Georgetown Revitalizes Neighborhood Association
Landon Stokes, Georgetown Festival founder
Georgetown, one of Jackson’s oldest historically Black neighborhoods, is actively revitalizing its neighborhood association. The neighborhood held its first post-COVID meeting on April 15 and continues to meet on the third Monday of every month at the Jackson Medical Mall Community Room at 6 p.m.
According to Lee Bernard, vice-president of the current neighborhood association, Bolton native Perry W. Robinson, Sr. established the Georgetown Community Association around the late 1980s. During Mr. Robinson’s tenure, the organization hosted community events like National Night Out and public health workshops to address community needs. Despite its challenges, the association consistently fought to improve the quality of life for its residents and to gain support from local officials. The original association was successful in some of its attempts to diminish blight, improve infrastructure and maintain an active community association; however, Jackson’s overall crime and infrastructure issues far outweighed Georgetown, and the association eventually dissolved when Mr. Robinson passed away in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since his passing, the organization had not met until April of this year. The current group is working hard to strengthen a once active and thriving neighborhood association.
Lee Bernard and Norma Michael
Norma Michael, a 66-year Georgetown resident and Air Force veteran, was elected as president of the Georgetown Community Neighborhood Association in April 2024. She is also the founder of the Sharing is Caring Neighborhood Block Garden, which sits directly across from her Powers Avenue home. Michael sees a need for an established neighborhood association in Georgetown because other communities are hosting functions to improve their neighborhoods and the results are evident. “That has encouraged me to want to do things in Georgetown that represent the same things,” she said. “We as adults can be role models for children to see that we are proud of where we are from and try to instill some of that pride in them because all of this will be left to them one day.”
Vice-president Lee Bernard, a retired plant controller who has lived and worked around the nation, grew up in Georgetown in the 1950s and ’60s. He was familiar with Robinson from his childhood, who was then Deacon Robinson at New Hope Baptist Church. Bernard joined the community association under Robinson’s leadership in the 2000s and can recall a time when the community association was established financially and socially. “We use to have neighbors reporting community concerns and needs for improvement to us”, said Mr. Bernard. “Mr. Robinson would also receive donations from outside supporters. He was really good at fundraising.”
Michael and Bernard envision an all-inclusive Georgetown with cleaner streets, cameras at illegal dump sites, a renovated community center for gathering, well-maintained historic landmarks, check-ins with the elderly, and an overall unified community. “I want to see us all unified, regardless of age. We all represent Georgetown”, said Michael. “I see it as one community working together. That’s my vision.”
The next meeting will be held June 17, 2024, at 6 p.m., in the Jackson Medical Mall Community Room. Visit JAN’s Community Calendar to learn about upcoming neighborhood and community events.
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