, Walker promised that if elected again he would make the citizen group his first priority. He told members of the Vicksburg Civitan Club that nothing was more important to the community than improving race relations.

“We have been slowed down by our failure to recognize everyone else as being of equal value as ourselves,” Walker said.

Walker, 56, is seeking his third full term as mayor of Vicksburg. He will be facing fitness instructor Eric Rawlings, 38, in the Democratic primary in 12 days.

The winner of the primary will face independents Laurence Leyens, 36, Joe Loviza, 61, and Eva Marie Ford, 63, in the June 5 general election with the top vote-getter that day winning a four-year term.

Walker said that the meetings he is setting up starting next week will be “brainstorming” sessions to begin working on a course of action to improve relations in Vicksburg. He said that he has received interest in the project from Dolphus Weary with Mission Mississippi and from the University of Mississippi.

“When you really get down to it, if you don’t have a oneness in the community and mutual respect you don’t have anything,” Walker said.

Walker was one of eight out of 15 local candidates invited to a blacks-only political forum that had been scheduled for Sunday. He has not said if he will attend the forum, rescheduled after the Catholic Church said church property could not be used for the forum. He did write a guest column for The Vicksburg Post saying that if he did participate, it would not mean he was not committed to all Vicksburg citizens.

Organizers of the forum have refused to reveal a new location or time for the event, but several other candidates, including Rawlings, have said they will not participate.

Although Walker provided few details of his plan for the commission, he said it would be a diversified group that would sponsor forums on race relations and help get churches and schools involved.

“Human beings are not little objects for you to abuse, mistreat and kick around,” Walker said. “We have got to learn to appreciate our fellow persons.”

In other races on primary ballots, North Ward Alderman Gertrude Young, 45, will face business owner Rodney E. Dillamar, 41, and retired educator Jo Pratt, 67. In the South Ward Democratic primary, Pam Johnson, 35, owner of a local hair salon, will face Carl Marshall Upton, 41, a self-employed electrician.

On the only Republican primary ballot, Sidney H. Beauman Jr., 53, director of the city’s parks and recreation department, and restaurant manager Sam Smith, 37, will face off in the South Ward Alderman’s race.

The only possible runoff is in the North Ward race. If none of the three on that ballot gets a majority, a runoff would be on May 15. The nominee advances to face Sylvester Walker, 40, in the general election.

Both South Ward primary winners will advance to the city’s general election and face independents Vickie Bailey, 33, assistant director of the city’s Department of Youth Services, and Ashlea Mosley, 18.