Jackson Free Press

Isaac Byrd, 54, is not the kind of guy who bases his self-assessments on the opinions of others. "One of the great downfalls of black America and Mississippi is that the black community, for historic reasons, has been externally driven by what other people think and do. It's important to be aware of things, but don't let others dictate what you are," Byrd says.

Byrd, born and raised deep in the Delta near Indianola, describes himself as a sheltered kid—at least in regard to racism: "I grew up in a community of about 50 small farmers. I grew up ferociously independent, raised by two tremendously devoted and loving parents. My mother made sure that I was not exposed to any racism. I had no conversations with white people until I got to Tougaloo. I grew up totally free and independent."

After Tougaloo, Byrd took off to Northwestern University in Chicago to get a law degree, but came back in 1978, determined to make some changes to the state.

"Mississippi is a mission for me," says the divorced father of two. "From day one, since law school, I've wanted to come back to Mississippi to help make Mississippi more responsive to the human condition."

Byrd foments ties with creative people all across the country, trying to bring innovation to the state. Aside from being a successful businessman, he is a staunch supporter of schools and an avid mentor, who believes that young black children have a host of vulnerabilities that other children don't suffer.

"If you tell a group of people for years and years that they're inferior … they begin to internalize that, so we have to fight two wars as African Americans. We have to face racism, which is real, and we must fight the internalization of that inferiority complex, which manifests itself in so many ways. Mississippi was the worst form of colonialism. In Mississippi, we got killed for being creative and thinking about growth, and I think we forget sometimes that 40 years ago we (blacks) couldn't think about growth and creativity. One of the greatest crimes of racism was that, for years, blacks had to get growth and creativity out of our systems just to survive. We're still recovering."

The attorney and owner of the 930 Blues Cafe, who says he dedicates about 25 percent of his caseload to volunteer efforts, says he will stay in Jackson for the long haul.

"I'm doing some work in Chicago and Indianola, but all the roads lead home. I've been here almost 30 years, and I plan to stay here and help keep the big-picture approach alive in Mississippi. I want to make sure that the state is welcome to new ideas and does not just see itself as being remnants of the Mississippi where people are told what to do and when to do it," Byrd says.

Previous Comments

ID

82520

Comment

If Isaac Byrd writes his autobiography, I'll be standing in line for a copy. What this man has done--what he's still doing, and will probably still be doing for a long, long time--is amazing, and to a good extent defines progressive Jackson as it exists right now. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-19T17:02:13-06:00

ID

82521

Comment

He was dis-barred for a time - don't know if he still is.. but was still practicing law regardless. It's nice to have that much power....

Author

Jo-D

Date

2006-10-24T21:33:37-06:00

ID

82522

Comment

Isaac is a member in good standing of the Mississippi Bar Association. Not sure what you're getting at here. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-25T01:14:23-06:00

ID

82523

Comment

Isaac Byrd was suspended from the practice of law for 5 months in 2002. Like many people, I heard rumors regarding his continuing practice of law during those 5 months. Even if true, I don't believe anything was ever done. Although the MS Bar filed another complaint regarding Isaac with the Mississippi Supreme Court on August 19, 2003, I don't know the subject of that complaint and it was resolved by January 2004. While I agree that Isaac Byrd has done a lot for the people of Mississippi, Jo-D was right about the suspension. Newt

