Charles Joynes
Brainerd High Principal Charles Joynes offered a stern wake-up call to a group of self-described “white guys” Thursday night when he spoke to the Chattanooga Tea Party.
“What if you had been born to a single mother in the Harriet Tubman projects?” he asked. “If it were not for the grace of God, that could be you.”
“Amen! Amen!” some yelled, as if they were in church.
Joynes told the group that, even though Schools Superintendent Rick Smith has chosen to move him from Brainerd, he is not going to stop fighting to turn around the lives of young black men and women in schools.
After his speech in the Century Club Banquet Hall on Harrison Pike, the whole room gave the inner-city principal a standing ovation, and some men put wads of cash in Joynes’ hands afterward. They told him to use it for the students at Brainerd, for the ones who didn’t have a cap and gown to graduate, for the ones who can’t afford the field trips or the sports equipment.