Jackson Free Press

"I'll have a glass of your finest Merlot," Leslie McLemore told the bartender at the University Club last week. "I don't know what it is, but I'll take it," he added with a laugh. McLemore paid for his glass of plum-colored wine and rejoined the crowd of about 40 people, including Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr., who were eating and mingling at his retirement reception.

McLemore, Jackson's City Council president who became interim mayor after the late Frank Melton's death, has retired from both politics and academia. He represented Ward 2 on the Jackson City Council for 10 years and has taught political science at Jackson State University since 1971.

The June 30 reception was also a fundraiser: Contributions of $250 per couple were requested for the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy, a civil-rights organization housed at JSU. McLemore estimated that they raised about $3,500 for the Institute with 100 people in attendance.

McLemore, the director of the Hamer Institute, told the Jackson Free Press that he is "retiring" so that he can work for the organization full-time.

Jackie Hampton, publisher of The Mississippi Link, acknowledged McLemore's not-quite-retirement in a prayer at the beginning of the reception: "We ask that you continue to bless (McLemore) and his family as he makes an attempt to retire Ŕ

Johnson, Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon and others took turns honoring McLemore at the podium, and they all seemed to agree that he isn't done working, yet.

"I don't see you sitting in a corner and watching the world go by," Johnson told McLemore. "You've always been a player. You've always been a participant."

McLemore's wife, Betty Mallett, said she'd asked her husband what he would do on his first day of retirement, and he responded that he would be going to a City Council meeting.

Mallett said she also has a "honey-do" list for her husband to complete, and she asked reception attendees to please not call their house for a while. "I need 30 days to get him in line." (The first of McLemore's household tasks will involve some wrought iron fencing around their house, she said.)

McLemore, 68, said his retirement will allow him to devote time to four or five projects he has lined up and that he wants to "try to develop a cadre of leadership" in Jackson's young people.

He said he would miss Barrett-Simon, but that she would be "in good hands" with the incoming City Council, which he thinks will be the best Jackson has ever had.

Attorney Chokwe Lumumba replaced McLemore on the Council.