Pastor: ‘Be part of the solution’ in Pine Bluff this year

The keynote speaker at the annual Emancipation Proclamation Observance encouraged the small congregation inside his church to be part of the solution and not the problem.

“If you want to be part of the solution, you have to be willing to get in the fight,” the Rev. Darren Edgerson said. “You can’t know that Pine Bluff needs you, sit on the couch watching Facebook with your feet crossed, your air or heat blowing. You’re sitting back chilling because you are all right for yourself, when you know right down the street, a young man needs someone to tell them, ‘Son, pull your pants up,’ or there’s a young lady that needs you to tell them, ‘Young lady, that’s indoor clothes you’re wearing, not outdoors stuff. You need to wear that in the house and not outside.’ Brothers and sisters, we need somebody who’s willing to get in the fight.”

Edgerson spoke from his pulpit after belting an emotional rendition of “The Old Rugged Cross” inside St. Peter’s Rock Missionary Baptist Church on South Catalpa Street. His sermon was one of the highlights of the annual event hosted by the Pine Bluff chapter of the NAACP, which also uses it as a membership kick-off drive.

“It’s a time of reflection of what our culture has endured and things that we have to work on and improve on,” said Ivan Whitfield, the former Pine Bluff police chief who was sworn into his second two-year term as chapter president by 11th West Circuit, Sixth Division Judge Earnest Brown.

Whitfield wasted little time in his opening thoughts taking President-elect Donald Trump to task. Whitfield believes Trump will implement Project 2025, a “presidential transition project” by the Heritage Foundation which suggests changes to stronger conversative policies. Trump, however, distanced himself from Project 2025 during a September presidential debate (Trump said he would not read about it), and the Heritage Foundation claims it is not partisan or secret.

Whereas covid-19 drew many away from churches, “Trump is going to make us come back,” Whitfield expressed.

“When difficult times hit, when the tax rate goes up, when he tightens down on Social Security, when he cuts the welfare assistance to our communities, it has a tendency to bring us back home and not forget from whence we came,” Whitfield said.

The Observance commemorates the Emancipation Proclamation from President Abraham Lincoln that went into effect Jan. 1, 1863, freeing all enslaved African Americans during the Civil War. June 19 marks Juneteenth, a recent national holiday that commemorates the day in 1865 when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger informed the people of Galveston, Texas, of the order.

Whitfield’s older sister, Mary Huhnke, gave a dramatic reading of the order.

Growing up on a farm in Dumas in the 1980s, Edgerson recalled a time when he would ride with his father to Pine Bluff as a kid to help deliver processed pork from hogs his family raised.

“That’s the time I came up in when the community didn’t mind being a blessing to one another,” Edgerson said. “If you put names on (the wrapped pork) and send it to the neighbors … when you needed some milk and some flour and some sugar, anything, you can go right next door and they would give you what you needed to survive. But some of us don’t even know who our neighbors are. I wish I had a witness in here today.”

What Pine Bluff needs now is a little more love, Edgerson suggested. Although the pastor didn’t mention it, the city endured 18 homicides in 2024, a drop from 28 in 2023 while continuing to battle tough socioeconomic conditions.

With that love, he said, schools, government, homes and churches would be a lot better, Edgerson said.

“You have to learn to be a part of the solution,” he said. “… You’re a part of the problem if you live selfish lives, because the text says if you got money and goods, and you see your brother in need, and you just walk right by them and don’t help up your brothers and sisters, you are part of the problem. If you’re not willing to lay down your life, you are part of the problem.”