MASON, Tenn. ā The Tennessee Comptroller issued an unusual appeal last week to residents of this small, majority Black town, which occupies fewer than two square miles in rural west Tennessee.
āIn my opinion, itās time for Mason to relinquish its charter,ā Comptroller Jason Mumpower wrote in a letter mailed to each one of Masonās 1,337 property owners.
Mumpower urged local residents to āencourage your local officials to do whatās necessary to allow Mason to thrive. There is no time to waste.ā
State comptrollers, responsible for financial oversight of local government, typically communicate directly with elected local leaders and not their constituents. āWe have not issued a letter to citizens like this before,ā Comptroller spokesman John Dunn said, noting it is āunprecedented for us to publicly call for a town charter to be relinquished.ā
But the Comptrollerās unprecedented public callout comes at an unprecedented time not only for Mason, but for the state. Mason, located in the southeastern corner of Tipton County, now finds itself with some of the most coveted real estate in Tennessee.
Itās one of the nearest towns to the massive new site to be built for Blue Oval City, a key component in Ford Motor Coās multibillion-dollar pivot to electric vehicle manufacturing.
Mumpowerās letter has infuriated Masonās part-time elected officials, who insist they have no intention of ceding their townās 153-year-old charter ā which would subsume the largely African-American, majority Democratic community under the governance of Tipton County, which is predominantly white and Republican.
āThis is our home. We were born and raised here. The majority of the town is homegrown people that live here,ā Vice Mayor Virginia Rivers said. āHe is trying to conquer and divide us. Itās akin to a hostile take-over and itās not hard to figure out why here, why now.ā
Town leaders are accusing Mumpower and other state officials of big-footing a long-ignored, largely Black community now that major investment is heading its way.
Mason is 60% Black and includes descendants of men, women and children enslaved in the area before Emancipation. For more than a century the town was led by White elected officials.
That changed in 2016, when fraud and mismanagement allegations led to the resignations of nearly all City Hall officials, all of whom were White. Masonās current mayor, vice mayor and five of its six alderman are Black.
āItās because of the Black people that are in office,ā said Rivers, who first became Vice Mayor in 2021.
āAnd itās because of all the places in the world, Blue Oval could have selected, they selected here. Thereās no way Mason wonāt prosper and grow. And now they want to take it away from us.ā
The Comptrollerās office:
Yet again like in the past. New day, new Jim Crow-esque tactics, perfectly timed takeovers.Ā This Black American town needs to be promptly saved without handing a damn thing over. The town elected mostly Black officials back in 2015.Ā Theyāve been trying to pay off the debt from when the town was previously ran by mostly white officials. Literally playing catch-up.Ā
This aināt nothing but a glimpse of what it looks like before eventually uprooting and displacing Black people off the land they have resided on since forever and where their ancestors labored said land as property in chattel slavery and the move into Jim Crow. Ā
Thereās a change.org petition to sign and share to get the word out there.
This person suggestedĀ to put Ford in the hot seat byĀ sending a letter like this. Others are suggested to call their office.Ā
This is the CEO of Fordās twitter.
This shit should be on the news. But as usual, they make it known after the deed is done or not at all and you end up finding out years later.Ā
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