A fter spending 38 years as an educator, Shirley Washington had earned a good rest in retirement. But that was not how it happened. She saw an opportunity, a place where she thought she could contribute a bit more. That was eight years ago and since then she’s been Pine Bluff’s first African American female mayor.
On Saturday, at the goodbye gala she didn’t want to have, she was celebrated and honored by hundreds for her service to the city.
The story of how the gala came about is consistent with the self-effacing Washington, someone who is content to do what needs to be done but not toot her own horn in the process.
She told the crowd that someone mentioned that she should have a going-away something or another. No, she said. Me? I haven’t done anything to deserve that.
She bounced the idea off her kids, and they agreed with her. And yet the idea wouldn’t go away. In the end, the people wanting to show up to wish her well and thank her filled the Convention Center ballroom space. Of course it did. Even if one disagreed with her politics, she was impossible not to appreciate on a personal level.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
By all accounts, being mayor is a tough job. A city manager has to keep an elected board happy. The same for a school superintendent. But in a mayor-city council form of government like the one Pine Bluff has, that person has to keep thousands of people pleased. And doing that for more than a term or two is exceedingly hard, such is the fickleness of the voter.
The woman that beat her, Vivian Flowers — herself a bit of an unlikely candidate, coming as she did from the state legislature — thanked Washington via video.
“I just want to say thank you for breaking ground as the first African American woman to be elected and serve as mayor of our historic city,” Flowers said. “Thank you for working toward progress that I’m especially grateful for. …”
Saracen’s Carlton Saffa also sent in his appreciation, “blaming” Washington, who, with Jefferson County Judge Gerald Robinson, worked with the Quapaw Nation to bring the casino and what will become a hotel and events center to Pine Bluff.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything,” Saffa said. “Look at that. You did that. It’s your fault that Saracen Casino Resort is here. You were and are a jackpot for Pine Bluff.”
In her remarks, Washington defended her support for Go Forward Pine Bluff, saying the group’s efforts to move the city’s needle in a positive direction was needed, even if the group itself lost its own lustre over time – a turn of events that may have cost Washington at the polls.
William Fells, Washington’s protege at one time and now a soon-to-be council member, may have said it best:
“At the core of everything Mayor Washington does is a compassionate heart,” Fells said.
We think few would disagree with that sentiment.