Well, they say that three times is the charm, and I guess that I’m living proof
that if you put your hand to the plow and don’t look back that good things will eventually happen. Of course, I alone did not bring this electoral victory. First,
without any hesitation, I thank my God for always being with me. All of my faults
are mine alone. Any good that I have accomplished or will accomplish, He gets
all of the credit. Of course, God uses people to help us in life, and no people
have been more supportive of me than Billy Haynes and Beulah Mae Haynes, my loving and supportive parents. Growing up, we may not have had a lot of material things, but no family had more love. My mother could see a silver lining in the worst and most ominous-looking storm clouds, and my father,
even to this day, works several jobs, always teaching my siblings and me the honor of a hard day’s work. As children, we were neither indulged nor spoiled. We were
taught to appreciate the beneficial effects of discipline. The Hebrew writer
wisely stated: “For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves, and chastises
every son whom he receives….For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful
fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12. 6, 11; RSV).
What
our children and our school systems need more than anything else is discipline. Love
and discipline go hand-in-hand. You can’t have one without the other. If a father loves his son, then he trains him through discipline. If he doesn’t care how his son turns out, then he permits him to grow up like a wild weed rather
than spending the time and effort to discipline him through proper and diligent pruning.
I am afraid that our school system currently looks like a field of wild weeds, all entangled and growing every which
a way -- only good for the ash heap. We are doing our children a great disservice
by indulging them and coddling them. When we do this, the children hold us in
contempt. They want to be disciplined.
They know that this is the Natural Law and instinctively know that no great accomplishment was ever achieved without
discipline. It may not be pleasant at the time, and some students will initially
rebel. But, trust me, our students are craving love; they are craving discipline. We have been coddling them and, by doing so, have been communicating to them that
we expect them to misbehave – and that we are really afraid of them. They
do not like chaos. They like order. After
all, order is the first law of the universe.
In addition to discipline, I am concerned about the hopelessness and despair within the Clayton County
teaching ranks. We are losing far too many of our good, experienced teachers,
both black and white, to neighboring school systems. If our teachers are not
supported, this will have a negative impact on our children in the classroom. After
all, you cannot have good learning conditions until you first have good teaching conditions.
To add insult to injury, our current administration has a penchant for hiring administrators – assistant principals
all the way to associate superintendents – from far-flung states in the Union, but not from Clayton
County, Georgia. This has to change, and without going
into any details this afternoon, I can say, without any hesitation, that one other thing has to change….Dr. Pulliam,
the Kaplan Program must go.
To the voters of the 8th
District, I give you my humble thanks for the confidence you have placed in me. I
will do my very best not to disappoint you. I thank my brothers and my sisters
– as well as all of my extended family, many of whom are here today. I
thank Michael Robinson, who served as my campaign manager – and all of the other friends who have supported me so diligently
through the years.
Thank you very much.
