Interesting situation they have over at the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education following the resignation of 81-year-old Geneva Brown.
Former local NAACP president Stephen Hairston is concerned about Brown’s successor. Hairston is worried not that the new board member will be the wrong color —-District 1 is a heavily African-American district —- but that he or she will not be liberal enough. In fact, rumor has it Brown’s replacement will be John Davenport Jr., a black Republican.
The WSFCS board will vote on Brown’s replacement, and although the board is officially nonpartisan, it’s controlled by Republicans. If the board has remained partisan, then the Forsyth County Democratic Party would get to choose the replacement.
If anyone’s upset with Brown’s successor, they at least should complain to those truly responsible:
Vic Johnson, the school board’s other District 1 representative, said that if people are upset, they need to contact state Reps. Larry Womble and Earline Parmon, Democrats who pushed for the change to nonpartisan school board elections in the state legislature.
He said that he wasn’t happy with the change and worried that the move would take clout away from black Democrats in the district if Brown left before her term expired. Now that has happened and it’s too late to do anything.
“If the board is a Republican board, we don’t stand a chance of getting a Democrat chosen,” he said.
How does the old saying go —– be careful what you wish for……….
