Vote Kim Wade for Jackson, MS Mayor

      I was born in Decatur, Illinois, in 1956. I am the last of 11 children of Willie and Carolyn Wade. My upbringing was that my parents never talked or complained about racism in my presence. However, I am sure because of the era they did experience, they never came home downcast and discouraged from dealing with it.
      Never were we told what our limitations were, and there was never an emphasis on obstacles, only opportunities. The message we received at the dinner table was a conservative message of personal responsibility and accountability.
      I was the first in the family to go to College. I was blessed to be a part of the generation that the "dollars fell on" regarding the boundless opportunities available to my graduating class at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. Professor Brisbane would point to Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson. Dr. Brisbane encouraged us to conduct ourselves like Maynard. Whenever Maynard stepped before the press, his positions were firmly grounded in either facts or the law. The professors admonished us that we would never get knocked off center if we followed Maynard's example.
      The week of graduation, Min. Farrakhan spoke at our baccalaureate. He told us there was no unemployment problem in the black community. However, there was an attitude problem in the black community. The attitude that you must receive top dollar before you work for or serve anyone. Minister Farrakhan said, "There may not be any work for you, but there is still plenty of work to do"!
That call to duty and responsibility resonated with me.
      I joined the Nation of Islam that following weekend in May of 1979. An often repeated phrase or message in the Nation of Islam was, "do for self."! The Message "preached in the Nation of Islam was not unlike the message I received at my dinner table back home, and it was consistent with the message that personal accountability and responsibility taught and stressed at Morehouse College. I spent my years in the Nation of Islam dining at, in hindsight, a banquet table of hate. I also spent years trying to prove Jesus was not the "Christ!" Islam had appealed to the passions of my youth. But I found as you get older and the storms of life get to beating on the door of your life your door. You'll be
looking for grace and mercy when that happens as a balm for a sin-sick soul. I found those virtues absent in Islam as I came to find out.
      I renounced Islam and rededicated my life to Christ. I also returned home to conservatism. During President Reagan's presidency, an editorial in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about Reagan caught my attention. It noted that President Reagan didn't stop someone from going to College, nor did he stop someone from becoming crackhead or having babies. He merely tried to open the doors of opportunity and proclaimed, "Let those who will come." I saw that many black people would not partake because they wanted to hear Reagan say here's the "black door," or The female door   President Reagan would not do it. That principled stand moved me to learn more about Ronald Reagan after studying Reagan. I changed into a Paul Revere for conservatism. I remember half-jokingly telling my daughters I'd instead for them to return home from college crackheads than a liberal Democrat! So convinced was I of the superiority of the conservative viewpoint in the governance of affairs of men and women in society.
      I started calling talk radio shows. I eventually got invited to sit in as a co-host with popular talk show host Matt Friedman. Subsequently, I started badgering Charles Evers, station manager at WMPR 90.1 FM (100k watts) in Jackson, Mississippi, about the need for a conservative radio show. Mr. Evers eventually relented, provided I could pay the $150.00 per show. I was on the air for seven years and spent over $28,000 to spout the very same views you hear me champion today. I eventually got picked up by WJNT News Talk at 1180 am (50k watts) station in Jackson. I spent nine years at WJNT before attending a 2-hour show on WYAB 103.9 FM in January 2011, where I remain. My audience is about 60/40 white/black split.
      In the end, though, after 33 years of broadcasting, my worldview that was shaped, and the guard rails of my life were formed by what I learned at the dinner table from people who made great sacrifices themselves shaped my worldview and gave me the moral guardrails to conduct myself as an adult. That's why I can speak with the unwavering certainty that comes across in my delivery because I know my parents had my best interest at heart in everything they told me. They did not want me to dwell on the injustices of the past or ignore them. But they preferred that I take the ball and run with it as far as possible. To their wish for me, I remain a living headstone to all their dreams and aspirations for me and all their children. "Let's turn some caps around!"
- Kim Wade

VoteKimWade.com

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