Author

Newt

Date

2006-10-25T10:16:58-06:00

ID

82524

Comment

He was suspended not disbarred. And he has given younger lawyer very good advice about how to avoid the problems he had with IRS. He has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Tougaloo College. So has Ed Blackman and Dennis Sweet, Reuben Anderson, and more. Call the first three greedy or whatever you want to, but a little poor school off county line road will benefit from their successes. So, in this regard, I'm bias and wished they made even more. Many plaintiff lawyers who file tons of suits against corporations are unjustly vilified and castigated. I spent the first 5 years of my legal career as an in-house counsel/adjuster for State Farm. In this vein, I met many vice- presidents, managers, supervisors, and great insurance defense lawyers. All but the later kept lecturing me as to why I was supposed to hate plaintiff lawyers, but I couldn't develop any real hate for the outside snakes because the inside snakes around me always looked worse. Once I was ordered against my wishes to offer $75,000.00 to settle a claim worth 1, 250,000.00 I knew I had received all I could take and would soon leave. Luckily, the man who had lost his beautiful, smart and accomplished daughter told us to get the hell away from his house. I eventually settled that case for $750,000.00. Had he pushed only slightly I would have forked out $500,000.00 more. We didn't want a lawsuit but he didn't know it. I then took a job as a plaintiff personal injury lawyer in downtown Houston. It wasn't long before plaintiff lawyers were trying to get me to force money from insurance companies that wasn't owed or due. That year I settled 102 cases for that firm. Cases were coming in like the rain and I soon found out how that rain was made. There are good and bad lawyers on both sides of the bar. None are all good and none are all bad. In my view, Isaac is a good lawyer and human being. I used to work for him so maybe I'm a little bias.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-10-25T14:45:21-06:00

ID

82525

Comment

Sorry for the errors. I hope Mrs. Johnson and Dr. Townsend don't read and catch my errors. I was real busy. Yeah, that's a good one.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-10-25T16:35:56-06:00

ID

82526

Comment

Suspended, disbarred.. po-tay-toe, po-tahhh-toe... all that money, regarless of what college it was thrown at, probably kept the 2 words distinctly seperated... money = power, money = friends in high places.

Author

Jo-D

Date

2006-10-25T19:07:58-06:00

ID

82527

Comment

Jody, how the hell would you know? And why on Earth are you just making shit up about an outstanding human being and one of our community's best activists? He's even on the board of the Mississippi ACLU, for crying out loud. He's on our side on LGBT issues. What's with all these completely baseless smears? Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-25T19:26:23-06:00

ID

82528

Comment

And may I say that if the Mississippi Bar Association meant to disbar Isaac Byrd, it would have DISBARRED him--not suspended him. The two terms are by no means the same, and to go around saying they did the former when they really did the latter isn't just false; it's defamatory. Isaac Byrd is far from being the richest attorney in the Jackson/metro area, and everything I've ever heard has indicated to me that he's among the most honest. What you are doing here--to an ally, no less, not that it would have been upstanding moral behavior if you were doing it to your worst enemy--is disgusting and absolutely uncalled for. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-25T19:42:34-06:00

ID

82529

Comment

Tom: not necessarily. The bar is pretty weak on discipline. Get a copy of the Mississippi Lawyer every month and read the offenses and punishments. You might be surprised. Try to access on the bar's website a list of disciplined attorneys and you won't find it.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-10-25T21:12:33-06:00

ID

82530

Comment

Dammit. I'm sitting here at Cups in the Quarter, enjoying a nice iced coffee, listening to some Coltrane I burned for them on the cd player, getting some things done and a bunch of friggin NE jackson Junior league types, no less than 8, just showed up to have a damn birthday party up here. At 9:30 at night. Wish these broads would've gone to elixer or somewhere else. Instead now I have a party going on here. aarrrgggghhhhhhhh. so much for a nice quiet evening.

Author

Kingfish

Date

2006-10-25T21:23:58-06:00

ID

82531

Comment

I'm not getting reply notifications for some reason so sorry for the delay in the replies.. Tom, let me just say I served with Byrd on the Board of the ACLU of Mississippi for almost 3 years. I know alot more about this fine, upstanding man than you can imagine - and I'll leave it at that except to say I disagree with your assesment that he's "on our side on LGBT issues". Maybe he's changed his thoughts and opinions, but I know what I saw and heard with my own 2 eyes and 2 ears "from the horses mouth" so to speak, in my 3 years working "with" him.

