The Voice of Ida B Wells

Voice of Freedom

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  • Minden’s Disappearing Voices

    Citizens of Minden, do you not see what has become of your city? Once, the utilities office was filled with men and women who knew us, who lived as we lived, who carried the same burdens we carry. They were the kind of people you might pass in the grocery store, or clasp hands with on Sunday morning at church. They worked until retirement because they cared, because service to the people meant something.

    But those days are gone. In their place we now find an Assistant City Clerk working double duty as the Utilities Office Manager and City Clerk, surrounded by staff who cannot carry out the simplest of duties—unable even to take a payment or perform a transfer with competence. And I ask you, how many of our people remain in that office, or anywhere in City Hall? Look closely, and you will find the numbers shrinking.

    When it came time to choose, the citizens were persuaded to place their trust not in one who shared their struggles, but in one handpicked to serve the mayor’s design. Was it not clear when the mayor himself launched a GoFundMe for this very Assistant City Clerk years ago? His intentions were declared then, and they are fulfilled now.

    Councilman Roy proclaimed he would make City Hall “great” again. Yet we must ask: great for whom? For the struggling citizens who wait in line for fair service, or for those intent on restoring City Hall to a place where only certain faces are welcome?

    This is not progress—it is regression, a deliberate turning back of the clock to a time when the voices of our people were silenced and their labor disregarded. Minden, I put the question to you: will you remain silent as your City Hall is remade in the image of exclusion, or will you demand a government that looks like the people it claims to serve?

    The answer will determine whether Minden’s future is built on justice—or on the rubble of its discarded voices

  • Minden’s struggle against the Old Ghost of Racism

    It is the year 2025, and yet the City of Minden remains shackled by the same chains of racial discrimination that should have long been broken. One might expect that with the passing of time, justice and equality would finally take root. Instead, we find ourselves confronted with the same bitter truth: discrimination is alive and well, carried forth by those sworn to protect us and by those elected to lead us.

    The police force still harbors officers who do not deal fairly with Black citizens. Their actions betray the very badge they wear, sowing distrust in a community already weary from decades of mistreatment. Meanwhile, within the walls of City Hall, a different battle is waged—a quiet but deliberate campaign by the mayor to strip the building of its diversity, to make it “white again.”

    Ironically, the open feud between the mayor and the chief of police may prove a moment of opportunity. When the powers that be are at odds with one another, the people sometimes gain space to demand the justice long denied them. Perhaps in their discord lies the city’s only chance for peace.

    But we must be clear: peace cannot be built on silence, nor on the erasure of those who have suffered under the weight of inequality. It must be forged in truth, accountability, and the unwavering demand that those in power answer to the people—all of the people.

    Until then, Minden remains a city haunted, where progress is promised but prejudice persists.