Background
A native of Minden, Cornelius is one of five children of the late Sidney and Lucille Cornelius. [1] He graduated from the former historically black Webster High School in Minden, since incorporated into the desegregated Minden High School. At one time, he resided in The Bronx borough of New York City, where some of his children still live, and in Shreveport, [2] where he was formerly employed as a technician by Benevolent Funeral Home. He owns Mr. Joe's Ice Cream truck delivery in Minden. [3]
Racial segregation in the United States is the separation of racial groups in aspects of daily life in the history of the United States. For most of United States history, segregation maintained the separation of African Americans from whites. The term also applies to the segregation of racial groups from one another, especially the segregation of people of color from whites.
Minden High School (MHS) is the public secondary educational institution in Minden, a small city of 13,000 and the seat of Webster Parish located twenty-eight miles east of Shreveport in northwestern Louisiana. MHS houses grades nine through twelve but originally handled grades one through eleven prior to the establishment of the twelfth grade. The school is under the supervision of the elected Webster Parish School Board.
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City, in the U.S. state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; northeast and east of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of Queens, across the East River. Since 1914, the borough has had the same boundaries as Bronx County, the third-most densely populated county in the United States.
Cornelius has long been involved in such community affairs as the annual Christmas and Martin Luther King Jr. parades, and Black History Month each February. He is a former president of the Minden High School Booster Club and chairman of the group Concerned Citizens of Minden, which raised funds to carry more than five hundred youth to area lakes for recreation. As a city council member, Cornelius worked for additional street lights, including the lighting of school zones; water and sewer projects, and local streets. He is a former deputy for the Webster Parish Sheriff's Office and a former member of the parish Office of Community Services. Cornelius is a past recipient of the Distinguished Service Award presented by the Minden branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1998, he received a humanitarian award from the Association of Black Social Workers for the North Louisiana Region. [3]
Christmas is an annual festival, commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, it is preceded by the season of Advent or the Nativity Fast and initiates the season of Christmastide, which historically in the West lasts twelve days and culminates on Twelfth Night; in some traditions, Christmastide includes an octave. Christmas Day is a public holiday in many of the world's nations, is celebrated religiously by a majority of Christians, as well as culturally by many non-Christians, and forms an integral part of the holiday season centered around it.
Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his assassination in 1968. Born in Atlanta, King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, tactics his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi helped inspire.
Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It has received official recognition from governments in the United States and Canada, and more recently has been observed unofficially in Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. It began as a way for remembering important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. It is celebrated in February in the United States and Canada, while in Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom it is observed in October
Cornelius is a steward and choir member at Mt. Zion CME Temple, an historically black Christian Methodist Episcopal congregation at 414 East Union Street in Minden. He is also a member of the Masonic lodge. Cornelius is married to the former Jacquelyn Williams. He has three living children, including Joe Cornelius Jr. A daughter died in 2013 during his mayoral campaign. [3]
The Christian Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church is a historically black denomination within the broader context of Methodism. It is also occasionally considered to be a mainline denomination. The group was organized on December 16, 1870 in Jackson, Tennessee, when several black ministers, with the full support of their white sponsors in the former Methodist Episcopal Church, South, met to form an organization that would allow them to establish and maintain their own polity. They ordained their own bishops and ministers without their being officially endorsed or appointed by the white-dominated body. They called this fellowship the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America, which it remained until their successors adopted the current name in the 1950s.
A Masonic lodge, often termed a private lodge or constituent lodge, is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also commonly used as a term for a building in which such a unit meets. Every new lodge must be warranted or chartered by a Grand Lodge, but is subject to its direction only in enforcing the published constitution of the jurisdiction. By exception the three surviving lodges that formed the world's first known grand lodge in London have the unique privilege to operate as time immemorial, i.e., without such warrant; only one other lodge operates without a warrant – the Grand Stewards' Lodge in London, although it is not also entitled to the "time immemorial" title. A Freemason is generally entitled to visit any Lodge in any jurisdiction in amity with his own. In some jurisdictions this privilege is restricted to Master Masons. He is first usually required to check, and certify, the regularity of the relationship of the Lodge – and be able to satisfy that Lodge of his regularity of membership. Freemasons gather together as a Lodge to work the three basic Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason.
Political life
A Democrat, Cornelius through his role as Mayor Pro Tem became mayor in June 2013, upon the death of long-term mayor Bill Robertson. After Robertson's death, the council voted three-to-two, along racial lines, to elevate Cornelius as the interim mayor. [4]
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.
Billy Henry Robertson, known as Bill Robertson, was the Former mayor of the small city of Minden, the parish seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana, United States. He was first elected on November 6, 1990 and served for as mayor from January 1, 1991 until his death. With 22.5 years in office, Robertson was the longest-serving Minden mayor; the second longest-serving mayor, John T. David, held the position from 1946 to 1955.
