“No dark sarcasm in the classroom…” Pink Floyd
Last week’s Richmond County Board of Education meeting was a hive of activity with people watching to see who the board would choose for the system’s new superintendent.
It wasn’t just loose groups that were backing a certain candidate, although a large contingent came to show support for (then) candidate Malinda Cobb. The other candidate did not have a cheering section that I could identify.
No, some of the crowd were there to see the remnants of the old guard in Augusta politics rear back to life and give them hope that the “revolution of sanity” that began with the election of Garnett Johnson and continued with the election of Gino “Rock” Brantley was waning.
In the lobby, I saw a former commissioner who just happened to be there, too.
When he greeted me, he politely asked me what I was doing there, and I babbled something like, well, “They are picking a superintendent, and that doesn’t happen often.”
Since I am a reporter for a newspaper that covers local education and all, I was kinda expected to be there.
The big question was, why was this former commissioner there. He has no kids in the school system that I am aware of and hasn’t been in elected office since he was term-limited off the commission.
I didn’t ask because I knew perfectly well why he was there.
The politco in question is a member of the old guard that once dominated politics in the Black community and, for decades, he took full advantage of his position as one of Augusta’s chief power brokers. That is, until Johnson came along, preaching of a new day in Augusta, promising a future city not run on racial metrics but on the unified vision of a colorblind city.
Not many people knew it, but the superintendent selection of 2025 was about much more than who would sit behind the desk; it was an in-house referendum to see if the board, led by President Shawnda Stovall and Vice-President Ed Lowery, would follow the will of the folks who elected them and hire the most meritorious of candidates.
Would character, skills and experience win out? Or would a decades-old “Gentleman’s agreement” be followed that dictated that only a person of color be selected for the spot.
To be fair, the other finalist, Keith Simmons, likely did not know that his race was even a consideration.
You see, I am going to spill the tea, along with the drippings no one wants to see slopped over onto their saucer.
The riots of 1970 taught the White power structure a lesson, and that was that the Black community would no longer follow the dictates of the old Cracker Party, by that time becoming known as the “Southside Mafia,” where clandestine meetings, I am told, were held in a little cottage on the Sconyer’s BBQ property.
Emerging Black leaders were not going to play second fiddle any longer, and were rightfully demanding their share of seats at the table. What transpired from there is what I have dubbed the “Malaise Era” in Augusta politics.
In the old city of Augusta from 1975 or so and until the election of Ed McIntyre, no one foresaw a Black mayor on the horizon. So, the gentleman’s agreement was made that if the city had a White mayor, then the second most powerful position at the time, mayor pro tem, would automatically be Black.
It wasn’t long before Augusta did have a Black mayor, and that was a debacle that set race relations among voters back almost to the animosity levels of the Jim Crow era.
The gentleman’s agreement went even further and stipulated that if the city police chief were to be White, then the post of fire chief would go to a Black individual. At the time, the Augusta City Council had neutered the position of sheriff as basically the caretaker of the jail. The real top law enforcement officer was the Augusta police chief, a council hire.
Don’t get this confused with the current yammering about DEI. This was not DEI. It was a political entanglement with the intention of empowering a long marginalized group of people.
You know what they say about good intentions having unintended consequences.
When the shotgun wedding of 1996, or consolidation, occurred, the newly formed Augusta/Richmond County Commission was specifically designed to have five White Members and five Black Members.
It just so happened that longtime Richmond County School Superintendent John Strelec retired in the midst of the charter negotiations, and the position of superintendent somehow became a part of the “Gentlemen’s Agreement.” From there on, the position would only go to a Black person.
Does anyone remember the headlines from 2011 when the agreement was first broken and Joe Bowles elected mayor pro tem? The media at the time played up the fact Augusta had its first White mayor pro tem in 15 years.
The major downside for residents and voters was that Augusta governmental departments also got carved up into little fiefdoms. For the political elite at the time, as long as the media paid attention to race and the contrived “racial divide” in Augusta, then the ones in power could pull off every corrupt device they could conjure up.
Yep, pay to play was rampant all through city government. Getting the health inspector off your rear end only necessitated a phone call and a check. Got a zoning issue? A phone call and a small contribution would take care of that. Want to get in on a lucrative city contract?
You get the picture.
The attitude was, “I won’t tell on you and you don’t tell on me, and we’ll be a happy little family.”
It would be easier to list the people who didn’t play the game, that list could be ticked off using only the upper and lower digits.
As someone who has followed Augusta politics since the mid 1980s, I witnessed the change in the electorate as it boiled under the surface for many years and then finally sprang up like the oil on old Jed Clampett’s property with the 2022 election of Johnson.
The status quo thought this was an anomaly, and I never will forget the last press conference that former Sheriff Richard Roundtree held when he preened in front of the cameras and gamely tried to take credit for having his men in downtown Augusta on the ready and stopping a mass shooting on Broad Street. The truth was his underpaid deputies were actually off duty, moonlighting by working a “special,” something all Roundtree’s employees did.
Roundtree didn’t break a sweat and remained smug knowing that his old guard network was solidly behind him. They would never let some upstart from the Marshall’s Department overturn a regime that was more entrenched than the Sword in the Stone.
Then, somehow, Brantley did the seemingly impossible and confidently lifted Excalibur out of its base.
I believe that the “Malaise Era” in Augusta is over, and the fact that the Richmond County BOE tore up that last “Gentleman’s Agreement” and brought in a superintendent who has spent a career educating the children of Augusta without regard to skin color is living proof, in my opinion.
That, my friends, is progress.
Some things never change
In between setting the proposed millage rate and the superintendent vote, a discussion about school buses provided a face palm moment.
The board needs to add two school buses to the fleet. Both of the buses they are purchasing are diesel, and it came to light that the RCBOE has two electric buses in the fleet, neither of which are on the road.
The buses are in good repair, but yet they are sitting idle as the school bus routes begin for fall.
The reason the buses are not in service is because the city has not sent over the required permits to put the buses in operation.
As our old buddy John Clarke used to say, “Folks, you can’t make this stuff up!”
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter, editorialist and weekly columnist for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
