State Rep. Pamela Stevenson, a Louisville Democrat, brought a fiery message Saturday morning to Hopkinsville’s African American Heritage Breakfast at the James E. Bruce Convention Center.
“What are you going to stand for?” she asked the audience of 350 guests. “We cannot bury our heads and pretend like bad things are not happening.”
Citing legislation she opposes that is making its way through the Republican-dominated General Assembly, Stevenson said “evil wins” when the public doesn’t engage and fight for future generations.
“This month … we criminalized being homeless,” she said referring to the Safer Kentucky Act that enhances penalties for more than two dozen crimes. It would make street camping a crime and add unlawful camping to the existing Kentucky stand-your-ground law. Opponents say it would allow a property owner to use deadly force to remove someone sleeping on their property.
“We didn’t put any money in the bill to get them counseling, to get them a home, to get them whatever they need to get off the streets,” Stevenson said. “We just said you are going to go to jail, and if you get caught twice, it’s a felony.”
She also criticized legislation that would allow employers to hire minors to work longer and later shifts on school days.
“We have set our children up to be abused,” she said, describing the example of a 17-year-old son who would feel pressured to take on long hours to help his single mother with the family’s expenses.
Supporters of the legislation say students who are 16 and 17 are capable of handling more work and ought to be given a chance to prove it.
Stevenson said she understands that many Kentuckians are tired following the strain of the pandemic and then natural disasters that struck Kentucky with flooding and tornadoes in the past few years.
“We must engage,” she said. “Yes, I know you are tired. Yes, I know you’ve been through a lot.” But future generations will benefit from work done today, she said.
Stevenson is a U.S. Air Force veteran, an attorney and a preacher. She was the Democratic nominee for Kentucky attorney general in the November general election, losing to Republican Russell Coleman.
The campaign took her all over the state and gave her a sense of what Kentuckians want, she said.
“All of us want the same things,” she said. “We want our children to do better than us. We want our families to thrive. And we want the life that we are living to matter.
“You’ve got to be willing to stand for those things. Don’t be comfortable. You’ve got to be a leader in your circle,” she said.
Stevenson spoke of her grandmother, a woman named Lucy who was born around 1900. She had 15 children and lived a hard life but still had the ability to imagine a better world for future generations. She purchased a life insurance policy that benefited Stevenson when she was ready to start college.
“She dreamed of a world where things she couldn’t do would be possible,” she said.
This year marked the 28th African American Heritage Breakfast, which generates money the Modernettes use to award college scholarships. The club, whose president is Billie Todd, was founded 59 years ago by a group of Black career women in Hopkinsville.
Most of the guests wore clothing with bright, African-style patterns — and many of the women came with colorful hats and head scarves.
A Nashville group, Sisters with Voices, sang a cappella for the program’s entertainment. At the conclusion, Mayor James R. Knight Jr. presented Stevenson with a key to the city.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