Before his death, Robertson, also a Democrat, had recommended that the city council choose as the next mayor Marvin Thomas "Tommy" Davis (like Cornelius born in September 1942), a Republican. [5] First elected in 2006, Davis was the only Republican on the current city council, which also consists of three black Democrats and a white Independent, Benny Lawson Gray (born 1946), a Minden businessman. [6] Davis, also a businessman, is a native of Stephens in Ouachita County in south Arkansas.
Marvin Thomas Davis, known as Tommy Davis, is the former mayor of Minden in Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. Davis was sworn into office on November 5, 2013, and elected to a full term on December 6, 2014.
The Republican Party, also referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major political parties in the United States; the other is its historic rival, the Democratic Party.
Stephens is a city in Ouachita County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 891 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Camden Micropolitan Statistical Area. Stephens was incorporated in 1889.
In the special election held on October 19, 2013, to fill the remainder of Robertson's term, Davis unseated Cornelius, 2,254 (61 percent) to 821 (22 percent). A third candidate, Walter "Woo" Morgan Jr., an African-American barber and hair stylist who operates a shop at the intersection of East Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Minden, polled the remaining 646 votes (17 percent). [7] Morgan had campaigned on a platform calling for the return of a movie theater to the city, the last of which closed during the 1970s, as sell as enhanced recreational opportunities though the city operates a recreational center off the Interstate 20 service road. [8]
On July 15, 2013, the council named Wayne Edwards as the interim District A member to succeed Cornelius. An African American, Edwards had been the runner-up to Cornelius in the 2010 primary election for city council. [9] Prior to Cornelius, the seat had been held by Rodney Dale Seamster, who died in office in April 2010. [10] Edwards then won the council seat in the special election over the African-American Republican candidate, Darrell Morris, 86 to 14 percent. [11]
Earlier from 1991 to 1995, Cornelius represented District B on the Minden City Council. He was initially elected, 59-41, percent in a runoff election held on November 6, 1990, over fellow Democrat Grace Kirk Richardson, who had held the seat on an interim basis after the death of her father, Joe Willie Kirk, the first African-American to have served on the city council. [12] [13] [14]
In 1992, Cornelius claimed that the city had long neglected District B in regard to drainage, street lights and repairs, police patrols, and the large number of dilapidated houses. In calling for mass repairs to houses in the district, Cornelus clashed with both Mayor Robertson and District E council member Tyrus Lamar "Ty" Pendergrass (born 1955), a Republican and later Independent. Robertson accused Cornelius of "playing politics" on the housing issue. [15] In 1994, Cornelius led the move on the city council to rename Maiden Lane as Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in honor of the civil rights figure. [16]
Cornelius was unseated in his District C council position after a single term in 1995 by another African American, Fayrine Antoinette Kennon, now Fayrine Kennon-Gilbert (born c. 1967), widow of Verdis Gilbert (died 2013) and proprietor of her family's Kennon and Son Mortuary in Minden. [3] Cornelius drew 195 votes; Kennon, 210. [17] In 1998, Cornelius lost, 70 to 30 percent, in a bid to unseat councilwoman Kennon-Gilbert in District B. [18]
In 2004, using the ballot nickname "Mister Joe", Cornelius failed again, 74 to 26 percent in yet another bid to unseat Kennon-Gilbert. [19] In 2013, still a member of the council—there are no term limits for Minden city offices—Kennon-Gilbert joined with her former election rival Cornelius and a third black council member, Magaline Murray Quarles (born 1937), to make Cornelius the interim mayor. [4] Quarles was defeated for reelection to the council in 2014.
In 2012, Cornelius was charged with driving while intoxicated, aggravated assault, and simple battery. When he pleaded guilty to DWI, the other charges were dropped. Cornelius said that he is looking to "the future of Minden. My doors are open to everyone. I hope to [make] some changes in Minden." [20] Cornelius was also charged in 2007 with DWI but considers those problems "in the past. ... Let's move this city ahead. I'm capable. I have a good staff here." [8]
The last interim mayor, Robert T. Tobin, a former educator, succeeded to the post in 1989 upon the recall of the Democrat Noel Byars. Tobin was then defeated in a special election later in the year by the Republican Paul A. Brown. [21]
Cornelius ran unsuccessfully for mayor again in the primary election held on November 4, 2014. He polled 1,089 votes (23.7 percent). His two opponents, incumbent Republican Tommy Davis and Charles Deck "Chad" Odom (born February 1975), a No-Party candidate, competed or a full four-year term as mayor in a runoff election held on December 6. [22] Davis won a narrow victory over Odom.
