Asante Sana, Charles Tisdale. May the guardians of the Realm Of The Ancestors greet and salute you.

After posting, I got the following from Kalamu.

Charles Tisdale:
 Newspaper and Community Man
 

by C. Liegh McInnis

Owner, publisher, and editor of The Jackson Advocate, Charles Tisdale has made his transition to the other side. Besides being an excellent newspaper man, Tisdale’s thirty-year legacy is two-fold.  One, he used The Jackson Advocate to provide a voice to African Americans when they were poorly represented in the mainstream media. Two, he provided opportunity for most of the African American journalists in the Jackson Metro area to be published. Although my background is creative writing, my first publication was an article in The Jackson Advocate about the legislative changes in drug rehabilitation programs. Former Mississippi Link editor and journalist Nikki Burns and I used to discuss all the time that at one point most of the African American writers working at The Clarion Ledger got their starts under Tisdale.

Despite his desire to create a competitive paper, Tisdale remained steadfast to the notion that for The Jackson Advocate to be vital it must remain a community paper. For instance, no matter what many of us went on to do, he always treated us like we worked for The Advocate. Once, Tisdale and many of us were at some rally for some cause, and several of us were lingering after the event.  As I was leaving the event, Tisdale, barely acknowledging my presence, stated to me, “Have me an article about this by 5:00 p.m. tomorrow.”  To which my response was, “Yes, sir.” By the way, I missed the deadline, but Tisdale was able to get it in the paper somehow.  In fact, one of my goals as a writer was to rise to the level of Dr Jerry W. Ward and Dr. Ivory Paul Phillips who always have a column reserved in The Advocate.  To me, that is what it meant to be a real writer—to be so accomplished that you can always publish somewhere. Yet without Tisdale, Afro-Mississippi writers would not have this goal because Tisdale made sure that the paper survived bombings,attacks from other media outlets, and a lack of advertising and subscriptions. With pocket change and a prayer, Tisdale kept The Jackson Advocate alive so that the voice of the Afro-Mississippian would remain alive in all of its forms.

A complex man, Tisdale was not afraid of controversy. He called it like he saw it even if he was the only person who saw it that way. In his many editorials, Tisdale not only challenged whites whom he felt were hurting the black community, he had no problem challenging and chastising blacks, especially black elected officials whom he often placed in the Brown Society [Tisdale using his newspaper to expose Blacks to public ridicule]. Once when my father was placed in the Brown Society because he and Tisdale disagreed on a decision that my father made as Executive Director of the Hinds County Democratic Party, my father replied, “Well, at least he told me that I was going to be in the Brown Society over lunch.” For the entire time my father was in the Brown Society, Tisdale continued to publish various articles by me as well as have lunch from time to time with my father.  At his core, Tisdale was about the discourse, the discussion, the verbal/written debate.  He was an idea man who understood the importance of African Americans being able to voice their ideas, be exposed to other ideas, and make sovereign decisions about the types of ideas that governed and framed their lives.  We will miss his fire, his dedication, and his leadership for he made so many of our dreams into reality while making sure that we were represented equally and fairly.

C. Liegh McInnis is an author of seven books and a former publisher/editor of Black Magnolias Literary Journal. He can be contacted at Psychedelic Literature, 203 Lynn Lane, Clinton, MS  39056, (601) 925-1281, psychedeliclit@bellsouth.net.