The First District includes the broken heart of Savannah, GA., Midtown, and has long been used as a political football by those whose view of low income, inner city residents can charitably be called unkind at best- like its counterparts nationally and worldwide.

We're the dim statistics used to drive any number of draconian measures whose net result is loosening our already tenuous grip on civil liberties.

Totalitarianism doesn't have a certain complexion and one of the bitter ironies of the post-Floyd Adams era (our first Black mayor and master consensus builder) is how hostile some Black elected officials can be toward civil liberties.

My folks were school teachers and long before Mid Town became "Tha Hood" it was an enclave of excellence where Jim Crowed professionals and homeowners lived with dignity and interacted within an ethnic economy we can only dream of today.

My grandmother, Mrs. Gloria Evelyn DeVeaux was Beach Junior High's 1961 Teacher of the year and my late mother, Mrs. Eryldelle DeVeaux Jones, was one of this area's first Black Speech Pathologists and Audiologists.

My late grandfather, Mr. Earl Winthrop DeVeaux was a math and science teacher (invited among a handful to do work at the early Savannah River nuclear site) and the embodiment of what a fully functioning Black man should be.

Together, this "three parent" household invested in me beyond my capacity to thank and because so few in the present First District have had such advantages, I became an activist.

Since the First District is a political football, I contend it's high time we elected a quarterback to lead this embattled team somewhere other than the bleak end zone of bigger jails and social programs currently in vogue.

While I often say this in jest, it's always meant with deadly seriousness, "Negroes (you know who you are) need businesses and jobs- not incarceration and probation!!"

We need a new quarterback for the First District, one who realizes his "owners" and "coaches" are the same low income folks reeling from the double whammy of James Crow Esquire (21st Century Jim Crow) & Crack, and growing numbers of open-minded newcomers trying to fit into this chaotic environment.

I grew up in the First District; I live in the First District; I love the First District... and I'm not a bad quarterback either.

www.myspace.com/nadrasw1 has my platform on its Profile section for those who'd like to take a peek.

WARNING: I'm not the anti-White demagogue some have painted me to be nor am I part of the Black Herd Mentality some of my brethren prefer we adopt instead of independent thought.

I believe in private solutions to public problems for many reasons, chiefly because the first successful public/ private partnership my folks encountered was the plantation, then Jim Crow, etc., so if too much government wasn't good for us then, it still isn't now.

We have a chance to create a new First District, but only if we have a quarterback who includes ALL residents- old and new, committed to finally mending Savannah's broken heart, instead of business as usual.

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Nadra Enzi is a candidate for First District Alderman.

Nadra Enzi PO BOX 11042 Savannah, GA. 31412 (912) 412-3806 and electnadra@yahoo.com