Bob Blackmon, President Emeritus

Bob Blackmon is a veteran of the Civil Rights movement, having played a major role in the desegregation of public schools in the Mississippi Delta town where he lived and worked professionally during the 1960s and ‘70s. He helped form a biracial coalition to address race relations in Leland, Mississippi. That group was largely responsible for the peaceful integration of the schools, which occurred during the 1970-71 academic year, some 16 years after the historic Supreme Court decision, Brown v Board of Education. The process included organizing town meetings, which were opposed by many citizens, including the superintendent of schools and several members of the school board. Blackmon also wrote dozens of letters to the editor advocating school desegregation. Many whites severely criticized the daily paper, the Delta  Democrat Times, for its advocacy for social justice and school integration. It was widely called a “Communist newspaper.” In a letter to the editor, Blackmon called the paper “a light in a sea of darkness,” causing anger among many local white people.

In addition, Blackmon was in the first class of a biracial commission, appointed by Leland’s mayor. During the years following school desegregation the commission, half Black, half white, continued to function to address inequities and foster a better relationship between the races.

Fast forward several decades: Now living in Troy, New York, Bob Blackmon is actively involved in race and social justice issues in Troy, especially with regard to police brutality, including the 2016 murder of an unarmed Black man. He is a co-founder of the Justice Center of Rensselaer County (JCRC), an activist organization created to address inequality issues, and specifically police reform. He has said that in some ways it’s similar to living the Mississippi experience all over again, almost 50 years later. It’s like the Civil Rights movement is just now arriving in Troy and Rensselaer County, stimulated by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the police murder of Edson Thevenin in Troy, and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Now in his 80s, Blackmon is still fighting the enemies of social injustice and will continue to do so as long as possible. He continues to write progressive letters to the editor. He was one of the organizers of a virtual symposium called “A Time of Reckoning: Confronting Systemic Racism, Seeking Justice, and Reimagining Society,” cosponsored by the New York Sate Writers Institute, the Justice Center of Rensselaer County, and the Albany Center for Law and Justice. Following the lead of the late Congressman John Lewis, Bob Blackmon’s goal is to make “good trouble,” by addressing injustice in all its manifestations, ultimately achieving the “Beloved Community,” as envisioned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Professionally, Blackmon enjoyed a 30⁺-year career, first as a research scientist for the federal government and later as an academic administrator, holding positions of department chair or dean at the University of Arkansas, the State University of New York, and Louisiana State University. His career also included spending several months at the Pakistan Forest Institute as a Visiting Scholar. Living and working in a Muslim country and coming to understand that culture was a life-changing and wonderful experience! Blackmon holds degrees from Louisiana Tech, Duke, and Louisiana State, where he received his Ph.D. in 1969.

Blackmon is also an accomplished painter (www.blackmonstudio.com) and is active in the arts community in eastern New York, Vermont, and in Ireland. Bob and his lovely wife, Mary Beth, spend as much time as possible in Ireland, their emotional home!