With the ribbon cut on McComb’s Martin Luther King Center gym, McComb Mayor Quordiniah Lockley rejected criticism of the project on the basis that it will be a target of vandals and fall into disrepair.
To make his point, he pointed to the Martin Luther King Center itself, on which the city spent millions in 2005 to provide much-needed renovations that are standing the test of time.
“What I want to do is to put to rest opinions that if you build it in the Black community all they’re going to do is tear it up,” he said. “The only way you can eliminate opinions is with facts, and this building stands as a fact that, if you build it, you take care of it, the community does not tear it up.”
Lockley didn’t address any critics of the project by name, but he said he’s heard their concerns and considers them to be hyperbole.
“Any time you have a facility, a city-owned facility, if you don’t put money in it to keep it up, eventually it’s going to fall down, get to a point where you have to pour a large amount of money into it to bring it back up, as in the State Theater,” he said. “The State Theater belonged to the city, but the city has not kept up routinely with the State Theater, so now we’re having to put large sums of money to get it back up to a level.”
The city plans to use American Rescue Plan Act funds to repair the theater.
On a recent tour of the MLK center, Lockley went through the functions of each room and noted how they’re still in excellent condition.
The main auditorium holds weddings and community functions and has a sound system. A meeting room and play room are used frequently and have games such as air hockey and foosball.
Lockley said another room has been leased out for an after-school program and has children’s books and places draw and play games.
“Then you have one of the best commercial kitchens here in this facility,” he said, showing off the facility’s industrial grade and rarely used kitchen, with top-of-the-line appliances including a refrigerator, freezer, dishwasher, stove and deep fryer.
Another meeting room is used as a voting precinct.
The new gym was already a target of vandalism before it even opened. In August, the facility’s security cameras caught six juveniles breaking the glass out of a door and entering the building. Nothing else was damaged in the break-in, city officials said at the time.
Lockley said the center’s old gym closed years ago and sat in ruin before the city tore it down. He called it a victim of neglect, its funding cut off because it was in the Black community.
“The old gym worked perfectly until the city closed it down,” he said. “A lot of folks don’t know the city closed it. The city decided to close the old gym down, not that it was torn up or none of that. They closed it down.”
Lockley was a city selectman in the 1980s and ’90s when the old gym closed and used to help run the facility.
“No one knows that it was in excellent condition when the city closed it,” he said. “Very few people know that it was used for storage for our police department, where they put all their mattresses and old beds and cars and stuff like that in the gym.”
Lockley said during former Mayor Whitney Rawlings’ tenure as mayor, he met with the community about issues regarding the old Martin Luther King gym and the consensus was, if it was torn down, a new one should be built.
Lockley noted that the Martin Luther King Center now has a gym, baseball field, tennis court and splash pad — and everything is in excellent condition.
“Everything here is for all of the citizens of McComb,” he said. “It’s just in Ward 5. It’s not just for Ward 5, and I wish that our community would embrace this and use these facilities.
“I wish that we could get away from, ‘It’s not safe here.’ There’s not an incident, a wedding or anything that’s been held here where there have been any calls or people arrested — none.
“It’s just as safe here as for anybody who travels Veterans, anybody who travels Delaware Avenue, anybody who travels Presley.”
