The black Mayor of Camilla, Georgia in the United States, Rufus Davis, is having it rough.
Since his election two years ago, he has been battling institutionalised racism: whites and blacks can’t be buried together, white and black children can’t attend the same school, blacks are blocked from accessing city jobs, and no black man is in the city’s police force, all despite a 70 percent black-majority population.
According to CBS Atlanta, after his election in 2015, Mayor Davis fought to gain entrance to his office as the white-dominated City Council refused to voluntarily hand over the keys to the office.
He has also been battling the city’s manager, Bennett Adams, a white man, who is due to retire but has allocated a $40,000 pay raise to himself and also scheming to extend his employment with the city.
Mayor Davis has threatened to boycott all City Council meetings until all the barriers keeping the city apart are torn down.
In a Facebook statement he posted Saturday, he re-echoed his stance and appealed to residents to put pressure on their representatives on the City Council to end the segregation.
The statement read, “Please call your local elected officials and let them know that you want your voice heard: a) do not extend the contact of the current City Manager under any circumstances b) tear down the fence in our cemetery b) tear down the fence in our Police Department c) tear down the fence in our City Hall jobs c) tear down the fence in our segregated school systems d) tear down the fence in our voting districts. Tear down the severe fences of discrimination and segregation in Camilla.”
The city is the location of a 1868 Camilla Massacre where over a 100 blacks protesting segregation were shot by white men, leaving 30 dead and 40 injured.