PANAMA CITY — By the time the playful sounds of the band’s brassy version of Pharell”s “Happy” song hummed across the room, each person was loosely frolicking to the tune.
“When this becomes the norm,” Janice Lucas said, smiling, and then dropping her head between her down-beat, clapping hands.
The setting could not be much more apropos for the context of the point she had faintly made during an interview Thursday evening at the Bay County Library, which took place during a historic book signing and speaking engagement of a visiting author from Virginia.
The event drew people of all ages, faiths and races.
She said she wants Bay County to be a place where “people feel free to go anywhere, do anything — without reservation. Where people who are different are not shunned or made to feel unaccepted and inaccessible.”
Lucas, a Panama City native and director of the recently formed Leadership Empowerment and Authentic Development (LEAD) Coalition, believes existing pockets of de facto segregation have contributed to the recent rash of murders by gun violence, which took the lives of 10 men between the ages of 17 and 29 last year. Of the 10 victims, nine were African-American.
“We can’t ignore that as a factor,” Lucas said, regarding the racial proportion. However, “When I look at the development of a city or county … Bay County is young in comparison to a Jacksonville, a Philadelphia, a Chicago.
“So to correlate metropolitan development with the process of growth — then what we’re experiencing has to do with size and is not unlike what larger metropolises have gone through.”
After 24-year-old Tavish Greene was found dead in the trunk of a car on July 24 last year, law enforcement agencies, the school district and Gulf Coast State College united under the LEAD umbrella, appointing Lucas as its director.
The coalition, along with about 70 volunteers, canvassed neighborhoods for eight days last year, reaching about 1,000 homes with the simple message: “If you see something, say something. You are not alone.”
The effort resulted in a spike of CrimeStoppers calls.
The coalition is in the process of collecting information in the upcoming months and plans to release a strategic plan in April.
Meeting halfway: Lucas knows how to meet respective groups halfway.
As a child, she struggled to find her place socially with both white and black peers.
At one end of the social spectrum, she was singled out as the “black, white girl” by black peers. On the other end, racism was prevalent and she often was reminded of it as one of about five black students at her elementary school for years after desegregation.
“By sixth grade, I had to find out how to be accepted by all of the students,” she said. “So I learned how to cuss and dance to get along, to move between the groups of people.”
Lucas, a former Bay District Schools teacher, said middle school students are of the age that grapples with identity, choosing who they are and who they are not.
Therefore, diversity is key, she said, and one of the ways to dissolve some of the pockets in areas that are growing in drug abuse and gun violence.
Each person in Bay County has a responsibility to make it a comfortable, safe place to live, she noted.
“We’re all learners; each one teach one, make an effort to reach one,” she said, explaining how an individual can be part of making a safer community. “Be kind, smile, don’t forget to speak, extend a courtesy — and enjoy the presence of the people you’re in the company of.”
The power of people is important since an organization can’t do it all.
“We have so many good people, so many things to do and so many good resources,” Lucas said. “LEAD is evolving as a coalescing agent; any one entity working by itself can’t solve the problem; if they could have, they would have.
“I am comfortable moving in and out of communities — and I want everyone to feel that way,” she added.
Leading LEAD: Lucas had not applied to become the director of the coalition, but her heart had long been set on being an asset to the community.
“Director of LEAD — it’s nothing I’ve applied for, but something I’ve been preparing for all my life,” Lucas said.
Her skills set is not in law enforcement, however; her work history runs the gamut in communications and human relations: journalist, newspaper reporter, college professor, high school teacher, middle school teacher, literacy coach, volunteer and small business owner.
“Those experiences have given me the skills set and the connections to bring our community together,” Lucas said, noting, “By community, I mean Bay County.”
Get involved
- LEAD meets the second and fourth Fridays of the month at 8:30 a.m., at different locations. Contact Janet Lucas at 769-1551 ext. 5861 or 850lead@gmail.com for meeting locations and more information.