Author

Jo-D

Date

2006-10-27T18:17:56-06:00

ID

82532

Comment

Understood, but it still hardly seems fair to suggest that somebody's been disbarred when they haven't been, to bring up the undocumented claim about where you believe his money might have gone, etc. If you had said, instead, that you served with him on the Mississippi ACLU board and did not feel that he was as progressive as he needed to be on LGBT rights, then that would have meant a lot more than all this shady stuff. As someone who has been subjected to many false rumors himself over the years, I'm very sensitive to the fact that the truth matters. Suspended for five months in 2002 due to a run-in with the IRS, yes. Disbarred, no. Donated considerable amounts of money to charity, yes. Paid off the state bar association, no. The truth matters. I have not sat down and spoken specifically with Isaac Byrd on the issue of LGBT rights. I have been told by people who are usually reliable that he is progressive on this issue. I know firsthand that he is extremely progressive on some other issues. I respect the man tremendously, and I feel that the Jacksonian comments field should not really be a forum for someone to air out their unsupported and in some cases demonstrably false gossip about the person-of-the-week. That doesn't seem fair. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-27T18:27:24-06:00

ID

82533

Comment

On a completely different topic: I just got your bulletin about Gawain Law, and I'm deeply sorry to hear that. He and I go back online at least 12 years--I called his BBS Mississippi Majik in the early 1990s, as well as its predecessor (which he co-SysOped with his partner at the time who billed himself as, I kid you not, Dewayne Law). Then I knew him on IRC #mississippi as gunga. I never met him in person or got to know him really well, but he always struck me as a good guy and I'm depressed that we lost him so young. His awesome web site is still up. I guess the obit will be in tomorrow's paper...? Peace, Tom

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-27T18:46:46-06:00

ID

82534

Comment

I didn't see your other post where you provided a link to the obit--here it is. Clearly he did some great things with his life that those of us who only knew him online were completely unaware of, which should come as no surprise. Small but affectionate props to the Greenwood Commonwealth for their decency in listing his partner as survivor. I know that with a Mississippi newspaper, that's not always a given. Peace, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-27T19:06:59-06:00

ID

82535

Comment

Wow... I didn't realise he'd passed. We're all getting old, and the past is becoming another country indeed.

Author

Ironghost

Date

2006-10-27T19:20:56-06:00

ID

82536

Comment

I'll miss him. He was a big supporter of Equality Mississippi and I've had plenty a party with him at Jack & Jills and the old Jaded. I feel that "ambassador" is a fitting title for him, indeed! A hometown hero always in my eyes. His gunga.net/gayms (now gaymississippi.org) web site at one time was the only online resource "we" had. And yes, kudos to the G'wood Commonwealth.. too bad some large papers - aka CL and SunHerald - in the state are scared to mention partners in much of anything. 4 years now and I'm still waiting on an answer as to whether or not either of them would accept commitment ceremony announcements alongside their wedding announcements.

Author

Jo-D

Date

2006-10-27T20:17:59-06:00

ID

82537

Comment

Jody, I wrote the Clarion-Ledger last week to try and get them to change a homophobic poll wording (referring to some imaginary Republican "homosexual scandal" rather than the Mark Foley child abuse scandal)...and not only did they not fix the poll wording, but they ignored my email completely. I am beginning to get the feeling that they're not only homophobic, but unapologetically, balls-out homophobic. I doubt they'll ever include same-sex couples unless and until Gannett sends down an order that they have to. Ditto with hiring an ombudsman, or putting women on the editorial board, or hiring a head honcho who hasn't completely turned tail and given up on the city we live in. And speaking as someone who was once a very nervous and macho het 14-year-old (though it's hard for me to believe now), I think Gawain was a fantastic ambassador for the LGBT community. He wasn't the very first out gay man I knew, but he was certainly among them, and it would probably be accurate to say that his kindness and decency made me more pro-LGBT, just as the kindness and decency of my friend Anand Thakur led me to ask some hard theological questions about the exclusivity of Christianity. The BBS community was a great transformative influence for many of us kids. Ironghost and I are probably the only folks here who knew that particular side of Gawain, but it was a beautiful side of him, and he was very much the same man when I ran into him as gunga on IRC years later. And that web page...yeah. Until the Unity Mississippi web site came around, that was it in terms of online LGBT-related directories for this state, and I referred to it often. He was a good guy. I never even met him, and I miss him already. Peace, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-10-28T01:08:31-06:00

ID

82538

Comment

I wasn't aware of the poll. Missed that one. Anytime you see something like that and want to add a little more ammo, shoot me an email and I'll be right there with you raising hell. ;]

Author

Jo-D

Date

2006-10-28T08:21:29-06:00